The first contradiction of the rules-based international order is that it needs someone credible on the Leviathan throne, and the US doesn't want the job anymore. It does want to keep its hands on the financial levers. Fair is fair - you can't have it both ways for long.
How the word moved
In February 2025 I used it for the hegemon's retreat, and right behind it came "the exception is the rule", i.e., rules for everyone else and none for the one walking away. By April the liberal Leviathan was neither liberal nor much of a Leviathan, and by October the sovereign who decides on the exception had come back in metabolic clothes.
In my words
"One argument against the RBIO is that it presupposes a credible claimant to the Leviathan throne."
from Bhumics Week 6: The RBIO Part 3, 25 Feb 2025
Related
- Inherited from Thomas Hobbes - I lean on Hobbes doubting whether the world needs a global Leviathan at all.
- Related Rules-Based International Order - this is its first internal contradiction.
- Related Climate Leviathan - the liberal Leviathan of that book is the one that walked off.
- Related Metabolic Exception - the sovereign who decides on the exception returns in metabolic terms.
Still open
Does the world need any Leviathan? I pose it through Hobbes and I don't answer it. All I'm sure of is that the Leviathan won't save us, even if he wears a green cape.