THE rules-based international order that emerged from the wreckage of the second world war was a huge improvement on any preceding era. It stimulated trade on an unprecedented scale and allowed even relatively small and weak countries to develop their potential without fear of predatory interference. At the heart of that order was an underlying principle that perpetrators of aggressive war should not be rewarded. In particular, any territorial gains which derived from their aggression would not be recognised by the international community as being legitimate. Instead, aggressors should be subjected to punishment-usually economic sanctions. Occasionally, concerted military action approved by the United Nations (un) forced them to relinquish what they had illegally seized.
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