Without identifying the disease, we will never find the cure. And without acknowledging that the international order is in crisis, we will not succeed in finding a way out.
Tons of ink have been spilled in studies and articles before we could understand what today's world really is, though, in my view, it resembles a state of non-peace and non-war, a dangerous condition familiar to anyone who has experienced it in the past, and one that resembles life in the gray zones.
On the eve of the Great War, the world of that era decided to establish an international organization that would regulate conflicts, arbitrate among competing parties, and anticipate disputes before they reached the point of confrontation. Other institutions emerged from it, foremost among them the Security Council, the international community's enforcement arm.
More than eighty years after its founding, we find ourselves at a sharp crossroads, one that is bringing us dangerously close to a terrifying moment of confrontation, a moment that could make the wars of the past seem like mere passing episodes.
This crossroads did not emerge overnight. It was the result of an accumulated failure in international norms and the application of international law, the monopoly of the veto by just five states, the confrontation between East and West during the Cold War, and the failure of newly independent states to seize opportunities for development after gaining independence from colonial rule, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s.
Are we writing a history lesson here? No. We are trying to seize the moment from the roar of artillery, the buzz of drones and the whine of missiles, warfare conducted at a distance, the erosion of traditional battlefronts, the race among states to dominate the realm of innovation, and the growing diversity of the sources of national power.
No state or nation will be able to withstand life in the gray zones without relying on itself, and that is another story.
I can say that the old world has cracked, broken, and shattered, but it has not yet disappeared. Some say it is still a unipolar world; others say it is a multipolar world without anyone formally declaring it.
I can also say that it is a world living in a gray zone, or in a state of non-peace and non-war, a stage that is, for the most part, dangerous and inconclusive. On the one hand, states spend on weapons and their production at the expense of development and their economies. On the other, they find themselves in a state of constant anxiety. Neither condition can produce any kind of stable, reassuring peace. And with the international organization rendered virtually powerless, and with international law and the principles of international legitimacy increasingly disregarded, reality becomes ever more fluid.
The paradox becomes even sharper as military spending among the great powers continues to rise, consuming resources that could otherwise be directed toward development, health, education, and the fight against poverty. The world is not merely spending more on weapons; it is paying for that spending out of its own future. When security becomes a burden that weighs on economies and societies, it pushes the needs of development further down the list of priorities.
When a state such as Iran takes control of the Strait of Hormuz, an energy lifeline and one of the world's key corridors for global trade, despite the fact that it is governed by the 1982 Law of the Sea, it offers a stark illustration of the fragility of international law. It also sets a precedent that other states could follow if they come to regard maritime corridors and straits as spoils to be seized. The result is a world that learns to live with and adapt to a state of non-peace and non-war. The question is: Why have we reached this point?
Here, I will focus on a single point, the failure to respect international law. Is it conceivable, for example, that binding resolutions concerning the Palestinian question could simply disappear from the corridors of international diplomacy, resolutions such as 181, 194, 242, and 338?
What is striking is that these resolutions emerged alongside the founding of the United Nations, coexisting with it without ever finding their way to implementation. I focus on this particular issue because regional and global tensions emanate from it and ultimately return to it. Since October 7, 2023, it has proven to be at the heart of the world's painful story.
Likewise, the wars raging across the region, and neighboring regional powers such as Iran, have used this issue as a pretext to extend their reach across the region and build protective shields for their own interests.
Current realities demonstrate that unrealistic ideas have helped produce the global condition we face today. Imperial ambitions, the aspirations associated with what is known as the export of revolutions, the invocation of vanished empires or a long-absent caliphate, or the idea of a Greater Israel, all of these are ideas hovering in a void, yet they push reality toward further confrontation.
And so we have arrived at a condition resembling life in the gray zones. We are facing neither a comprehensive war capable of settling the conflict nor a genuine peace capable of producing stability.
Between these two states, the world hangs suspended, between an international order that is eroding, rules that are losing their power to bind, new powers searching for their place, old ideas insisting on restoring a world that no longer exists, and maps searching for an emergency exit.
And the question that now imposes itself is this: Do we have the courage to create a new order, or will we continue searching for twenty-first-century solutions with the tools of the last century?
