The Fractured Order

The world is splintering rapidly, and this week offered stark proof: in Moscow, 27 foreign leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping and a contingent of Chinese troops, commemorated Victory Day while tacitly endorsing Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine. In sharp contrast, just four European leaders stood with President Zelensky in Kyiv to support the distant hope of a war crimes tribunal for Russian leaders and soldiers — a symbolic gesture, given that true accountability remains elusive. The United States’ long-standing hostility toward the International Criminal Court is well known, but its increasingly transactional stance toward Moscow marks a deeper strategic shift. As U.S. influence wanes and its peace efforts falter in Ukraine and the Middle East, it appears poised to retreat, leaving space for more aggressive and less law-bound powers to fill the vacuum. Sovereign borders are now breached with impunity, international law is ignored, and global alignments are hardening fast. Even India and Pakistan are stepping toward confrontation. Day by day, the planet is rearming, dividing, and inching closer to a broader conflict with no clear boundaries, and even fewer rules.