The Power of Trust Ingo Venzke on the World Order

While the Russian attack on Ukraine marks a turning point in international relations, it is not the main reason for the need to reconsider this order and the principles that should guide it in the future. Those reasons lie beyond the war; they are deeper and wider. They include the decline of power in the West in relation to the East, both materially and ideationally. The rise of China is much more important in that regard than the position of Russia. Shifts in relative power have led to a change in the kind of international order, from a hegemonic to a multipolar constellation. Past rivalries of the Cold War are then instructive, as well as the institutional developments that ensured coexistence and facilitated cooperation. Still, the times are different, now marked by the concentration of private power and marred by the crises of social and climate justice. Those are the conditions and the opportunities to which principles for the future international order must respond.