The tyranny of the rules-based international order

August 28, 2025

This article is a good summary of what could be a sane and balanced approach to China that does not pay homage to the absurd propaganda put out continuously by the US deep state that China is some existential threat to the “democratic” world.

But to sensibly deal with China, we need to dispense with our fatuous dedication to a “rules-based international order” that appears to only exist in the minds of that US deep state and to those who have, as Gareth says, drunk the Kool-Aid of that deep state.

If we are referring to international law as established under the UN, then let us say that. But we are so often not referring to international law, but to a scrambled dogs breakfast of rules made up almost daily by the US and applied to others but never to itself. Those rules are generally not written down and change on the whim of the US and on the need to attack other countries for particular acts they might have committed that the US doesn’t like. I guess international law is pretty inconvenient if it restricts the freedom to do what you want if you are the world hegemon.