Rule of Law Within, Power Without
Enforcement, Power, and the Myth of the Rules-Based Order
When people speak about the “rules-based international order,” they often invoke the phrase as if it described something comparable to the rule of law within a state. The comparison is appealing. In a functioning legal system, rules constrain behavior, courts resolve disputes, and enforcement mechanisms ensure that judgments are not merely symbolic. The law works because violations carry consequences.
But that structure depends on one critical condition: the existence of a sovereign authority capable of enforcing the rules.
Inside states, that authority exists. Governments possess what the sociologist Max Weber described as a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Courts can issue rulings because police ultimately stand behind them. When laws are repeatedly violated, enforcement follows.
The international system operates under very different conditions.
There is no global sovereign, no international police force, and no court capable of compelling compliance from unwilling states. Institutions such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization can articulate rules and facilitate cooperation, but they cannot enforce their decisions against powerful actors. In practice, the stability of the international system depends less on law than on the willingness of states to enforce it.
Since the end of the Second World War, that role has largely been performed by the United States. American military reach, alliance networks, and economic influence have provided much of the enforcement capacity that international institutions themselves lack.
This creates a conceptual tension in contemporary debates about war and international order. Critics frequently argue that American military actions—such as the current war involving Iran—undermine the rules-based international system. Yet that criticism implicitly assumes the existence of a system whose rules can be violated independently of the power that sustains them.
In reality, two possibilities exist. Either a rules-based international order exists and requires enforcement, or it does not. If it does not, then global politics ultimately resembles a balance of power in which the language of rules carries limited meaning. If it does exist, then the role of the state that enforces those rules cannot be separated from the system itself.
Understanding this distinction clarifies the current conflict with Iran. What appears to some observers as a breakdown of the rules-based order may instead represent the moment when its enforcement finally arrives.
Laws without enforcement are not really laws. They are aspirations.
Why Law Works Inside States
Inside a state, the rule of law functions because it rests on enforceable authority. Governments create laws through legislatures, interpret them through courts, and enforce them through executive institutions. The state’s monopoly on legitimate violence gives these institutions their authority.
If a citizen refuses to comply with a court order, the consequences are clear. Property may be seized. Penalties may be imposed. Individuals may ultimately be detained. The legal system does not rely on voluntary compliance alone.
The rule of law works because someone ultimately shows up to enforce it.
The existence of this enforcement capacity distinguishes law from mere norms or moral expectations. Citizens may dispute the interpretation of laws, but they do not typically dispute whether the state possesses the authority to enforce them.
International politics lacks precisely this element.
The World Has Rules but No Sovereign
In the international system, states remain formally sovereign and equal. No authority exists above them capable of compelling compliance in the way a domestic government compels obedience from citizens.
International institutions attempt to provide rules and dispute-resolution mechanisms. Organizations such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization create frameworks for cooperation and establish norms that guide state behavior.
But these institutions lack independent enforcement power.
When states violate international rules, institutions can issue condemnations, facilitate negotiations, or authorize sanctions. Yet they cannot compel compliance from powerful actors that choose to resist them.
The limits of this system become visible whenever a major power decides to ignore institutional rules. When Russia invaded Ukraine, international institutions could condemn the action but could not force Russia to withdraw. The structure of the system itself prevents such enforcement.
In international politics, rules exist—but the sheriff does not.
If rules exist but cannot enforce themselves, someone else must supply the enforcement.
The State That Enforces the System
If the international system has rules but no sheriff, someone eventually has to play the role.
Since the end of the Second World War, that role has largely been performed by the United States.
American military reach, alliance networks, and economic influence have provided much of the enforcement capacity that international institutions themselves lack. Global maritime security, sanctions regimes, and deterrence structures that underpin many regional alliances depend heavily on American power.
Importantly, the United States has never been legally obligated to perform this role. No international treaty compels it to secure global trade routes, guarantee regional security arrangements, or stabilize international financial systems.
It has done so largely because doing so has served American interests.
A stable international system benefits a globally integrated economy. Alliances multiply geopolitical influence. Institutions created under American leadership often reflect norms favorable to the United States and its partners.
The rules-based order therefore functions as a hybrid structure: institutions provide legitimacy and coordination, while American power supplies the enforcement capacity necessary to sustain them.
This dynamic becomes particularly visible when states openly challenge the system.
When States Challenge the Order
International institutions assume that participating states will broadly operate within the norms they establish. Yet not all states share the same strategic goals or political commitments.
Countries such as China, Russia, and Iran participate in international institutions while often contesting the rules those institutions were designed to uphold.
Disputes arise over trade practices, territorial claims, and the use of force. Because international institutions lack coercive authority, they cannot enforce their rules when powerful actors resist them.
At that point, the burden of enforcement shifts back to the states capable of providing it.
The confrontation with Iran illustrates this dynamic clearly.
Iran and the Enforcement Problem
The confrontation involving Iran reflects the structural tensions at the heart of the international system. To understand the current war, it is necessary to step back from the immediate exchange of missiles and consider the longer trajectory of the conflict.
Relations between Iran, the United States, and Israel changed dramatically after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The revolution replaced a monarchy that had maintained close ties with Israel and the West with an Islamic republic that defined itself partly through opposition to both.
Over the following decades this hostility rarely took the form of direct interstate war. Instead it unfolded through a network of indirect confrontations across the Middle East. Iran supported regional actors such as Hezbollah, which emerged in Lebanon with Iranian backing and became one of Israel’s primary military adversaries.
The result has been a decades-long pattern of proxy conflict, sanctions regimes, covert operations, and regional confrontation.
When violations persist for decades, the question eventually becomes whether the rules mean anything at all.
Seen in this context, the present war appears less like the sudden breakdown of a stable legal order and more like the latest escalation in a long-running geopolitical struggle.
If the rules-based international order is understood as a system that must ultimately be enforced, then the current conflict can be interpreted as the moment when enforcement arrives.
The Conceptual Choice
The debate surrounding the war with Iran therefore reveals a deeper conceptual tension.
Critics of American power must ultimately choose: either the rules-based order exists and requires enforcement, or it does not exist at all.
If it exists, then it must have an enforcer. Since the end of the Second World War that role has largely been played by the United States, and enforcement actions cannot be separated from the maintenance of the order itself.
If it does not exist, then global politics ultimately resembles a balance of power, and accusations that states have violated a rules-based order lose much of their conceptual foundation.
Either way, the argument becomes far less straightforward than critics often suggest.
Conclusion
The phrase “rules-based international order” is frequently used as if it described a global legal system comparable to the rule of law within a state. But the two operate under fundamentally different conditions.
Inside states, law works because it is backed by a sovereign authority capable of enforcing it. Outside states, no such authority exists. International institutions create norms and facilitate cooperation, but they cannot compel compliance from unwilling powers.
Since the end of the Second World War, the stability of the international system has depended heavily on the role of the United States in providing the enforcement capacity that global institutions lack.
Criticism of American policy may well be justified when framed in terms of strategy, cost, or long-term national interest. But framing the debate purely as a violation of a functioning global legal order misunderstands the structure of international politics.
The real question is not whether someone knocked on the door.
It is whether the system ever intended to knock at all.