The article explores the role of narratives in shaping international order, arguing that traditional understandings of international order neglect the discursive dimension of systems of allegiance. It highlights the importance of strategic narratives in international relations (IR), which provide tools to explain purposeful and sustained discursive coordination around shared ideas of international security and order. The article emphasizes that narratives are essential in underwriting and enabling organization and cooperation at the global level, and that international order has a discursive foundation that has been largely sidelined in the study of international (security) dynamics. The article presents a case-study approach, analyzing the narrative elements used in relation to the rules-based order (RBO), a contemporary metastory of international organization embraced by many states. It argues that the RBO metastory unites a diverse set of beliefs about contemporary international organization and its relationship to the postwar liberal international order (LIO). Political actors in various countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Japan, and others, collectively tell a compelling political story of this order, including its age, nature, purpose, and sources of vulnerability. The RBO narrative serves as a shared geopolitical gaze, fostering mutual security investments and demarcating the boundaries of international legitimacy. It also serves as a pretext for agitating against actors and behaviours seen as violating the principles of that order. The article argues that narrative alliances, which are forms of international discursive coordination, are integral to understanding the dynamics and implications of international discursive alignment outside traditional security arrangements. The RBO narrative is a script that reflects and enacts a particular vision of the world and entwines the present of international relations with established representations of good and bad in global affairs. It is an organizing idea that transmits implicitly or explicitly accepted knowledge of events and actions, and protagonists and antagonists. Both rhetorical contestation and affirmation of the RBO work to (re)create it as a discursive and cognitive reference point to make sense of international dynamics and allegiances. The article concludes that narrative alliances are consequential elements of global affairs. Perceived violations of the RBO may reinforce a sense of shared purpose and in-group solidarity among its supporters. This can result in rhetorical condemnation and serve as a political pretext for sanctions, defensive military intervention, or even offensive engagement. Narrative alliances must thus be understood as integral to dynamics traditionally placed at the core of international security.The article explores the role of narratives in shaping international order, arguing that traditional understandings of international order neglect the discursive dimension of systems of allegiance. It highlights the importance of strategic narratives in international relations (IR), which provide tools to explain purposeful and sustained discursive coordination around shared ideas of international security and order. The article emphasizes that narratives are essential in underwriting and enabling organization and cooperation at the global level, and that international order has a discursive foundation that has been largely sidelined in the study of international (security) dynamics. The article presents a case-study approach, analyzing the narrative elements used in relation to the rules-based order (RBO), a contemporary metastory of international organization embraced by many states. It argues that the RBO metastory unites a diverse set of beliefs about contemporary international organization and its relationship to the postwar liberal international order (LIO). Political actors in various countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Japan, and others, collectively tell a compelling political story of this order, including its age, nature, purpose, and sources of vulnerability. The RBO narrative serves as a shared geopolitical gaze, fostering mutual security investments and demarcating the boundaries of international legitimacy. It also serves as a pretext for agitating against actors and behaviours seen as violating the principles of that order. The article argues that narrative alliances, which are forms of international discursive coordination, are integral to understanding the dynamics and implications of international discursive alignment outside traditional security arrangements. The RBO narrative is a script that reflects and enacts a particular vision of the world and entwines the present of international relations with established representations of good and bad in global affairs. It is an organizing idea that transmits implicitly or explicitly accepted knowledge of events and actions, and protagonists and antagonists. Both rhetorical contestation and affirmation of the RBO work to (re)create it as a discursive and cognitive reference point to make sense of international dynamics and allegiances. The article concludes that narrative alliances are consequential elements of global affairs. Perceived violations of the RBO may reinforce a sense of shared purpose and in-group solidarity among its supporters. This can result in rhetorical condemnation and serve as a political pretext for sanctions, defensive military intervention, or even offensive engagement. Narrative alliances must thus be understood as integral to dynamics traditionally placed at the core of international security.