The Siren Song of the International Order
We were promised peace, justice, and prosperity and received poverty and genocides
Odysseus and the Sirens
There’s a particularly curious story in Homer’s epic retelling of the epic journey of Odysseus, the Greek champion and hero of the Trojan war, as he returns from the war to his island home of Ithaca. On his way, he and his crew come upon an island of creatures known as the sirens whose beautiful song makes them appear as beautiful women to any who hear them. They promise joy of all kinds, prosperity, and wisdom of all kinds to those who pass. Anyone who hears them becomes enraptured by their song, flings himself onto their shores, and remains there, unfulfilled in reality but entranced by the song, until his death.
Odysseus, however, has been forewarned by a witch in a previous escapade, who advises him to stuff his and his crew’s ears with beeswax so as not to hear the sirens and their song. Odysseus agrees to this with a caveat. He wants to hear the song of the sirens and recount it to his companions. The plan they devise, then, is to tie Odysseus to the mast of the ship while the rest of his companions stuff their ears with beeswax. As they pass the island, the sirens begin to sing their song, tempting Odysseus with their beauty, the delight of their melody, and the promises of wealth and knowledge. Even though Odysseus has been forewarned and is aware of their reality, he is bewitched by their spell and wants to throw the ship against the rocks and make his way to the island.
His companions, however, have sealed their ears, and they see the sirens for what they are: monsters who feast on the flesh of their enraptured victims. As Odysseus squirms against the ropes that tie him to the mast, the crew continues onward, rowing quickly past the island of the sirens and to the safety of the open sea. It’s not until the song of the bird-like monsters fades into the distance that Odysseus comes to his senses.
To me, there is no better analogy for the promises of the liberal international order than the sirens of Odysseus.
The False Promises of Liberal Internationalism
After the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, post-colonial nations around the world were promised inclusion into the liberal international order made up of interconnected institutions whose promises were akin to the ballads of the sirens: The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the International Court of Justice, the United Nations, etc. Taken as a whole, the institutions make up what is sometimes known as the “liberal international order,” the purpose of which is to facilitate conversations, resolve disputes, and encourage development and justice around the world based on a “rules based” system of adjudication, resolution, and investment.
This is akin to the sirens calling Odysseus to their island with promises of joy, prosperity, and wisdom – promises made in alluring song that intend to trap him on an island he’ll never escape as eventual food for the monsters disguised as beauties.
After thirty-two years of near hegemonic control over international discourse and influence over the internal and external affairs of nearly every country in the world, what has the international order actually accomplished? To those who don’t see it for what it is, the results are at best perplexing.
Post-colonial nations, already struggling to establish their economies after the ravages of colonialism, then world war, and then cold war, were laden with continuously escalating debt – the principal of which was pocketed by corrupt warlords and entrenched and well-connected elites while the weight of repaying the usurious debt was placed on the taxpayers of impoverished nations. When nations began to approach default, the institutions demanded “austerity measures” be placed upon the populaces while pretending as if elites were not responsible for the rampant corruption that created the catastrophes in the first place.
In geo-politics, however, the order seemed even more inept and incompetent. Instead of assisting in the resolution of longstanding conflicts – be it flashpoints of conflict like Palestine and Kashmir or overt genocides like Rwanda and Bosnia – the institutions that made up the order seemed entirely incapable of reaching the just resolutions they seemed to profess. Resolution after resolution in the United Nations failed to make any meaningful impact on their intended targets while powerful nations who held seats on the “security council” became architects of historic disasters around the world, but particularly the Middle East.
The thirty-year history which began after the moment that Fukuyama claimed would be the “end of history” reads like the inventory of a warehouse of failure: the nations of the world are neither safer, nor more prosperous, nor wiser, nor more just. For all intents and purposes, it would seem, the liberal international order is at best a catastrophic failure.
Except it’s not. The seeming glitches are not bugs – they are features, and the system is working exactly as it was intended.
The Adjudication of Hegemony and the Order’s Role in Neo-Colonialism
The very structure of the system – that is, the rules that govern it – ensure that it plays a powerful role in continuing the subjugation and subordination of post-colonial states despite its claim to pursue the safety and prosperity of all nations.
Take the United Nations, for example. The security council holds the real power in the entire organization. Resolution after resolution can be passed by a majority of votes by all member states, but the security council members – made up of the great powers of the world – can veto resolutions at will. And even if the resolutions were to pass, they would remain non-binding (as the Biden administration has reminded us after the passing of a ceasefire resolution on the 25th of March).
Or take the World Bank, for example. The bank is supposed to be governed by vote, like the UN. Votes are proportional to the amount of financial contribution to the organization. The US controls 16% of the vote, and its allies of France, the UK, Germany, and Japan control an additional combined 25%, meaning that the US and its direct allies (5 countries) control nearly 41% of the votes in the World Bank. What this basically means is that the US and its allies can exert significant control over the bank despite its so-called independent and democratic structure.
Taken together, the powerful and prosperous countries can use the UN to influence the direction of world politics and reward those who go along with its priorities through the World Bank. This has resulted in small groups of well-connected elites backed by the powerful nations to sell their countries’ national interests, economic futures, and sovereignty in exchange for monetary and other institutional favors distributed by the international system.
At the same time, powerful nations like the US, Russia, and China use the United Nations to create a cover for their strategic objectives and security ambitions and deploy their unilateral veto powers to block any resolutions that would delegitimize their own interests. As an example, the US gives continuous support to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Russia to the genocide in Syria, and China to protect its genocide against the Uyghurs in East Turkestan.
The chaos, economic inequality, and injustice around the world does not exist despite the system – it is a direct result of it. The goal, like that of the siren song, is not to give prosperity and wisdom to member nations. It is to trap them on an island with ravenous monsters who feast on their flesh.
Plugging Our Collective Ears
The takeaway of this post is not that the only option is to divest from the system entirely. Rather, it is to recognize that the beautiful rhetoric of the UN and the entirety of the liberal international order is a siren song. As post-colonial peoples, it is meant to lead us to our devouring, not our emancipation. It is only when we plug our ears to song and open our eyes to the actions of the powerful members of that exert the most influence on the order that we can see the monstrous nature of the creatures singing beautiful melodies.
The seas of this moment must be navigated carefully. But none of the modes of meaningful navigation includes believing the claims of the liberal system to be true.