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For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit /pubs/permissions.html. RAND’s publications do not necessarily refect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. R is a registered trademark. For more information on this publication, visit /t/RR2397.Copyright 2018 RAND Corporation 1 As the Second World War drew to a close, U.S. ofcialsdiscussed ways of preventing such conficts in the future.Tey reviewed the war’s leading causes: the economicchaos of the Great Depression; the failure to confrontaggressive revisionist states; and the rise of a hostile andparanoid nationalism within several major powers. Teyconcluded that the United States should work to shapethe postwar settlement, and the character of internationalpolitics going forward, in more structured, collaborativeand rule-bound ways. And they conceived of a number ofspecifc organizations—notably the United Nations (UN);what became the General Agreement on Tarifs and Trade(GATT); and, eventually, the network of U.S. alliances—topromote collective problem-solving; avert protectionistimpulses; and stabilize the world economy, whose healthwould represent the bedrock of any stable arrangement.Te resulting institutions, processes, habits, rules, andnorms became what we now know as the postwar interna- tional order. It was founded on both realist and normativegrounds: None of its founders were under any illusionsabout the relative importance of the great powers, andthe UN Security Council refected the sort of great-powerleadership that has been part of every notable moderninternational order. When the hoped-for global consensusgave way to a bipolar Cold War, moreover, these institu- tions provided the rallying point against Soviet coercionand aggression. But the U.S. architects of the order alsoheld idealistic assumptions about the future of worldpolitics—in particular, the spread of liberal values, botheconomic and political. In the process, they hoped toestablish a foundation for collective problem-solving whilelocking in U.S. involvement in world politics in a way thatwould contribute to peace.Te resulting multilateral sensibility, as well as the con- crete institutions, norms, rules, and processes of the order,have underwritten an incomplete but still meaningfulform of international community. Even the realist scholarand practitioner Henry Kissinger has portrayed the post- war rise of an “inexorably expanding cooperative orderof states observing common rules and norms, embrac- ing common economic systems, forswearing territorialconquest, respecting national sovereignty, and adoptingparticipatory and democratic systems of governance.”1U.S. national security strategies since the 1950s haverefected these same themes and placed a shared order atthe top of U.S. global priorities. As long ago as 1953, andin a document as unsentimental and hawkish as NationalSecurity Council (NSC) Paper 68—whichlaid out an aggressive global application of the containment doctrine— there was a clear recognition of the value of a shared order.“Even if there were no Soviet Union,” it argued, the UnitedStates would still “face the great problem of the free society. . . of reconciling order, security, the need for participa- tion, with the requirement of freedom. We would face thefact that in a shrinking world the absence of order amongnations is becoming less and less tolerable.”2 An Imperiled International Order 2 Te question today is whether this case for the strategicvalue of a shared order remains valid, and whether such avision of a shared order can or should continue playing aleading role in U.S. strategy. A RAND Corporation researchteam, assisted by scholars and policymakers from aroundthe country and the world, undertook a two-year project,sponsored by the Pentagon’s Ofce of Net Assessment, toexamine the issue in depth.3 Te project was inspired by aconcern that the post-1945 order has come under unprece- dented strain from the ambitions of increasingly revisionistpowers, challenges to the underlying neoliberal ideology ofthe order, and more.Te resulting project began with an assessment of the char- acter of international order and the elements and nature ofthe postwar version in particular. Te team examined thehistorical context for international orders, the status andhealth of the current order, the relationship between thepostwar order and U.S. grand strategy, possible alternativeconstructs for order over the coming decades, and the spe- cifc approach to order taken by Russia and China.4Tis essay refects both a summation of these analyses anda restatement and collation of key lessons that fow fromthose analyses. On their own, international institutions andnorms cannot decisively shape the international system, norcan they deter aggressive states. Nonetheless, the overallstudy concluded that the postwar order has boosted theefectiveness of other instruments of U.S. statecraf, suchas diplomacy and military strength, and helped to ad- vance specifc U.S. interests in identifable and sometimesmeasurable ways. In short, a strong international order isstrongly benefcial for the United States. Our research alsosuggests that the seven-decade rise of a shared order hashad identifable socialization efects, and that incompletebut important hints of a lasting international communityhave emerged among the order’s leading member states.Tis is partly in evidence today; nations around the worldshow staunch support for the concept of a rule-based orderas the best international structure through which to pursuetheir individual national interests. One implication, whichwe discuss later, is that if international politics is indeedheaded for an era of intensifed competition, the U.S. roleas architect and leader of a multilateral order is a profoundcompetitive advantage. Yet those conclusions must be counterbalanced by an- other: Te U.S. predominance so characteristic of thepostwar order must give way to a more truly multilater- al order, one that takes seriously the sometimes-diferingperspectives of other major powers. We do not envisionagreeing to every one of Beijing’s interpretations of rulesor ignoring Russian eforts to undermine key institutions;There are limits on the powerof any multilateral order:International institutions andnorms cannot decisivelyshape the internationalsystem or deter aggressivestates on their own. 3 a more multilateral and shared order would simply be onein which decisionmaking in leading institutions is moreevenly shared, new institutions refecting the voice ofrising powers can join established institutions to shape theorder, urgent challenges are handled through multilateralprocesses where many states have a voice, and use of forceto advance liberal values is predicated on truly interna- tional endorsement. Revisionist pressure against the ordertoday, we fnd, is not opposed to the idea of multilateralrules and institutionsper seas much as it is opposed toU.S. hegemony over key aspects of the international order.