 The rules-based international order has allowed the incineration of Gaza and the bombing of Yemeni forces who are trying to stop it. The rules-based international order allowed hundreds of thousands of people to be killed by Western-backed Saudi atrocities in Yemen. The rules-based international order allowed NATO powers to knowingly provoke a world-threatening proxy war in Ukraine. The rules-based international order allowed Western powers and their regional partners to plunge Syria into a horrific civil war by flooding the nation with heavily armed fascistic extremist factions. The rules-based international order has allowed the US to invade and occupy a vast stretch of Syrian territory in order to control the nation's natural resources and prevent reconstruction. The rules-based international order allowed Libya to be turned into a chaotic hellscape after Western-backed forces killed Gaddafi following a long-desired Western regime change operation disguised as humanitarian intervention. The rules-based international order allowed the invasion of Iraq to destabilize an entire region resulting in millions of deaths following a campaign of deliberate lies and propaganda. The rules-based international order allowed the invasion of Afghanistan and a decades-long occupation sustained by lies and corruption. The rules-based international order allowed the imprisonment of Julian Assange for journalistic activities exposing US war crimes. The rules-based international order has allowed the planet to be circled by hundreds of US military bases, including in places where the people who live there vehemently oppose their presence like Okinawa, Iraq, and Syria. The rules-based international order has allowed the US and its allies to kill huge numbers of civilians with siege warfare tactics in nations like Yemen, Iraq, and Venezuela. The rules-based international order has allowed the US to interfere in scores of elections around the world, at will, and forcibly topple inconvenient governments wherever it wants to. The rules-based international order has allowed China to be surrounded by a rapidly increasing amount of US military bases and war machinery in preparation for a future conflict of unimaginable horror. The rules-based international order has allowed the US to plunge the world into a new cold war with rapidly escalating brinkmanship against nuclear-armed Russia and China. The rules-based international order has allowed our civilization to be controlled by the most powerful propaganda system ever devised, creating a mind-controlled dystopia of brainwashed gear-turners who are deceived into believing they are free. The rules-based international order has allowed unfathomable amounts of government malfeasance to be hidden behind an increasingly opaque wall of government secrecy. The rules-based international order has allowed the interests of ordinary human beings to be subordinated and subjected to the interests of billionaire corporations and sociopathic government agencies. The rules-based international order has allowed the destruction of our ecosystem for the enrichment of powerful plutocrats. The rules-based international order has allowed our planet to be dominated by an empire of extreme murderousness and depravity at the cost of nonstop bloodshed and ever-increasing tyranny. If the rules-based international order has allowed all these things to happen, what kind of rules are we talking about exactly? And what kind of order do they sustain? If this is what the rules-based international order looks like, would we not, perhaps, be better off without it?