It seems today that a sense of crisis permeates international affairs. From war to pollution to trade and beyond, there is much talk of the disintegration of the settled ways of doing things and fear of what comes next. The twenty-first century has turned sour for many believers in international order. This is not unique in history; order has been on the minds of writers for centuries, from Kant to Carr to Hedley Bull. It is hard to find a period in history when there has not been some sense of crisis. The problem of international order is both a perennial theme and an urgent contemporary concern. The essays in this collection broaden the conversation to consider the ambiguity, complexity, and contradiction within the concept of world order. Order is neither self-evident nor universally agreed upon; to the contrary, it is contested, political, and contingent. Order is a very disorderly idea.

This essay argues that the possibility of governing the development and deployment of solar radiation modification (SRM) technology is predicated on the assumption of a liberal international order informed by an understanding of state responsibility. However, this order is experiencing a period of disruption that has placed stress on extant and emerging global governance regimes and brought the assumption of their efficacy and viability into doubt. In addition, international order and existing global governance of technologies with planetary implications, such as nuclear weapons, have become the increasing focus of criticism because of the inequities embedded within these institutions, calling into question how much of a roadmap the existing governance architecture can or should provide. Leading developers and proponents of SRM have advocated for cooperative, transparent, science-led governance, which parallels the language of early nuclear governance advocates, but there is a long history of displacement and disruption of indigenous and otherwise marginalized populations without meaningful consultation to accommodate technological developments driven by powerful, industrialized countries. Developing an ethical framework for the governance of SRM will be challenging under the current conditions of increasing tensions and confrontations between major powers that may have non–climate-related interests in developing and controlling SRM technology. This essay will reflect on whether the current international order, stable or unstable, is capable of producing ethical governance of SRM.

Long viewed as an example of effective multilateralism, UN peace operations are facing mounting challenges. Transformations in the landscape of conflict are outpacing their ability to respond. Rising expectations of peacekeeping have led to disenchantment with what they can deliver, while dis- and misinformation tactics undermine the efforts of the UN to make and build peace. As UN peace operations risk becoming another casualty of intensifying international tensions, great power rivalry, and the erosion of the rules and norms that govern international cooperation, we consider the future of UN peace operations. In the debate between a “pragmatic” and an “adaptive” approach to peacekeeping, we argue that a fundamental question is the ability of both alternatives to address three recurring issues that have shaped the effectiveness and legitimacy of peace operations: the mismatch between ambitious mandates and limited resources; the gap between the protection of civilians objective and its implementation in practice; and growing difficulties in honoring the principles of impartiality. We argue that policymakers and researchers should not lose sight of the fact that peacekeeping's legitimacy depends on its adherence to some version of host-state consent and some kind of restriction on when and how force is used. The expectation of civilian populations that the UN stands for protection also means that the UN must continue to safeguard some key norms associated with peacekeeping.

Now in its third year, the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine remains at the very top of the international security agenda. This conflict has largely refocused the West's attention away from the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency campaigns that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In February 2022, German chancellor Olaf Scholz went so far as to declare that the invasion signaled a zeitenwende, or “dawn of a new era.”1 Russia's aggression and the threat of having to fight a peer or near-peer competitor raises difficult questions, many of which are ethical in nature. The essays gathered in this roundtable seek to provide answers to some of those questions. They are the result of a workshop I organized for the King's College London Centre for Military Ethics in October 2023. One of my ambitions for this workshop was to put leading academics working on the ethics of war into discussion with military practitioners, making sure to include Ukrainian voices. I was very fortunate to succeed in these objectives, and I am convinced that the published essays have benefited enormously from our conversations.

Since commencing its illegal invasion in 2022, the Russian military and authorities have committed numerous war crimes against the people of Ukraine. These include the mutilation and execution of combatants; the torture, kidnapping, forced expulsion, rape, and massacre of civilians; and indiscriminate attacks on densely populated areas. In this essay, I evaluate the strategic implications of this misconduct, focusing exclusively on Western responses. I argue that war crimes can and often do negatively impact the strategic goals of the perpetrator, but whether and how this occurs is rarely governed exclusively by the offending action. Western perceptions of battlefield atrocity, shaped as they are by identity, race, and politics, may radically shift from one context to another. In the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, the status of both the participants and the conflict itself has helped inculcate a particular sensitivity among Western actors to the battlefield criminality of Russia. Drawing on evidence from the 2022 Bucha massacre and the ongoing bombing of Ukrainian civilians, I argue that Russian misconduct has consolidated Western support for the Ukrainian military effort, politically, diplomatically, and materially.

As part of the “Solar Geoengineering: Ethics, Governance, and International Politics” roundtable, this essay examines dilemmas arising in exploring nonideal scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment. Model-based knowledge about solar geoengineering tells us little about possible climatic responses to malicious, self-interested, or competing deployments, and even less about political or cultural responses outside of the climate system. The essay argues that policy for governing solar geoengineering in a world of multiple states and uneven power relations requires a broader base for solar geoengineering knowledge, beyond that offered by modeling, and a better understanding of nonideal scenarios, especially those motivated by logics beyond reducing climate impacts. It highlights the interests of military and security actors in such knowledge, and the potential for it to facilitate securitization and further reduce the prospect of multilateral collaborative governance of geoengineering in the public interest. The essay concludes that further research can be ethically justified but must be comprehensively governed.

One of the problems with the problem of world order is that what makes for order within societies is often precisely what makes for disorderly relations between them. I argue in this short essay that many of the problems with the problem of world order arise from assumptions that are widely shared within a discipline where the language of power and interest dominates and where a view of states as “like units” permeates. With more emphasis on values and visions of the good life, and acceptance that the ontological foundation of IR is difference rather than sameness, the debates about the problem of world order would take on a different form. The essay adapts the work of Hedley Bull and introduces the concept of “resilience-governance” to distinguish between resilience as a practice of self-governance taking place within ordering domains and resilience as a practice of “diversity-governance” taking place between ordering domains. The combination of the two allows for a bifocal view into how practices of resilience as self-governance may produce order within individual domains but will at the same time increase diversity and difference between the ordering domains, hence making the practices of resilience as diversity-governance much more challenging.

United Nations peacekeeping is experiencing a generational shift as several large missions downsize and close. Amid this change, this essay considers the future of the Protection of Civilians (PoC) mandate, which has been a priority of UN peacekeeping since it was first authorized twenty-five years ago. It argues that PoC has evolved significantly, expanding from a narrow focus on physical protection from immediate threats to a holistic approach that includes establishing a protective environment. It suggests that while the PoC mandate has proven effective in reducing violence, the future is fraught with four significant challenges: waning state commitment to UN peacekeeping, the fragmentation of global peace and security mechanisms, shifting local perceptions in a rapidly changing information landscape, and mounting disillusionment among UN personnel. This essay contends that these obstacles underscore the inherently political nature of PoC, where power dynamics and perceptions profoundly impact mission success. As peacekeeping missions scale back, PoC remains essential but increasingly precarious, demanding strategic adaptability and sustained commitment. Ultimately, the essay argues that without renewed political and institutional dedication, PoC’s effectiveness—and the UN’s credibility—will be difficult to uphold in the face of evolving conflict dynamics and geopolitical shifts.

In this essay, I use Martin Luther King Jr.'s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to open questions about international order and disorder. The idea of order is central to modern discourse on international politics, but the concept is often ill defined and ambiguous. King's ideas clarify three issues: First, is order understood as an objective condition of a system or a political judgment about its suitability for social life? Second, does compliance with law lead naturally to order? And third, is order always preferable to disorder? The way King answers each question is somewhat different than the conventional wisdom in international relations. IR scholars typically assume that international order is a universal good and that compliance with law enhances it. King highlights the gap between order as defined by the authorities in Alabama and his own lived experience. I use the difference to map the terrain of scholarship on international order and disorder and to draw implications for concepts, research methods, and political judgment.

One of the most pronounced features of the war in Ukraine has been the heavy reliance of the Russian forces on convict-soldiers, most notably by the private military and security company (PMSC) the Wagner Group. In this essay, I explore the ethical problems with using convict-soldiers and assess how using them compares to other military arrangements, such as conscription or an all-volunteer force. Overall, I argue that the central issue with using prisoners to fight wars is their perceived expendability. To do this, I present three arguments. First, although many prisoners have been under major duress, using convict-soldiers may be somewhat preferable to using conscripts in this regard. Second, convict-soldiers are more likely to be subject to human rights abuses than other types of soldiers and this should be seen as the main problem with their use. Third, convict-soldiers’ liability to lethal force for fighting in an unjust war does not render it permissible to treat them as expendable.

Recent years have seen increasing calls by a few scientists, largely from the Global North, to explore “solar geoengineering,” a set of speculative technologies that would reflect parts of incoming sunlight back into space and, if deployed at planetary scale, have an average cooling effect. Numerous concerns about the development of such speculative technologies include the many ecological risks and uncertainties as well as unresolved questions of global governance and global justice. This essay starts with the premise that solar geoengineering at planetary scale is unlikely to be governable in a globally inclusive and just manner. Thus, the ethically sound approach is to pursue governance that leads to the nonuse of planetary solar geoengineering. Yet is such a prohibitory agreement feasible, in the face of possible opposition by a few powerful states and other interests? Drawing on social science research and a host of existing transnational and international governance arrangements, this essay offers three illustrative pathways through which a nonuse norm for solar geoengineering could emerge and become diffused and institutionalized in global politics: (1) civil society-led transnational approaches; (2) regionally led state and civil society hybrid approaches; and (3) like-minded or “Schengen-style” club initiatives led by states.

While the UN secretary-general maintains in the 2023 New Agenda for Peace that the impartiality of the United Nations is its strongest asset, the UN is increasingly becoming partial on the ground. The trend that started with the inclusion of the Force Intervention Brigade in the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2013 is accelerating and taking on new forms. The UN has been supporting the African Union Mission in Somalia and providing logistical support to the Group of Five for the Sahel Joint Force in Mali. In December 2023, the UN Security Council agreed on a resolution that should enable the predictability and sustainability of assessed contributions to African-led counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations, on certain conditions. The normative consequences of increased support to African-led interventions are significant and little explored. The UN system, including humanitarian and human rights components, will no longer be able to claim impartiality in countries where the UN is financing African-led interventions that are propping up fledgling regimes against opposition and terrorist groups. This essay will unpack and examine these developments and their consequences for UN peacekeeping and the larger UN system.

This essay investigates the fit between solar radiation modification (SRM) and climate politics. Researchers, activists, and politicians often present SRM technologies as “radical.” According to this frame, SRM comes into view as a last-ditch effort to avoid climate emergencies. Such a rationale may be applicable to the scientists researching the potential of SRM, yet it only partially accounts for political and policy interest in SRM. In this contribution, I argue that there is an increasingly tight fit between the promise of SRM technologies and the global regime of climate politics. Within this regime, SRM may not be a radical option but is more of a logical extension of current rationales. I argue that SRM corresponds to tightly controlled discursive rules within which climate politics operates, leading to a shifting narrative on the feasibility, desirability, and necessity of SRM. The ethical implications of this tight fit are threefold. First, it implies that SRM might be an instrument of mitigation deterrence, implicitly as much as explicitly. Second, ethical responsibility and political value debates are at risk of becoming invisible once SRM becomes embedded in the prevailing regime. Third, SRM use might become inevitable, despite the good intentions of most people involved.

Can United Nations peace operations improve their effectiveness and strengthen longer-term positive legacies in host nations by shifting to greater use of renewable energy? Since the end of the Cold War and the growth of modern UN peace operations, attention has been focused on the missions’ mandate of supporting political strategies for peace and core objectives such as protecting civilians. Could missions better meet their mandate with improved energy options and reduced emissions, or is there a trade-off with the core objectives? As the missions are nearly fully dependent on diesel generators to power their operations, what is the UN’s responsibility to reduce emissions at a time when addressing climate change is a priority of the UN Secretary-General? Is there an ethical case to make for the UN to support greater use of renewable energy where it operates? And could the UN partner with host nations and others to support a shift in energy use that benefits the communities that host peace operations? This essay argues that missions could reduce their emissions and leverage their energy needs to increase security, strengthen ties to local communities, increase energy access, and support the climate goals of host nations. Drawing on case studies in recent peacekeeping missions and the author’s review of UN commitments across mandates, the Sustainable Development Goals, peacebuilding, and climate goals, this essay will address this area of potential innovation that can help build a positive legacy for UN missions and countries emerging from conflict.

Ukraine's war of self-defense against Russia is one of the clearest examples of a nation fighting a just war in recent history. Ukraine is clearly entitled to defend itself, and Russia is clearly obligated to cease hostilities, withdraw troops, and make repair. In light of this, some of the most salient moral questions related to Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine involve the international community; namely, what moral duties it has toward Ukraine, especially in light of Russia's extreme and pervasive human rights abuses. The first section of the essay argues that there is a pro tanto moral duty to intervene militarily in Ukraine to stop Russian human rights abuses and ensure that Ukraine achieves a military victory. This duty is grounded in duties of rescue, promissory obligations, and reliance obligations, as well as duties to nations’ own citizens and to the international community. The second section of the essay argues that the most relevant consideration in determining whether there is an all-things-considered duty for the international community to intervene militarily in Ukraine is Russia's nuclear coercion and the associated risk of nuclear war. This section highlights the nuclear risks involved in compliance with Russian nuclear coercion, which I argue have been neglected in prominent discussions. The moral stakes involved in this determination are very high, and succumbing to Russian nuclear coercion in the face of massive human rights violations would set a dangerous precedent. Any course of action should be guided by a thorough analysis of all the risks involved, both nuclear and moral.

Cracks in the liberal international order (LIO) have been occurring since its very formation. Yet, some international relations scholarship frames the narrative about imminent threats to the LIO as if such threats were new. From a postcolonial vantage point, this essay contends that mainstream theorizing about international order is problematically Eurocentric and develops a three-pronged argument. In the first place, the essay argues for understanding order as a command or as an imposition. Order as a command renders visible power disparities, injustices, and inequalities of the international order as seen by actors from below. Second, the essay leans on Edward Said's contrapuntal reading method to show that experiences of order are plural rather than singular or universal. Third, the essay argues that from a postcolonial perspective, the opposite of order is not chaos or volatility but rather agency or the authorship to be a rule maker. A full picture of order as imposition requires understanding how togetherness and sameness are modes for Global South actors to find collective unity to resist the injustices and inequalities of the LIO.