© Canada Free PressThe Bad Guy
As the world order evolves, there should be an opportunity for countries to build new relationships. But as long as Western powers follow the tired US narrative that 'Russia equals bad,' there will be no significant change.
International law is largely a reflection of power.
Great powers accept international law that limits their foreign policy flexibility if they get reciprocity and predictability in return. In an international system with several great powers balancing each other,
international law will lean towards sovereignty and peace by constraints on the use of force.As the US emerged as the sole superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the foreign policy flexibility-versus-reciprocity equation was altered. Without any powers that could restrain the US and the West,
international law began to change by introducing concepts that advocated sovereign inequality and removing the constraints on the use of force.The good intention of a liberal international order was that
it must be a more just one to be orderly, as
an excessively orderly international system cannot be just. However, the commonality of humanitarian interventionism, democracy promotion, the global war on terror and other new foreign-policy endeavours is that
the West could claim absolute sovereignty, while concurrently claiming the prerogative to intervene in other states.
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