When idealists and realists describe the achievement of the post-WWII international order, they are usually talking about different things. For those operating from the idealist conceptual framework, there is much to lament about the current state of global affairs. But for realists, 80 years since America’s in the Second World War, there’s reason for a bit of celebration and even optimism – something realists are not often known for.
From the Wilsonian (idealist) school of thought, the “rules-based order” is all but gone. After two world wars and the introduction of atomic warfare, nations were supposed to peacefully cooperate through internationally-recognized rules and norms developed and held together by consensus. The United Nations was supposed to succeed where the League of Nations had failed as the neutral arbiter among nations. The organization, founded in 1945, boasts that “it remains the one place on Earth where all the world’s nations can gather, discuss common problems, and find shared solutions that benefit all of humanity.” Alas, the UN has not quite figured out how to get authoritarian countries who reject Western values to abide by the rules.
Besides Russia’s ongoing machinations to subjugate Eastern Europe, the Kremlin is also engaged in terrorism in European countries supporting Ukraine’s defense, such as the UK, Germany, the Baltics, and the Netherlands. Russia is still using chemical weapons, the only class of weapons banned after World War 2. It violated the Open Skies and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which prompted President Donald Trump to withdraw the United States from both during his first term. Moscow remains in noncompliance with its obligations under the New START Treaty, the last bilateral nuclear arms treaty the United States has with Russia.
The Chinese Communist Party helps North Korea and Russia evade sanctions by supporting their illicit activities and engages in forced technology transfer (theft), constant cyber-attacks against other nations, both private and government entities. The CCP, led by Xi Jinping, has no intention of supporting, let alone abiding by, the “rules” of the international system set by Western nations; rather, it seeks to supplant this order with one that benefits the CCP at the expense of free societies.
Commercial sea lanes, which international law requires be open and peaceful, are anything but. China and Russia cut undersea cables across geographies. China and Russia violate the exclusive economic zones of other nations, for former in the South China Sea and the latter in the Baltic and Artic. Russia has even violated the national air spaces of multiple nations just in the last two months. America’s adversaries have weaponized outer space as well — a global common area that the rules-based order insists should remain peaceful and for all nations to share responsibly. International organizations like the World Health Organizations that are meant to prevent global disease and mitigate health risks have been transparently co-opted by the Chinese government.
For Wilsonian idealists, who believed all international conflict could ultimately be ended or minimized through such high-minded institutions, there is little to celebrate in 2025.
But for realists, there is much to be pleased with and plenty to motivate American policymakers to restore our hard-earned successes of the post-WWII order our predecessors built.
First, it’s important to assess expectations and what that “order” does and doesn’t entail from a realist perspective. Realists, including Christian Realists, do not believe in an “end of history,” or at least not this side of Heaven. There has never been a peaceful international order motivated purely by the selflessness and altruism of a community of nations. There is no global consensus toward surrendering national sovereignty to a transnational governing body. Realists understand that sovereign nations will always act in accordance with their perceived interests and nations have disparate values, cultures, and willingness to take on degrees of risk.
Even so, for the Realist, the post-WWII international system has brought about enormous blessings, to Americans specifically and humanity in general. But the good it has brought, though remarkable, is far more modest than the idealist’s grand visions. The international system we know today developed only through the United States’ combination of moral authority and military/economic preponderance following WWII.
Before WWII, there were 17 democracies while today and there are 88. This was achieved primarily by the United States unapologetically pushing other nations to embrace democracy as the system of government most in accordance with human dignity as created in the image dei: the image of God.
There has been peace and enormously prosperous trade relative to all of the years that proceeded with it. And the number of human casualties in war is dramatically fewer than all of recorded history. That lack of war and relative peace has been described as the Pax Americana—the American Peace.
That American Peace has been possible through our allies in NATO, Asia, and Israel in the Middle East. American grand strategy has relied on these alliances so that the United States to project power abroad, share and receive intelligence, and combine efforts to thwart shared adversaries. Importantly, the United States also sought to discourage nuclear proliferation by encouraging nations to eschew their own nuclear weapons in exchange for US nuclear guarantees.
Today, there is much work to be done 80 years after the end of the Second World War to defend, restore, and strengthen the Pax Americana. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are collaborating to displace the US-led international order in favor of a multipolar world of tyrannical rogue states run amok. Our enemies understand that this is only possible by weakening the system of alliances that gives the US so much leverage over global events.
President Trump’s successful NATO Summit this summer, which heralded significant ally investments in American weapons, was an encouraging sign that the alliance can still be effective. The recklessly permissive migration practices in Europe must end and the defense industrial bases of European nations must receive real and sustained investments. Likewise, the United States will continue to shore up Ukraine’s defense through the provision of American weapons in an effort to induce Russia to end the war and conclude that expanding it would not be worth the cost.
The United States’ support for Israel’s defensive war against Iran and its proxies also portends well for a restoration of American-backed effective “rule” enforcement. Iran has been threatening genocide against America’s ally for decades. By backing Israel against Iran, including striking its nuclear program, the United States is also backstopping the global stigma against the sin of antisemitism that led to the horrors of the Holocaust. The strike also upheld nuclear nonproliferation norms, which could have a deterrent effect on other countries considering acquiring nuclear weapons.
80 years after the end of WWII, the world remains a violent place in need of American global leadership. Not only has the principle of national sovereignty defined by geographic borders not disappeared, it has been forcefully reaffirmed by the United States. The United States is reassessing which international organizations no longer serve their original purpose and are either defunding or adapting them (the WHO and USAID.) The threats from China and Russia to the American-led postwar order will endure. But with moral clarity, and a determination to outmaneuver its enemies, the United States can defend, restore, and strengthen the Pax.