By experts and staff
“The stable and open international order erected during America’s watch—Pax Americana—is unraveling, giving way to global disarray,” writes Charles A. Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), in his new book, Bringing Order to Anarchy: Governing the World to Come. “A constructive and sustained dialogue about the order that comes next has not even begun. Without that conversation, the new cannot be born.”
Kupchan argues that the world has entered into uncharted territory. The diffusion of power is fueling geopolitical rivalries at the same time that the socioeconomic disruption sparked by the digital age is eroding the social contract of the industrial era and encouraging the rise of illiberal populism across the world’s leading democracies. What lies ahead is “a globalized world with no captain at the helm, no single country or region that calls the shots, and no single conception of order to provide stability.” The United States “can neither cling futilely to the world that was, as Biden did, nor dismantle the old order and leave the United States and the rest of the world standing in the rubble, as Trump appears to be doing.”
“Charlie’s book is essential to our understanding of the international order and its evolution,” said CFR President Michael Froman. “Through detailed analysis, the book provides a new path forward toward a stable world order that addresses the faults of the last.”
Kupchan argues that the diffusion of power will naturally lead to the devolution of authority and responsibility to regions; order will need to come from the bottom up. Yet a globalized and interdependent world will also require centralized governance; order will need to come from the top down. To sidestep the paralysis that has beset the United Nations and other formal institutions, Kupchan proposes a network of concerts—great power steering groups—to oversee global governance. Modeled on the nineteenth-century Concert of Europe, the steering groups would put at the table democracies and autocracies alike, seeking to set aside differences over domestic governance in order to foster cooperation across ideological dividing lines. The result would be “a pragmatic and workable means of establishing centralized governance” in a pluralistic and diverse multipolar world, Kupchan argues.
“Charlie’s book offers a new vision for international relations in an emerging multipolar world as the status quo among countries shifts,” said CFR Senior Vice President of StudiesShannon K. O’Neil. “His work is vital for those seeking to understand the sources of global disarray and prepare for what the future may hold.”
The mission of order-building, Kupchan insists, needs to begin at home. The top priority is forging a new social contract for the digital era. “The United States and other democracies must first demonstrate that they can again deliver for their citizens and durably outperform illiberal and autocratic alternatives,” he writes. “Only then might the arc of history again bend toward democracy and justice. That world, ultimately, is the new that must be born.”
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This work represents the views solely of the author(s). The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.