Today’s geopolitical disruptions have hastened the end of the post-war liberal international order, and will create the possibility for a new period of international order-building. Great powers may seek to divide the world into spheres of influence, but middle and emerging powers seek greater autonomy, and oppose the prospect of a world that forces them to take sides.
The liberal international order has shaped and given structure and predictability to international relations for more than seven decades. But the shortcomings of the order are well known. Hypocrisy has been a feature, rather than a bug. Sovereignty has rarely translated into equality. Major powers, and especially the United States, have enjoyed special status, while other states were relegated to the perimeters of the order.
Today, the critics and adversaries of the US and of the old order are both more determined and more capable. They have stoked division in Western democracies, and sought to divide Europe from the US, in a bid to weaken the transatlantic partnership and undermine its role as the anchor of this order. Many states reject the special status granted to the US and are determined to secure their autonomy. Yet few of these states agree on an alternative vision to give coherence and predictability to international relations. Turkey and Saudi Arabia, for instance, continue to seek close relations with the US but also are committed to securing their freedom of manoeuvre – in part, by diversifying their foreign policy through partnerships with China and Russia.
Similar hedging is evident among other rising powers. Brazil may embrace the liberal international order, but it also welcomes multipolarity precisely because it sees this shift as lessening the dominance of the US. India seeks a strong bilateral partnership with the US, but maintains close ties to Russia and portrays itself as a leader (with Global South partners) in the developing world. Both Brazil and India have been denied access to the most prized seats in the major multilateral organizations, but they – and others – are unlikely to accept this exclusion forever. If reform of the UN Security Council remains a pipe dream, or if voting shares at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are not redistributed to reflect changes in the distribution of power, not least China’s rise, these institutions will lose their relevance and legitimacy. Rising expectations among emerging powers will be met through new points of access and influence.
The more surprising developments are those which come from Europe. Political leaders in France and Germany still cling to the fundamentals of the US-led order. But increasingly, these two key European powers seek to enhance their national but also intra-European capabilities and deepen Europe’s collective influence in NATO, with the goal of achieving greater strategic autonomy from the US. At the same time, the power of far-right groups in Europe has grown. These groups openly embrace values antithetical to the liberal order, and pose a continuing challenge to the effort to forge a stronger and more coherent agenda among European states.
The US had always been a reluctant multilateralist, asserting its exceptionalism, rejecting ratification of numerous international legal treaties, and insisting that it have veto power, a dominant voting share or some other legal exemption to safeguard its sovereignty even in the context of multilateralism.
But the most fundamental shift of all has been the turn by the US against the organizing principles of the liberal international order. Many will note that the US had always been a reluctant multilateralist, asserting its exceptionalism, rejecting ratification of numerous international legal treaties, and insisting that it have veto power, a dominant voting share or some other legal exemption to safeguard its sovereignty even in the context of multilateralism. America’s commitments to multilateralism and free trade have also been in decline for more than two decades. Despite this trend, the US has stood by the belief that America benefits from participation in multilateral institutions. That is, until today. The election of President Donald Trump for a second term has brought a sustained attack on multilateralism, the rule of law, and even the sovereignty norm.
This has set the path for a new period in international relations. Conceptually, this next period of international relations can be seen as a moment of ‘reordering’, one that has multiple structural drivers – but President Trump is more than a symptom. He is upending the three defining features of the liberal international order, by rejecting multilateralism and the centrality of alliances, further undermining the principles of free trade, and challenging the norms that underpin democracy at home.
The rest of the world has also changed. China is now a peer competitor to the US, and emerging and middle powers now have the ability to shape and affect outcomes at the regional level. Only some of these states harbour global ambitions. But global problems are in urgent need of international cooperation. Rapid technological advances are occurring alongside a climate crisis, large-scale demographic and social change, and the prospect of a migration and refugee crisis, while global health challenges continue to threaten disruption.
Taken together, these changes signal the need for a new international order. This research paper has offered one lens into the desire by a range of states to contribute to this.
Our research took as its starting point the assumption that in a system where power is far more dispersed than at any point since the Second World War, it matters how states other than the US conceive of international order. We also recognize that the process of order-building is dynamic, interactive and subject to events, some known but some unknown, with varying levels of significance. Many anticipated that the COVID-19 pandemic would lead to a fundamental reordering of international relations, for example. In the end, the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities and imbalances and left many of the fundamentals of power in place. Other developments, such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons, have the potential to alter regional orders but as yet in undetermined ways.
The future international order
It could be two decades before we can safely describe, much less characterize, a future international order. What possible arrangements might we anticipate? There has already been a surge in the number of alternative structures for governing among discrete groups of states, and on discrete issues. This period of dynamism, adaptation, contestation and change is likely to be the defining feature of international relations for the foreseeable future.
The end of the West and of the transatlantic partnership
In response to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the transatlantic partnership demonstrated unexpected unity and resilience, building on patterns of cooperation cemented by a decades-old alliance. This partnership held firm in the face of actions by an authoritarian state determined to violate Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and, in so doing, to strike at the most fundamental norm in the post-1945 order. Now, though, Western solidarity against aggression and norm-breaking looks unlikely to persist. Three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Trump is seeking to strike a deal with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Europe has come under pressure from President Trump to commit to its own defence, and the continent’s leaders are gearing up for more unpredictable and potentially adversarial relations with the US.
This may yield an international order that is bound together by a transatlantic partnership bonded by shared interests, but the confidence in this future has been severely weakened. As the chapters on Russia, China and Iran elaborate, the West has powerful adversaries. At the same time, the US now seems to be re-evaluating its own alignments and unsettling the transatlantic partnership. However, today’s turbulence is not the first instance of division within the West, and the resilience of the transatlantic alliance as a shared geographical and values-based partnership may yet prove to be stronger than sceptics believe.
A dominant China?
Some scholars anticipate that the next phase in the development of international relations will be marked not by international ‘order’ but by disorder, a disorder that China is prepared for and that America is not. Others posit that China will benefit from Trump-related disruptions and is well positioned to become a dominant, perhaps even hegemonic, power in a future international order. The past seven decades suggest that there is an international desire for predictability and stability, even if underpinned by an order that is imperfect. Yet the chapters in this research paper unambiguously reveal that among great and emerging powers, none wishes to see China or the US dominate the international order. For most states, the pursuit of strategic autonomy is designed precisely to avoid overdependence on either the US or China.
Spheres of influence
President Trump’s recent attempts to assert control over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, and his admiring references to President William McKinley, have prompted a flurry of scholarship and commentary speculating that the US might seek to dominate sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere. Such speculation, in turn, has considered the consequent possibility of a return to an international order defined by spheres of influence divided between the great powers.
The prospect of a grand bargain among regional hegemons fails to capture the complexity of international relations today.
How exactly the world might be carved up in such a scenario is not clear. The prospect that America would cede influence to China in the Indo-Pacific, not least on the issue of Taiwan, in exchange for control over the Western Hemisphere would require a major reversal of US policy. For Europe and Russia to reach an accommodation over spheres of influence in their regions would also require a reversal of 30 years of history. Indeed the prospect of a grand bargain among regional hegemons fails to capture the complexity of international relations today. The US is unlikely to relinquish its interests in Australia, India, Japan or South Korea, let alone the rest of Asia. Asia-Pacific states are themselves disinclined to oblige this type of great power contest. Nor does China show any sign of being willing to give up its footprints in Latin America or Africa. Europe’s own collective capabilities to defend and secure a sphere of influence (the contours of which, in any event, would be hard to define) are far from being realized.
Multipolarity
Many of the states covered in this paper describe the existing order as multipolar, rather than as unipolar or bipolar. Some states welcome multipolarity because they believe it gives them an opportunity to diversify partnerships and limit their external dependence. Yet the reality is that global power is far less distributed than some states would believe. Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey are all significant powers in their own right – but by most conventional definitions of military and economic power, the US and China are in a category of their own. The notion of a multipolar world in which there are many powers with regional influence, multiple alignments and a degree of autonomy is nonetheless significant, not least because states believe such a world to exist.
The reinvention of the liberal international order and of the West?
Few today are considering the possibility that the rise of President Trump is merely an aberration, and that his disruption will be limited to a four-year term. Scholars, policy analysts and policymakers are converging, instead, on the assumption that a more transformative and enduring shift is taking place. There is one exception presented in this research paper. In her chapter on Japan, Jennifer Lind argues that Japan benefits from the US-led international order but would prefer an order that is slimmed down, rules-based, embraces sovereignty, and focuses on developmental imperatives and human security. In this vision, human rights and democracy promotion are best left to sovereign states.
It is also possible that democracy in the US proves to be far more resilient than today’s sceptics anticipate. A new US Republican or Democratic Party may still embrace a more calibrated US engagement with the rest of the world. This could see a US leadership make the case for a form of internationalism that is grounded in shared interests and that, while defined by the US national interest, is also in the interests of other states. Conceivably, this agenda might focus on international cooperation to address major global public challenges: technological change (including artificial intelligence), climate change, public health, and of course peace and security. This newly envisioned liberal international order might also provide more scope for regionalism, minilateralism and plurilateralism. It could empower coalitions of the willing, respect sovereignty, and place less emphasis on enforcing human rights or exporting (and imposing) values.
The importance of agency and contingency
The US and those 11 adversaries, partners and allies that we consider in this paper will be among the most influential in determining the nature and structures of the future international order. But other states will be critical in shaping the resilience of any potential for global governance or international order. Africa deserves an entire paper of its own, for its likely future significance. Technological advance, climate change, immigration and demographic change will test the ability of states to cooperate.
In all of this, it is essential not to discount the role of agency and contingency. Structures matter; leadership is too often underestimated. The people, coalitions and resources that political leaders mobilize may also have a large impact – whether by design or by accident – on the effort to forge a future that is desirable, sustainable and prosperous. We should, where we can, take this lesson to heart and choose our leaders wisely.
