This article written by Hülya Yıldırım.

The concept called the world order means the international system itself. States had great
battles and suffered numerous losses in the past, to make a world order. Various plans and
alliances were established to bring order to the world from early ages to the Cold War period.
Each established empire wanted to make the world order according to its own ideology and
this situation continued until the Westphalia Agreement. The conflict is between the
Protestantism-Catholicism and political problems, which ended in 30-year wars. The system,
which accepted as the world order today, was projected at a peace conference in the
Westphalia region of Germany. The Peace of Westphalia is a turning point in the history of
nations. It was understood that the building block of the European order was not an empire or
a dynasty and the concept of state sovereignty is embedded.
Before the birth of Protestantism, Christianity was a united society. The governments were
carried out by the church and civil administration. Pope III gave the crown of the Holy
Roman Empire to Charlemagne in the 800. Charlemagne’s successor is Habsburg Prince
Charles (1500-1558). In medieval Europe, order depended on the compromise between the
pope and the empire but the Protestant reform, spiritual and state administration activities
between the papacy and the empire destroyed this concept of world order.
The main element that matters to every state is national interests (raison d’etat). French
minister Richelieu who a cleric at that time, understood this very well. France’s national
interests prevented unification of Middle Europe because France applied to basic principle of
its foreign policy. Two powers emerged in Europe after the Westphalia agreement; Great
Britain as the determinant of the balance of power and France as the leader of European
order
Moreover, international changes in societies can undermine international balance more than
attacks from outside. We can see that example in French Revolution (1789-1799). In
November 1972, the French national parliament issued two decrees and they have been
translated in to every languages. According to this decree, France would support all people
who want to take back their freedom. In this time, Napoleon did not want to be legitimized by
a power other than himself because he wanted to bring his own order to the world and did not
accept the traditional restriction. His ambitions made it impossible to return to the past world
order.