International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES)[1] from Ljubljana, Slovenia, regularly analyses developments in the Middle East, the Balkans, and around the world. In the article “The world between spectacle and reality (part II) The double standard as a language of power in a global order of exceptions,” Dr. Cătălin Balog, an analyst and trainer with extensive expertise in intelligence, information security, and strategic communication, continues his exploration of whether peace can be preserved without resorting to force. He offers comprehensive analysis of global reactions, European ambivalence, non-Western opportunism, and Romania’s vulnerabilities.
The contemporary international order is marked not only by a geopolitical fragmentation, but also by a mutation in the way strategic decisions are formulated and justified. This article analyses the tension between spectacle and reality as a structural element of the exercise of power, in a context dominated by competing narratives, media pressure and the compression of deliberation under the imperative of urgency. The paper examines the transformation of the exception from borderline event to recurrent procedure, highlighting the role of double standards and functional hypocrisy in strategic risk management. Starting from the classic literature of strategic analysis and intelligence, the analysis shows that the major risk of the era is not deliberate global conflict, but the accumulation of decisions made under uncertainty and "misperception". The conclusion argues that the current stability is maintained by the administration of ambiguities, in a system in which legitimacy remains the language of order, and the exception an instrument of decision-making.
The contemporary world can no longer be understood through simple oppositions between aggressor and victim, legal and illegal, democracy and authoritarianism. Not because these distinctions have disappeared, but because they are no longer sufficient to explain how decisions are made and why certain actions are tolerated, while others are unequivocally condemned.
Behind every major crisis there is a process that is more discreet, but more relevant than the event itself: defining the exception – who can invoke it, under what conditions and at what cost. In this space, the rules are not abolished, but temporarily suspended; the norms are not denied, but reinterpreted, and international law does not disappear, but is used selectively, as an instrument of legitimation. For intelligence analysis, this shift is essential: it is not the stated intention that produces the strategic risk, but the way in which perceptions, justifications, and precedents shape the decision under pressure (Heuer Jr. 1999; Jervis 1976).
The public spectacle of confrontation, the statements, the sanctions, the moral condemnations, create the impression of a collapsing order. In reality, what is emerging is a regime that is colder and more stable than it seems: an order of managed ambiguities, in which power does not seek universal legitimacy, but predictability between actors capable of sanctioning each other.
Hypocrisy, in this context, is not a moral deviation, but a technique of government. The double standard does not signal incoherence, but strategic adaptation. The same principles are solemnly invoked in one theatre and relativized in another, not out of confusion, but out of calculation.
This text is not a plea or an indictment, but an attempt to describe the mechanism by which the exception has become the current language of power, and the norm, a flexible instrument. From Venezuela to Ukraine, from Gaza to Taiwan, from the great powers to the peripheral states, the same logic repeats itself: it is not the question "who is right" that decides the course of events, but "who can impose the definition of reality". In this sense, the analysis does not aim at the moral evaluation of the actors, but at the description of an emerging decision-making pattern, relevant for all political systems faced with the pressure of the exception and the erosion of the norm.
Venezuela as an operational precedent
The use of force today is no longer defined exclusively by the material act, but by its semantic framing. In the case of Venezuela, the central stake was not the intervention itself, but the way it was re-labelled: not as a classic military operation, but as legitimate coercive action, derived from security imperatives, combating transnational crime, and correcting persistent political illegitimacy.
This shift in language is not a rhetorical detail, but a strategic operation. By translating the use of force into a legal-operational register, the decision is removed from the area of the declared exception and reintroduced into the area of order. Force does not appear as a suspension of the rule, but as an instrument of it. The threshold is not crossed frontally, but redefined.
The following international reactions confirm the relevance of the framework. Convictions are fragmented, positions are nuanced, and political support is predominantly expressed in moral or opportunistic registers, not legal ones. Legality becomes a subject of secondary debate, while the narrative of legitimacy takes centre stage. Acceptance is not explicit, but it is sufficient for the action not to generate major systemic costs.
The precedent that is emerging is not a legal one, but an operational one. It does not establish a formal rule, but an implicit benchmark on the tolerability of action. The operational precedent is not validated by uniqueness, but by transferability: its ability to be invoked, explicitly or tacitly, in other contexts, by other actors, in order to justify similar decisions.
A central element in this equation is the political delegitimization of the target. When a regime is described as illegitimate, criminal or dysfunctional, the discussion about the legality of the intervention is pushed into the background. The focus is on necessity and urgency, not procedure. Thus, the person of Nicolás Maduro becomes a narrative vector and the focus on political illegitimacy reduces the pressure on legal demonstration.
This mechanism is not new, but the current context makes it more effective. In a fragmented international system, without an undeniable normative centre, the tacit acceptance of a precedent is sufficient to ensure its functionality. It is not the full consensus that counts, but the absence of a reaction capable of imposing prohibitive costs.
The strategic message conveyed is clear: the rules are not abolished, but functionally reinterpreted, depending on the actor, context and justification. The exception is no longer proclaimed, but is absorbed into the language of order. The threshold of the use of force does not disappear, but moves to an area that is more difficult to delimit, where legitimacy is negotiated, not demonstrated.
Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan – the common mechanism
The situations in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and Taiwan are not morally, legally or historically comparable. The differences in context, status and responsibility are real and decisive. However, they become comparable through the procedure for legitimizing the exception used by the actors involved.
In each case, the decision to use force or to take strategic risk is justified by a recognizable combination: existential security, urgency, prevention. This triad produces a constant effect on the decision-making process: compressing time and relativizing the proof. The more urgency is accentuated, the more the requirement for full proof is postponed, fragmented or transferred to the classification space.
The exception no longer appears as a singular event, but as a procedure. It is invoked repeatedly, administered incrementally and calibrated to remain below the threshold of systemic response. The aim is not to avoid conflict, but to keep it in an area of relative control. By 'risk management' we mean the ability of major actors to calibrate the use of force so that systemic costs remain below the threshold of direct confrontation.
This procedure produces an essential mutation in the functioning of the rules. The rule is not challenged frontally, but contextually conditioned. Legality is affirmed as a principle, but its application becomes dependent on the actor, the moment and the ability to manage the consequences. In this sense, the exception does not suspend the order, but reconfigures it operationally.
A recurring element in all these theatres is the gap between the public narrative and the internal decision-making logic. The external discourse emphasizes values and principles; Internal deliberation restores priorities in cost assessment, anticipation of reactions and control capacity. This dissonance is not accidental, but structural. It allows action without full assumption and retreat without major symbolic loss.
As this procedure is repeated, the tolerance of the system increases. What initially would have generated strong reactions becomes, through wear, acceptable. The exception is normalized not by explicit validation, but by the absence of a decisive sanction. Thus, thresholds are not just moved; they become mobile, adjustable according to the context.
This dynamic explains why the system resists, despite the accumulation of crises. Stability is not the product of normative consensus, but of a precarious balance between pressure and self-control. The resulting order is not coherent, but functional, dependent on the actors' ability to anticipate the reactions of others and manage their own internal constraints (Heuer Jr. 1999).
The exception as a global procedure does not announce the collapse of the international order, but it profoundly modifies its functioning mechanism. The norm remains the language of identification; the exception becomes the instrument of decision-making.
Double standard nominated
The functional description of hypocrisy is not equivalent to its normative legitimacy. It aims to explain the mechanism by which power operates in a system devoid of an undeniable normative centre. The double standard is not an accident of speech, but a risk management technique in a competitive environment.
In the case of the United States, intervention in Venezuela is justified by regional security imperatives, the fight against transnational crime, and the political delegitimization of the regime. The same principles are invoked to condemn Russia's actions in Ukraine as serious violations of sovereignty and the international order. The difference lies not in the principles stated, but in the selection of the context in which they are applied.
Russia, for its part, qualifies the American intervention as illegal and destabilizing, while legitimizing its own action through an almost symmetrical register: security, prevention, protection of the population. Selective condemnation thus becomes a mirror, not an exception. Hypocrisy is reciprocal and predictable, not asymmetrical.
China's position adds an extra layer of ambiguity. Beijing strongly condemns the intervention of the United States, invoking sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs, but avoids explicit condemnation of Russia. This selectivity is not a contradiction, but an alignment with one's own strategic red lines, especially in relation to Taiwan.
The European Union operates in a different register, but not more coherent. At the institutional level, the discourse remains normative and principled. At Member State level, positions range from firm condemnation to tacit justification or a call for caution. The EU thus appears as polyphony, not as a unitary actor, which reduces its ability to impose costs and amplifies its dependence on transatlantic alignment.
This distribution of positions does not reflect a moral crisis, but a logic of power. Actors invoke the same rules to produce different effects, depending on interest, context and ability to absorb costs. The double standard becomes the common language of strategic competition: it allows the affirmation of principles without coercing action.
In a system where the rules are flexible, hypocrisy fulfils a stabilizing function in the short term. It makes it possible for incompatible positions to coexist without direct confrontation. In the long term, however, this practice erodes trust in the invoked norms and shifts the centre of gravity of the international order from legality to predictability (Jervis 1976).
The nomination of the double standard is not aimed at apportioning blame, but at clarifying the real rules of the game. In the absence of this clarification, risk analysis becomes impossible, and strategic surprise inevitable.
At this point it becomes clear that, in the contemporary order, it is not justice that decides the course of events, but the ability to impose the definition of reality.
Double standard as alignment practice
Romania is not an actor that defines the rules of the international order, but it is a state that quickly internalizes the consequences of their flexibility. Positioned at the intersection between alliance commitments and its own structural vulnerabilities, Romania offers a relevant case study on how double standards are adopted not as an ideological option, but as a risk minimization strategy.
In relation to Russia's aggression against Ukraine, Romania's position is firm and consistent. The principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and respect for international law are explicitly invoked. Political, diplomatic and logistical support for Kyiv is presented as a strategic and moral obligation, derived both from Euro-Atlantic membership and from the assessment of regional threats. In this case, the rule is stated unambiguously and the exception is rejected.
On the other hand, Romania's reaction to the intervention of the United States in Venezuela is in a different register. Official declarations avoid firm legal qualifications and privilege political and moral arguments: the illegitimacy of the regime, the need for a transition, the suffering of the population. The difference lies not in the absence of principles, but in the suspension of their explicit application when the actor involved is a strategic ally.
This asymmetry is not the result of doctrinal incoherence or confusion. It reflects an implicit calculation: for a state the size of Romania, publicly contesting the actions of a central actor of the alliance is perceived as having strategic costs greater than the erosion of normative coherence. The double standard thus becomes a practice of alignment, not a statement of values.
The same logic is reproduced, with variations, internally. The annulment of the 2024 electoral process was justified by invoking security, foreign interference and the protection of the constitutional order. Regardless of the final validity of the justifications invoked, what is analytically relevant is the decision-making mechanism, not the legal verdict: the exception preceded the demonstration, and the public opinion was asked for an act of trust.
The parallel with the external plane is not forced. In both registers, security is used as a priority value, capable of temporarily suspending procedures, postponing the full demonstration and reducing deliberative space. The difference is one of scale, not structure. Romania applies internally the same logic that it accepts externally: stability precedes transparency, and risk management takes precedence over immediate regulatory coherence.
This positioning has strategic consequences. In the short term, it reduces exposure and maximizes the predictability of relationships with dominant actors. In the long term, however, it erodes the normative credibility of the state. Romania risks being perceived not as a consistent defender of the rules, but as a disciplined executor of a flexible order, in which principles are selectively affirmed.
The alternative is limited. In an international system governed by managed ambiguities, small and medium-sized states do not have the luxury of absolute coherence. They navigate between loyalty, exposure, and adaptation. The double standard is not chosen as a virtue, but learned as a necessity. Romania does not create the hypocrisy of the system, but reproduces it, because this is the currency of circulation of the current order.
Order without rules, stability without legitimacy
The contemporary international order is neither anarchic nor governed by clear and universally applied rules. It operates in an intermediate register, defined by managed ambiguities, in which stability does not result from compliance with the rules, but from the ability of the major actors to control the degree and pace of their violation.
This order is not the result of a formal agreement nor of a coherent ideological project. It stems from the accumulation of tolerated tactical decisions, from successive adjustments of thresholds and from the systematic avoidance of direct confrontations. The rule continues to exist as a language of legitimacy, but it no longer functions as an operational limit. What matters is not compliance, but the manageability of consequences.
Ambiguity thus becomes a strategic resource. It allows action without full assumption, justification without full demonstration and retreat without major symbolic cost. When an intervention is defined as temporary, limited or conditional, it can be extended, suspended or reconfigured without being perceived as a change of doctrine. Order is not explicitly stated, but is maintained through controlled improvisation.
In this framework, classical legitimacy is gradually replaced by predictability. It no longer matters whether an action is unanimously accepted as fair, but whether it is predictable and manageable for the other relevant actors. Public condemnations, resolutions and sanctions serve a ritual function: they maintain the normative appearance, but rarely change the decision when the costs are considered bearable.
This is not a stable order, but a functional one by avoidance. Stability is the product of strategic self-control, not trust. Actors do not cooperate because they share common values, but because they correctly anticipate the costs of the collision. As long as this calculation remains valid, the system resists, even if its legitimacy is eroded.
The price of this functionality is structural fragility. As ambiguity becomes the norm, the space for error widens. Decisions are made under the pressure of time, public opinion and internal constraints, with incomplete information and competing interpretations. The more the order relies on exception handling, the more it depends on the cognitive spectacle of decision-makers (Heuer Jr. 1999).
In this context, small and medium-sized states are structurally disadvantaged. Ambiguity favours actors with projection capacity and penalizes those who depend on rules for protection. Alignment does not guarantee consistency and invoking principles does not ensure reciprocity. Order becomes a space of permanent navigation, not a safe framework.
Managed ambiguities do not announce the collapse of the system, but profoundly alter its way of functioning. The stability thus obtained is real, but conditional and reversible. When management capacity decreases, it is not the rules that will fail first, but the mechanism that suspends them.
Risk matrix in a system of uncertainty
The question of a Third World War reappears every time the exception becomes a recurrent practice and the double standard, current language. Formulated as a prediction, it is sterile; formulated as a risk problem, becomes necessary. What is at stake is not to identify a declared intention for global confrontation, but to assess the sustainability of a system built on successive suspensions of the rules.
Under the current conditions, a classic, symmetrical global conflagration remains unlikely. For the United States, Russia and China, the costs of a direct confrontation are prohibitive. Nuclear deterrence, economic interdependence and internal constraints act as structural brakes. The dominant risk does not derive from the explicit will to war, but from the accumulation of imperfectly managed limit situations.
History shows that the great conflagrations did not result from declared intentions, but from cumulative errors of perception and calculation (Jervis 1976). As the number of tolerated exceptions increases, the density of grey areas increases, and signal interpretation becomes riskier. The system works through a choreography of testing: each actor pushes the thresholds to close to the red line, observes the reactions and adjusts the intensity. This dynamic reduces the likelihood of deliberate escalation, but increases the likelihood of strategic crash.
Risk is distributed, not concentrated. Thus, Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan, Venezuela are not isolated triggers, but interconnected nodes in a network of tensions. A severe crisis in one theatre can transfer pressure and justifications to others, reducing reaction times and narrowing the decision-making space. In such an environment, escalation can occur not by a single strategic decision, but by contagion.
• Factors that increase the probability:
- unintentional escalation: local military incidents, "borderline" strikes, actions with ambiguous attribution;
- miscalculation: overestimating the opponent's self-control or underestimating internal constraints;
- regional collapse: the collapse of a buffer state or the extension of a local conflict beyond the initial framework;
- transfer of justification: the tolerance granted in one theatre is invoked as a precedent in another.
• Factors that reduce the probability:
- nuclear deterrence: existential cost of direct confrontation;
- economic interdependence: supply chains, financial markets, internal social costs;
- "de-confliction" channels: military and diplomatic lines of communication maintained even in the crisis;
- strategic self-control: preference for sub-threshold conflicts and the use of intermediaries.
• Synthetic assessment:
- probability: low to medium, in the absence of a deliberate decision;
- Impact: extremely high, including in limited scenarios, through global contagion effects.
The difference from previous historical periods is not the intensity of the rivalry, but its form. Instead of rigid blocks and explicit rules, competition is fluid, with flexible rules and managed exceptions. This flexibility has so far prevented a major confrontation, but it has introduced a structural vulnerability: the dependence on near-perfect risk management.
Such management is, by definition, fragile. It involves correctly anticipating the reactions of all relevant actors and controlling one's own internal dynamics. Political crises, economic pressures, or leadership changes can quickly erode this self-control. In a system saturated with exceptions, a single error can have disproportionate effects.
The central question is not whether there will be a Third World War, but whether the current regime of managed ambiguities can be maintained without a major accident. The system reduces the risk of a deliberate confrontation, but accumulates systemic risks., and the stability thus obtained is real, but temporary and conditioned by a continuous decision-making spectacle.
After risk, what kind of world do we manage?
The contemporary international order does not collapse under the weight of conflicts, but reconfigures itself under the pressure of tolerated decisions. It is not exceptional events that are defining, but the fact that they become repeatable without producing systemic ruptures. This is the central mutation of the epoch: the exception no longer signals the crisis, but the mechanism by which the crisis is managed.
Power is no longer looking for universal legitimacy, but for room for manoeuvre. The rule is invoked to structure public discourse, not to decisively constrain action. The norm remains the language of order, but it no longer functions as an operational limit. In this framework, the double standard is not an anomaly, but the functional infrastructure of the system.
The stability thus obtained is real, but conditional. It depends on a high level of strategic self-control, the ability to anticipate adverse reactions and the maintenance of communication channels even in the context of confrontation. The more ambiguity is used as a resource, the more vulnerable the system becomes to error, accident, and decision made under internal pressure.
For major actors, ambiguity provides flexibility. For small and medium-sized countries, it becomes a permanent risk environment. In the absence of consistently applied rules, legal protection, precedent and declarative solidarity only work as long as they do not conflict with the strategic interests of those capable of redefining the exception. Alignment does not guarantee coherence, and invoking principles does not ensure reciprocity.
Today's world is not on the brink of inevitable collapse, but neither is it in a stable order. It operates in a fragile balance, maintained by the continuous administration of exceptions. When this mechanism fails, the cause will not be the lack of rules, but the saturation of the suspension system.
This is the difference between the public spectacle of confrontation and the decision-making reality of power. Behind the statements, sanctions and moral condemnations, order is maintained not by common rules, but by a tacit understanding of acceptable risks.
The present analysis is in line with strategic assessments that privilege decision-making mechanisms, risk perception and uncertainty management, to the detriment of normative judgments or mono-causal explanations. The text treats the international order as an adaptive system, in which stability results from the management of exceptions and the self-control of actors capable of generating systemic costs.
The approach of this paper is:
- cognitive-analytical, focused on biases, calculation errors and the limits of rationality under pressure (Heuer 1999);
- procedural, focused on the way in which precedents are created, transferred and invoked in the decision (Neustadt and May 1986);
- relational, attentive to perception, "misperception" and the dynamics of unintentional escalation (Jervis 1976);
- strategic, in the classical sense, treating conflict as a political instrument and source of friction (Clausewitz 1976);
- critical-realist, using explanations of power without absolutizing them or transforming them into determinism (Mearsheimer 2001).
The text does not aim to establish guilt, but to clarify the real rules of the game in an environment where the norm remains the language of legitimacy, and the exception, the instrument of decision. The analysis is built for any type of reading and avoids both moral relativism and strategic alarmism.
1. Heuer, Richards J., Jr. 1999. Psychology of Intelligence Analysis. Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency.
2. Jervis, Robert. 1976. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
3. Neustadt, Richard E., and Ernest R. May. 1986. Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers. New York: Free Press.
4. Clausewitz, Carl von. 1976. On War. Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
5. Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
About the author:
Col. (ret.) Dr. Cătălin Balog is an analyst and trainer with experience in intelligence, information security and strategic communication. Doctor of Military Sciences, with a thesis dedicated to the management of security risks in cyberspace, he worked for over two decades in structures of the Ministry of National Defense. Currently, he is an associate professor at the University of Bucharest, where he teaches courses on information management. In particular, he is concerned with the analysis of contemporary social and political mechanisms, with a focus on the relationship between ideology, technology and the simulation of democracy.
The article presents the stance of the author and does not necessarily reflect the stance of IFIMES.
Ljubljana/ Bucharest, 19 February 2026
[1] IFIMES – International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has Special Consultative status at ECOSOC/UN, New York, since 2018 and it’s publisher of the international scientific journal “European Perspectives”.
