Ukraine and the End of Peacemaking

The war in Ukraine has become a barometer for the worldwide transition away from a once-ambitious liberal order based upon negotiated settlements, institutions, law, and mutually agreed rules. The liberal international order, established after the Second World War with the institutionalization of the UN and the Bretton Woods system, tentatively offered human rights, democratic representation, and the rule of law—all of which were calculated to reduce or remove violence—and to support civil society, allowing for political legitimacy and social as well as economic innovation. Yet, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan to Palestine, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, liberal attempts to shape peace, whether through UN peacekeeping or other international mediation, have tended to end up blocked, illustrating the failure of liberal peace to address a new geopolitical moment.