when you hear people say "we want the rules-based international order" back, what they're saying is that they want the 90s back. they want more american hegemony, not less. it was the collapse of the soviet union and the onset of american hegemony that created a "rules based order" with the end of history. it's the unilateral withdrawal of american leadership that is collapsing it, but i think this will be short-lived and trumpian isolation will be incomplete and quickly reversed.

the 1945-1990 period was the exact opposite of a rules based order. it was a period of competition and espionage between great powers, rampant coups in "middle powers", puppet states, catastrophic proxy wars and extreme spheres of influence that split up the entire world.

there never was a "liberal international order". that's just newspeak for the american hegemony that set in when the soviets collapsed.