The post-Cold War liberal rule-based international order is now increasingly acknowledged to be either dead or in a coma. Some Trump Administration officials claim that a calculated plan to destroy the old order lies behind the administration’s seemingly chaotic approach to foreign affairs. Naturally, the question arises as to what has led to the liberal order’s death or near-death experience at such a young age, well before making it to 40. One would have expected a somewhat longer life from an international order that was supposed to come after the “End of History”. A variety of explanations for this early demise have been offered,  blaming, for example, the coming to power of Trump, as well as the rise of China, the 2008 global financial crisis and the “forever wars”. However, the problem with the liberal order was that its’ own design was fatally flawed from the start.  It was liberal by flowery pronouncement and occasional policy, but not in its own structure.

Liberal thought is quite diverse. Much of it has also been traditionally quite sceptical of democracy despite its frequent modern association with it. However, the various liberal perspectives all share some key aspects in regard to what is needed for stable liberal political orders at any level to endure. Firstly, the rule of law must bind both the rulers and the ruled. Secondly, significant external constraints on the leader (or leaders’) ability to act, such as, for example, the separation of powers, or the limitation on the leaders’ ability to enact many types of policies without gaining the support of some other political actors independent of them in some manner.

When the liberal rule-based international order emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the world failed to design an international system in line with liberal principles on these most crucial aspects. The U.S. became an uncontested global hegemon with no other power able to contest or balance it. The U.S. has had, in the Post-Cold War era, more freedom of action abroad than almost any great power has ever had in human history. French foreign minister Herbert Vedrine’s reference to the U.S. in........

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