[tim333]

The "rules based international order" isn't perfect but better than what went before it. The percentage of the population killed in warfare has gone from like 15% in the ancient world, 2 or 3% in Napoleon/Hitler times and maybe 0.1% in the modern world (numbers approx).

[engels_gibs]

Is not that "it isnt perfect". It never existed. The Hague was created to persecute backwater third world shithole warlords or at best the enemies of NATO. Not to persecute Bush, Obama or Netanyahu.

You can thank the reduction in warfare killing to the existence of the Soviet Union, which united much of the western imperialist powers (Europe, America and its vessel states like Japan, Australia or South Korea) against the first real menace against capitalism in history. That's pretty much the reason why inter-european warfare stopped after WWII. They function as an imperialist block with the same interests. It has little to do with the supposed existence of "rules" or an imaginary "order".

[tim333]

Personally I put quite a lot in the long term reduction in killing down to tech improving with things like the printing press, the internet and such like.

[throw-the-towel]

Citation very much needed. If anything, I'm afraid that the internet will eventually spark wars, with all the polarisation it encourages.