Narrator: In September 1990, as the world watched Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, U.S. President George H.W. Bush addressed Congress with a message of soaring optimism. He spoke of a rare opportunity to move toward a "new world order," an era freer from terror and more secure in the quest for peace. The swift, unified international response to Iraq’s aggression seemed to prove him right. The Cold War was over, and a new age of cooperation appeared to be dawning.

Fast forward to today. That optimism feels like a distant memory. The world is rocked by populist movements, epitomized by events like Brexit. Great powers are increasingly rivals, not partners. Global challenges, from pandemics to climate change to cyber warfare, are growing faster than our ability to solve them. The very foundations of the international system seem to be cracking. What happened to that promised new world order? In his book, A World in Disarray, veteran diplomat and scholar Richard Haass provides a sobering diagnosis of our current moment, arguing that the world has entered a dangerous new era, not of chaos, but of profound and destabilizing disarray.

Narrator: To understand why the world is in disarray, Richard Haass first explains what "order" even means. For centuries, international order has rested on two pillars: a balance of power and a sense of legitimacy. Legitimacy means that major countries agree on the basic rules of the game. The balance of power provides the physical muscle to enforce those rules and deter aggression.

This system was formally born in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia, which established the principle of sovereign states that wouldn't interfere in each other's internal affairs. This model was refined after the Napoleonic Wars at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, where European powers created a "Concert of Europe" to manage disputes and maintain stability for decades. Even the Cold War, for all its terror, was a form of order. It was a rigid, bipolar system where the United States and the Soviet Union maintained a tense balance, largely through the terrifying logic of nuclear deterrence. Both sides understood the rules and the catastrophic cost of breaking them.

But Haass argues this historical blueprint is now broken. The end of the Cold War didn't usher in a more stable order, but rather the slow erosion of any order at all. Power is no longer concentrated in two or even a handful of states. It has diffused to dozens of countries, corporations, terrorist groups, and even individuals. The old rules of sovereignty and non-interference are being challenged by globalization and transnational threats. The result is a world where the gap between global challenges and our collective response grows wider every day.

Narrator: The Cold War wasn't the only order operating after 1945. Haass explains that a second, parallel system was built, which he calls "the other order." This was the liberal international system, primarily designed and underwritten by the United States. It had several key dimensions.

Economically, it was defined by the Bretton Woods institutions—the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund—which were created to prevent another Great Depression and foster global prosperity through trade and stable currencies. Diplomatically, it was centered on the United Nations, a forum designed to resolve disputes peacefully. Strategically, it included arms control treaties like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, aimed at preventing the spread of the world's most dangerous weapons.

However, this order had deep contradictions. The principle of self-determination, which fueled decolonization, often led to violent chaos rather than stable new nations. The 1947 partition of India, for example, resulted in the displacement of over 10 million people and the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Similarly, the 1956 Suez Crisis exposed the system's shifting power dynamics. When Britain and France colluded with Israel to invade Egypt and seize the Suez Canal, they were met with furious condemnation from their supposed ally, the United States. President Eisenhower forced them into a humiliating withdrawal, signaling the definitive end of European imperial power and the rise of the two new superpowers. This "other order" was successful in many ways, but it was always limited by the realities of great-power politics and the messy process of a changing world.

Narrator: The defining feature of our current disarray is what Haass calls the "global gap"—the chasm between the scale of global challenges and the weakness of our collective response. The world faces problems that no single nation can solve alone: climate change, pandemics, cybercrime, terrorism, and financial contagion. Yet the international system remains stubbornly rooted in the idea of state sovereignty.

This gap is widened by the diffusion of power. In the 21st century, a non-state actor like ISIS can control territory, a hacker collective can disrupt global commerce, and a virus originating in one city can shut down the entire world economy. The top U.S. military officer noted in 2015 that the global security environment was the "most unpredictable" he had seen in 40 years of service, a sentiment that has only intensified since.

The wars that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were early signs of this trend. Without the rigid discipline of the Cold War, long-suppressed ethnic and nationalist tensions exploded. The international community struggled to respond, its actions often too little, too late. This pattern continues today, where regional conflicts in places like the Middle East and South Asia fester and spread, uncontained by any effective international mechanism. The old tools are no longer fit for the new reality.

Narrator: Haass argues that simply trying to restore the old order is impossible. Instead, the world needs an updated operating system, which he calls "World Order 2.0." The core of this new system is a radical re-imagining of sovereignty. For centuries, sovereignty has been defined as a right—the right of a state to control its territory and be free from outside interference. Haass proposes that in our interconnected age, sovereignty must also be an obligation.

This concept, "sovereign obligation," means that states have a responsibility to govern in a way that doesn't harm others. A country that allows terrorists to train on its soil, pollutes the global atmosphere, or unleashes a pandemic through negligence is failing its sovereign obligation. This idea shifts the focus from non-interference to responsible governance.

We see glimpses of this concept in practice. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, for example, didn't impose binding limits on nations. Instead, it operated on the principle that each country had an obligation to set its own ambitious goals and work to meet them. Similarly, international health regulations require countries to report disease outbreaks, a clear acknowledgment that a health crisis in one nation is a threat to all. For Haass, formalizing this idea of sovereign obligation is the most critical step toward building a new, more resilient international order.

Narrator: Ultimately, Haass brings his argument back to the United States. He contends that for any new world order to succeed, American leadership is necessary, but not sufficient. And that leadership is impossible if the country itself is in disarray. The 2016 presidential election, with its "America First" slogan, revealed deep divisions in American society and a growing skepticism about the country's traditional role in the world.

Haass argues forcefully that "foreign policy begins at home." A nation crippled by political polarization, crumbling infrastructure, a ballooning national debt, and a struggling education system cannot project strength or credibility abroad. To lead effectively, the United States must first put its own house in order. This doesn't mean retreating from the world, but rather rebuilding the domestic foundation that makes global leadership possible.

He quotes a former colleague, Colin Powell, who, when asked what worried him most in 2001, immediately replied, "Pakistan," citing its toxic mix of nuclear weapons, terrorists, and weak government. Haass notes that the U.S. must be able to act in its own interest, as it did in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden without notifying Pakistan. This requires a strong, decisive, and trusted government—something that becomes harder to achieve when a country is at war with itself.

Narrator: The central, unavoidable message of A World in Disarray is that the international system we inherited is gone. It is not coming back. The trends of history are pushing us toward greater disorder, but Richard Haass insists that this outcome is not inevitable. He uses a powerful analogy from the Jewish prayer on Yom Kippur, which speaks of a predetermined fate but concludes that "repentance, prayer, and charity can ease the severity of the decree." In the same way, statecraft, diplomacy, and wise policy can alter the world's trajectory.

The book leaves us with a profound challenge. In an age where problems spill across borders with ease, can we redefine our sense of national interest to include global responsibility? The greatest threat may not be a rising rival or a terrorist group, but our own failure to adapt to a world that has fundamentally changed, leaving us with an operating system that is dangerously out of date.