Stripping Downer like an Onion

I have long found Alexander Downer’s intellect and integrity wanting, but his latest piece in The Australian ironically titled Let’s be honest, the rules-based order never really existed sets a new low. It is a masterclass in disingenuousness. Far from providing a fair analysis, his commentary is a shallow attempt to misrepresent the West’s role in global affairs. It serves only to reinforce his reputation as a man who prioritizes optics over truth, attempting to manufacture an image of Western integrity that simply does not exist. This is a man more interested in maintaining a false facade than in providing Australians with the truth.

In his essay, Downer rebuked Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech to the World Economic Forum for its lack of directness regarding Donald Trump. Downer claimed that Carney’s decision to announce the death of the ‘rules-based order’ through “anonymous wording” showed “weakness,” and that the Canadian Prime Minister “should have had the guts to call Trump directly”.

Downer’s critique of Carney is fundamentally flawed. He argues that Carney’s failure to name Donald Trump directly in his Davos address was a sign of weakness, yet this overlooks the standard protocols of international diplomacy. As a former Foreign Minister, Downer himself frequently utilised such nuanced language. Had Carney been more confrontational, he would have risked immediate economic retaliation against Canada, such as the 100% tariffs Trump recently threatened. Trump is a raging bull in a China shop.

Alexander Downer’s diplomatic career has often been marked by controversy. While serving as Australia’s High Commissioner in London, Downer found himself at the centre of an international firestorm after a May 2016 meeting with Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos. During this encounter, Papadopoulos mentioned that Russia possessed “damaging” material on Hillary Clinton.

While Downer initially sent a cable to Canberra downplaying the claim, he later decided—following the public release of leaked emails—to report the conversation directly to the US embassy in London. According to Malcolm Turnbull’s memoir, Downer acted “without authority from Canberra,” an independent action that Turnbull suggested brought into question the “discipline and professionalism” of Australia’s foreign service. This bypass of official protocol eventually served as the “spark” for the FBI’s investigation into Russian election interference. Downer was largely responsible for this diplomatic mess; therefore, he is not the wisest diplomat to be advising Mark Carney. He lacks credibility when reprimanding Carney for failing to take a more confrontational stance against Trump.

But I digress. Returning to his ‘fairytale’ commentary in The Australian, Downer’s statement is intriguing for another reason—and this is the more important one. His illusion of the rules-based order being a UN-led order is completely shattered because his remarks imply that Trump, the US Government, and the Rules-Based Order are the same thing. This is the only point to take away from Downer’s remarks here; his critical thinking skills are not up to scratch

Downer goes on to say: “What’s more, he [Carey] implied that America was the moral equivalent of Russia and China. Frankly, that’s absurd.”

Downer is right that there’s no moral equivalence, but only because Russia and China are the ones still respecting international law. The US and Australia have walked away from the very UN principles they helped build. Russia and China still operate within the multilateral system—unlike the US, which now favours unilateral power over global rules, which is what is meant by the Rules Based Order as assumed in Downer’s critique of Carey’s speech at Davos.

Downer claims, “Most Western democracies have abided by international law”.  This is untrue. How was the US-NATO led invasion of Yugoslavia in 1999 an act of international law?

The US and NATO did not have UN Security Council authorization for the 1999 military attack on Yugoslavia. The intervention was launched without a specific Chapter VII resolution, leading to intense debate over its legality and legitimacy under international law as you know full well Mr. Downer. This US-NATO intervention violated the UN Charter because it was not in self-defence, nor authorized by the Security Council. It was the US Rules Based Order, which does not abide by international law, that led this attack.

How was the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003 an act of intentional law?

The United States did not have UN Security Council authorization for the invasion of Iraq. While the United States argued that prior resolutions provided sufficient authority, the UN Secretary-General later declared the invasion illegal as it violated the UN Charter. That war, which violated international law, led to the unnecessary slaughtering of about one million Iraqis. How was that an act of intentional law Mr. Downer?  It wasn’t. It was an act of the US rules-based order, which, based on reading your commentary, you know nothing about.

How was the US attack on Venezuela, kidnapping its president on bogus charges of being a ‘narco-terrorist,’ an action compliant with international law? It wasn’t. There was no UN mandate. It was the US Rules-Based Order that justified this attack, not international law as set down in the UN Charter.

We could provide more, but these examples suffice to show the hypocrisy of Downer’s essay.

Why can’t Downer be honest about what is really going on here? We know why. He is an architect of the Western-led world of chaos and disorder—lacking integrity and morality. It is about power and the control of the West over the world.

Downer then moves on to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, stating, “It’s hard to imagine what basis in international law that had.” However, the basis for that action is enshrined in international law under Article 51 of the UN Charter. This article recognizes the inherent right of states to engage in preemptive war when threatened—in this case, by NATO. Does Downer think the world is stupid? Obviously, he is so immersed in Western propaganda that he can no longer tell the difference.

His most damaging rhetorical tactic is to intentionally conflate the UN Charter with the Western-defined ‘Rules-Based Order’ (RBO)—a false equivalence consistently peddled by Western politicians. By masking US-centric interests as universal rules, he attempts to anchor this nebulous RBO to international law. Having been forced to admit in his critiques of Carey that the RBO is largely imaginary, he now engages in a fallacious manoeuvre, blaming the UN for the failures of a framework that was never properly defined. It’s a cynical, dishonest intellectual pivot that must be exposed. Had Western governments truly abided by the international laws set down by the UN, rather than the US-led rules-based order, the world would not be in this mess. So don’t blame the UN. Blame the US, Australia, the Western world, and yourself, because all of you are responsible for this mess.

The rest of his commentary continues with such lying rhetoric that it needs no further analysis: every word he wrote was/is untrue.

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