Titanic, or the Unsinkable Order: Origins, Expansion, and Betrayal of the Liberal World Order (1945–2000)

Abstract

In this chapter, I examine the key elements at the origins of the Liberal World Order, its expansion, and gradual multifactorial betrayal, covering the period 1945–2000. At its roots was the understanding that the domestic and international realms, as political and economic affairs, are highly interdependent. The architects of the LWO were urged by a twofold preoccupation: (1) Rebuilding an open and strongly institutionalized international system in which liberal and market democracies could be safe and prosperous; (2) Strengthening the political and socioeconomic systems of the democratic states, the pillars of the new international order. If during the brief season of the ‘unipolar moment’ (1990–late 2000s) of the international system, the United States enjoyed a tremendous gap in political, military, and economic terms in comparison to any possible rival, facing no other power willing to challenge its global leadership, the general awareness shared by the first creators of the liberal world order gradually waned, as the difficulties and periods of crisis in the economic cycle were confronted with obliviousness of the real purpose of the game: the awareness regarding the instrumental nature of market economy, which can only exist within a society and thus cannot afford to disengage from its destiny.