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I'm not going to get involved in a slanging match, but I refer you to one of the sentences in the "Definitions" part of the "Liberal International Order" given

I'm not going to get involved in a slanging match, but I refer you to one of the sentences in the "Definitions" part of the "Liberal International Order" given by you as a reference to the 'rules-based order': They note that the LIO is not synonymous with a "rule-based international order", ... Hence my original comment still stands. Whose rules? Where are they written? Where can I (or anybody else) get to read these rules? Or are they made up on the fly, according to the whims of the moment or the wave of a hand? Laws are made for a reason. They are put down in black and white for a reason. There is a very old saying: "If there are no Rules of the Game, then people will make up their own rules." But there are Rules of the Game, it's called the UN Charter as laid down in the 1940s. The trouble is that some people think that they can comply with the UN Charter only when it suits their own purposes. And do their own thing whenever the UN Charter interferes with their desires.

rntn 5y ago
Not sure what a 'slanging match' might entail, but thank you for the reply all the same. Laws are indeed "there for a reason".. Of course, "there" refers to the nation in which they are promulgated.. The UN charter is a bit lacking in the force of law department, as has been demonstrated all too often.. Until we grow up beyond the tiresome, mindless flag waving of all the parochial nationalisms, we are going to have to sort out just how "people will make up their own rules." as you said.. To me, this is precisely the most interesting - and most important - part of human organization at scale, which, not coincidentally, is also the only way we will be able to address climate change (assuming of course that we are not addressing nuclear winter first) .. Now, I don't want to be a bore, so I will conclude here and await your response, if you feel inclined to continue in the vein of your threads as I referenced previously or in the more abstract future orientation as I am introducing here.. Thanks again for the reply.
- simonblack 5y ago
  The UN charter is a bit lacking in the force of law department, as has been demonstrated all too often.. That's unfortunately been all very true. But the only written international laws are those specified "there" in the UN Charter. There are also the Nuremberg Tribunal precedents. That's where the 'there' is, not in the countries who can make up any law they care to pass. Note that all countries have ratified the UN Charter, but still prefer to breach it shamelessly whenever it suits them. But the 'rules-based order' is merely propaganda if if can't be examined closely according to what is written and World situations measured against what is plainly set forth. Because nothing is plainly set forth, countries can make up their own rules and do, whenever they want to, hence the 'rules-based order' which means anything they want it to. As in this quote from literature: “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.” ― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass By not having the 'rules-based order' down in black and white, the West has maintained being the 'master' and in control by pure military power. Unfortunately, that time has gone. If the West wanted to retain control, they should have initiated a War against China back around 2020. But it's too late now. In their hubris, that moment has slipped out of the West's grasp. And the West should have bent over backwards to incorporate Russia into the West, rather than push it forcefully into the Chinese bloc. I am not optimistic about the future. I see the long-coming 'Really Big One' occurring in the next 12 months. It will affect us all.
  - rntn 5y ago
    Yes, I agree with you about the outlook, though I am not sure of what the time line might be.. The ideal situation would of course be that the UN Charter was on the same footing as national law in all member states, though, that is clearly not the case and there is no prospect for it to ever be so.. Worse, the current situation in the Security Council is untenable and is already moving the mandate of international relations to organisations like NATO and the EU.. The West has collectively been so focused on capitalizing on their self assigned 'peace dividends' after the fall of the USSR that they actually believed that business partnership would change the CCP - and they forgot that the KGB was still very much an existential threat.. I'm not sure there ever was any chance of the UN transcending the problems of its predecessor, rather, I think it is not too early even now to look back on it as a modernized League of Nations that served a useful purpose to the sides of the Cold War and then just carried on under the ageis of the the US and its dozen aircraft carriers, so long as it didn't get in the way of our war aims, and so long as it wasn't really needed for something important like stopping the next world war (a task which it clearly can never be used for, any more than it would have been able to do anything to coordinate the business challenges of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.. ). The current problem came about because the West has come too late to the realization that the EU (and even NATO) will not survive Putin's undermining at their borders.. The looming problem is that they do not yet seem to realize that East Asia as it stands with Western aligned Japan, South Korea, etc., will not survive a similar act by China against Taiwan, or even just a Cuban missile crisis style 'quarantine'.. And, of course, each one of these potential flash points for WWIII takes time and resources to (we hope) defuse, as the window for reducing our petrochemical usage closes.. I appreciate the Lewis Caroll quote, as it is very apt; my interest, such as I can have any effect at all, is in understanding how such words are used in international information systems that make up the infrastructure of those organizations, and to shed some light wherever I am able.. Collectively, the UN and its constellation of NGOs, the EU, ASEAN and the large nascent trade organizations like RCEP and CPTPP are, semantically speaking, some of the most complex structures ever created ; here again, it would be great if all the rules in these organizations were collectively spelled out in 'black and white' as it were, but even internally, that is not the case - to say nothing of the fast emerging ad hoc relationships between these organizations.. Understanding how all these organizations and their power structure works would be great, but that is almost insurmontable complexity studded with jealousy guarded secrets.. In them, just as with other complex systems, there is a need for finding patterns that are not necessarily in 'black and white'.. Journalism has a large role in the matter, but, I think semantic analysis does too - especially for discerning patterns in the the vast oceans of open communications within and between those systems.. Hopefully, they can can be brought beyond their 20th century origins to legitimately serve some role in the imperatives of preventing conflict and coordinating our collective response to climate change to get out of all the messes we have made.. Thank you again for taking the time to think about this topic. I very much appreciate the opportunity to discuss it here.

rntn 5y ago

Not sure what a 'slanging match' might entail, but thank you for the reply all the same. Laws are indeed "there for a reason".. Of course, "there" refers to the nation in which they are promulgated.. The UN charter is a bit lacking in the force of law department, as has been demonstrated all too often.. Until we grow up beyond the tiresome, mindless flag waving of all the parochial nationalisms, we are going to have to sort out just how "people will make up their own rules." as you said.. To me, this is precisely the most interesting - and most important - part of human organization at scale, which, not coincidentally, is also the only way we will be able to address climate change (assuming of course that we are not addressing nuclear winter first) .. Now, I don't want to be a bore, so I will conclude here and await your response, if you feel inclined to continue in the vein of your threads as I referenced previously or in the more abstract future orientation as I am introducing here.. Thanks again for the reply.

simonblack 5y ago
The UN charter is a bit lacking in the force of law department, as has been demonstrated all too often.. That's unfortunately been all very true. But the only written international laws are those specified "there" in the UN Charter. There are also the Nuremberg Tribunal precedents. That's where the 'there' is, not in the countries who can make up any law they care to pass. Note that all countries have ratified the UN Charter, but still prefer to breach it shamelessly whenever it suits them. But the 'rules-based order' is merely propaganda if if can't be examined closely according to what is written and World situations measured against what is plainly set forth. Because nothing is plainly set forth, countries can make up their own rules and do, whenever they want to, hence the 'rules-based order' which means anything they want it to. As in this quote from literature: “When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.” ― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass By not having the 'rules-based order' down in black and white, the West has maintained being the 'master' and in control by pure military power. Unfortunately, that time has gone. If the West wanted to retain control, they should have initiated a War against China back around 2020. But it's too late now. In their hubris, that moment has slipped out of the West's grasp. And the West should have bent over backwards to incorporate Russia into the West, rather than push it forcefully into the Chinese bloc. I am not optimistic about the future. I see the long-coming 'Really Big One' occurring in the next 12 months. It will affect us all.
- rntn 5y ago
  Yes, I agree with you about the outlook, though I am not sure of what the time line might be.. The ideal situation would of course be that the UN Charter was on the same footing as national law in all member states, though, that is clearly not the case and there is no prospect for it to ever be so.. Worse, the current situation in the Security Council is untenable and is already moving the mandate of international relations to organisations like NATO and the EU.. The West has collectively been so focused on capitalizing on their self assigned 'peace dividends' after the fall of the USSR that they actually believed that business partnership would change the CCP - and they forgot that the KGB was still very much an existential threat.. I'm not sure there ever was any chance of the UN transcending the problems of its predecessor, rather, I think it is not too early even now to look back on it as a modernized League of Nations that served a useful purpose to the sides of the Cold War and then just carried on under the ageis of the the US and its dozen aircraft carriers, so long as it didn't get in the way of our war aims, and so long as it wasn't really needed for something important like stopping the next world war (a task which it clearly can never be used for, any more than it would have been able to do anything to coordinate the business challenges of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.. ). The current problem came about because the West has come too late to the realization that the EU (and even NATO) will not survive Putin's undermining at their borders.. The looming problem is that they do not yet seem to realize that East Asia as it stands with Western aligned Japan, South Korea, etc., will not survive a similar act by China against Taiwan, or even just a Cuban missile crisis style 'quarantine'.. And, of course, each one of these potential flash points for WWIII takes time and resources to (we hope) defuse, as the window for reducing our petrochemical usage closes.. I appreciate the Lewis Caroll quote, as it is very apt; my interest, such as I can have any effect at all, is in understanding how such words are used in international information systems that make up the infrastructure of those organizations, and to shed some light wherever I am able.. Collectively, the UN and its constellation of NGOs, the EU, ASEAN and the large nascent trade organizations like RCEP and CPTPP are, semantically speaking, some of the most complex structures ever created ; here again, it would be great if all the rules in these organizations were collectively spelled out in 'black and white' as it were, but even internally, that is not the case - to say nothing of the fast emerging ad hoc relationships between these organizations.. Understanding how all these organizations and their power structure works would be great, but that is almost insurmontable complexity studded with jealousy guarded secrets.. In them, just as with other complex systems, there is a need for finding patterns that are not necessarily in 'black and white'.. Journalism has a large role in the matter, but, I think semantic analysis does too - especially for discerning patterns in the the vast oceans of open communications within and between those systems.. Hopefully, they can can be brought beyond their 20th century origins to legitimately serve some role in the imperatives of preventing conflict and coordinating our collective response to climate change to get out of all the messes we have made.. Thank you again for taking the time to think about this topic. I very much appreciate the opportunity to discuss it here.