Toward a Better Security Order

The world is moving toward two major crises that put the future of international peace and stability at grave risk.

First, the global power balance has shifted rapidly over the last several decades, but the institutions and mechanisms of global governance have not changed to reflect this reality. As a result, the coming decade will see increasingly fierce competition among two or more groupings. One such grouping consists of “like-minded” Western-oriented states led by the United States and Europe, nominally acting in defense of the “rules-based international order” (RBIO). A rival, heterogeneous coalition might be led by China and Russia, irrespective of whether they establish a formal alliance, and feature a collection of states that feel threatened by Western dominance to varying degrees. A potential third grouping consists of states in a resurgent Global South that may chart their own course or increasingly favor one side in the contest between the other two blocs.

Second, the world faces a new set of interconnected crises and challenges in various transnational domains. These call into question traditional understandings of self-interest, security, and sovereignty — and will require new forms of collaboration and governance to address. These include climate change, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies, as well as aspects of the global commons likely to fall victim to “weaponized interdependence,” such as financial systems.

If left unresolved, these dual crises are likely to yield an increasingly fragmented and insecure world that prioritizes coercion over cooperation, is prone to dangerous escalation and arms races, and remains unequipped to manage the major transnational and planetary challenges of our time. Instead of birthing a multipolar world, a multi-order world may come into existence — one in which states will no longer differ over competing interpretations of existing laws and norms but instead will proffer competing sets of rules and norms altogether. This would risk hollowing out those crucial — and universal — norms, laws, and institutions we have collectively inherited, thereby weakening or even eliminating the constraints that have helped make conflicts less likely.

This outcome would arguably create a more dangerous situation than what humanity faced during the Cold War. Although the Cold War featured what were, in effect, two separate international orders, there was still a burgeoning (if imperfect) superstructure accepted by both camps in the form of the United Nations, along with a growing body of international law and norms. Those two orders also learned to operate in relation to each other based on agreed-upon rules. A multi-order world with, at best, a heavily degraded superstructure would be more unstable and dangerous because the boundaries of the various orders would be more difficult to delineate clearly and because these orders, centered on different great powers, would advance different conceptions of what constitutes legitimate interstate and intrastate behavior.

Enter the “rules-based international order”

These emerging crises are manifested through the heated debate over the Western-favored rules-based international order. Although a relatively new term, the RBIO has already become the subject of controversy and diverging interpretations. Observers in the West, especially in Europe, tend to view it as a neutral description of the post-World War II order centered on proliferating norms and international institutions. U.S. strategists view the RBIO as the only construct that prevents the disintegration of interstate relations into chaos and disorder.¹ Outside of the West, however, the RBIO is often seen as synonymous with efforts to reverse the political trends that would allow for a more equitable order — one that better reflects an increasingly diffuse balance of power. 

However, these subjective perceptions of the RBIO obscure even more profound conceptual flaws. While proponents of the RBIO may view it as complementary to international law, in practice, it has been invoked in ways that attempt to contradict and even supersede international law in the service of Western prerogatives and interests.² As such, the RBIO does not necessarily represent continuity but rather an effort to replace an international law-based order with one based on vaguely defined rules. Presumably, the RBIO exists as a distinct term partly because it is meant to imply something other than mere adherence to international law — otherwise, it would not need to exist.

[The RBIO] has been invoked in ways that attempt to contradict and even supersede international law in the service of Western prerogatives and interests.

This is not a trivial matter. The process of promulgating international law is formal and less ambiguous, while the nature of rules is indeterminate, undefined, and susceptible to political manipulation and double standards. “Rules” tend to be created by states or alliances of states with the power to impose them on others, while consent-based international law consists of verifiable customary practices or legal agreements that states voluntarily agree to. One cannot forge an international order based on rules conceived largely among like-minded states and assert that they have the force of binding norms and laws.

Given the negative perception of the RBIO in large parts of the world, including in some democracies in the Global South, aggressively promoting it risks creating profound splits in the international community. Precisely because the RBIO has become a contested concept, its dogged pursuit is likely to engender the very chaos its advocates seek to avoid. 

The RBIO may, for instance, morph into a bloc rather than a global system of norms, principles, and institutions. Alarmingly, the Biden administration’s 2022 National Security Strategy appears to already have conceived of the RBIO as a non-universal bloc of states, asserting that the U.S. “will support and strengthen partnerships with countries that subscribe to the rules-based international order” and “will make sure those countries can defend themselves against foreign threats.”³

The White House ostensibly frames the RBIO as a kind of defensive alliance that countries can “subscribe to,” at which point they would be given security assistance against foreign threats. But just as Washington perceives China and Russia as seeking to “remake the international order to create a world conducive to their highly personalized and repressive type of autocracy,” other actors in the international community view the RBIO as an instrument to preserve U.S. primacy.⁴

Back to basics

Unless the international community makes a conscious and determined effort to recommit to — and upgrade — the norms and laws of the current U.N.-centric order, the competition to set the “rules” of the future risks splitting the world into a multi-order reality that intensifies zero-sum rivalries. The way forward is neither the promotion of the RBIO nor the advent of a rival order dominated by other great powers. 

Rather, these profound changes and challenges require a rejuvenated, inclusive global order with enhanced norms and updated principles for governance and novel mechanisms to enhance stability — an order rooted in international law, multilateralism, and the ability of states to participate on an equal basis regardless of their internal political makeup. In the words of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, the current shift away from unipolarity can, in fact, create “important opportunities for balance and justice, and for new leadership on the global stage.”⁵

A revised international security order must be adjusted to the realities of an increasingly post-unipolar world and foster positive-sum thinking. It should also enable policymakers to transcend security dilemmas and address existential, transnational threats. Crucially, today’s gradual, piecemeal transition toward a more decentered world will not, on its own, address the challenges and dangers of a contested order. Conscious — albeit pragmatic — efforts to foster a set of updated norms for state interaction are necessary.

Formulating a coherent response to crisis

To begin the arduous work to create this rejuvenated and updated security order, the Quincy Institute’s Better Order Project  brought together more than 130 leading scholars, experts, and former officials from over 40 countries in 2023 and 2024 to develop a package of proposals and updated principles for international conduct, adjusted for the realities of our changing world. A diverse coalition, including participants from the political East and West and the Global North and South — including from all P5 countries — have signed on to indicate their broad support for the package, recognizing that the proposed reforms to international law, norms, and institutions will benefit all countries, including the United States and other major powers.

These proposals balance a forward-looking character with an acknowledgment that idealism must be tempered by political realism. In crafting this package, our intellectual starting point was not current realities and their inhibiting political limitations. Instead, we envisioned a scenario around 2040 in which states have adjusted their conduct and perception of self-interest to a series of profound systemic changes — one in which the world has become undeniably post-unipolar, erstwhile cardinal norms and facets of international law are disregarded as a matter of course, and the institutions of the international order have been profoundly damaged. 

From there, we sought to devise mechanisms and reforms to prevent the worst aspects of this scenario by updating international institutions, norms, laws, and compacts to better reflect emerging power realities. This mental exercise enabled the project participants to muster the required political will for systemic reforms that all too often appears lacking today. Though some of the proposals may not become politically feasible for some years, articulating them today strengthens the possibility that states can begin to prepare for the changes that lie ahead. 

Twenty proposals along seven variables

More specifically, this package of reforms contains 20 proposals aimed at stabilizing an international security order in transition, distributed across three categories containing a total of seven variables that will shape the future of peace and security in this century. 

Proposed package of reforms

Under Regulation of Force and Coercion, we present twelve proposals that address U.N. Security Council reform, buttress norms and laws surrounding the use of force, strengthen nuclear risk reduction and disarmament, and regulate the use of economic sanctions and coercion. 

The Transnational and Planetary Threats category includes five proposals addressing the nexus between climate and security as well as the unintended security implications of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. 

Finally, under Regional Flashpoints and Ordering, we present three proposals to stabilize existing flashpoints in Europe and the Middle East, both of which are currently home to hot conflicts that are furthering the destabilization of the international security order and will do so at an exponential rate if left to fester.

Other aspects of the international order are also in need of reform, from trade and finance to public health. However, given the focus and expertise of the Better Order Project participants, this report specifically addresses the international security order without denying the importance of these other policy areas. We hope the report will inspire decision-makers and experts of different stripes to envision similar original and farsighted solutions when it comes to other dimensions of the international order.

A changing security order will create new incentive structures for all actors. While it may have served the interests of the great powers thus far to favor a strategic posture that maximizes their room to maneuver and allows them to bend or even break international law when their interests dictate, a world of more diffuse centers of influence will raise the costs of such conduct. The freedom to disregard norms and laws is more attractive when only a few states can do so. When a larger number of states enjoy that freedom, collective lawlessness risks becoming a threat even to the most powerful. 

While not a panacea, the Better Order Project reforms would go a long way toward upholding peace and stability as the world transitions further away from unipolarity. They would constrain the scope of great power competition while fostering norms and institutions that would help make an increasingly complex world more predictable, peaceful, and stable for the benefit of all.

1.  As Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Chinese officials in 2021: “The alternative to a rules-based order is a world in which might makes right and winners take all, and that would be a far more violent and unstable world for all of us.” Government of the United States, “Secretary Antony J. Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Director Yang and State Councilor Wang At The Top of Their Meeting,” U.S. Department of State, March 18, 2021, https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-chinese-director-of-the-office-of-the-central-commission-for-foreign-affairs-yang-jiechi-and-chinese-state-councilor-wang-yi-at-th/. ↩︎
2.  John Dugard, “The choice before us: International law or a ‘rules-based international order’?,” Leiden Journal of International Law, 36(2) (2023): 223–232, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/leiden-journal-of-international-law/article/choice-before-us-international-law-or-a-rulesbased-international-order/7BEDE2312FDF9D6225E16988FD18BAF0. ↩︎
3. Government of the United States, “National Security Strategy,” The White House (2022): 42. ↩︎
4. “National Security Strategy,” The White House (2022): 8-9. ↩︎
5. United Nations, “Secretary-General’s remarks to the Munich Security Conference: ‘Growing the Pie: A Global Order that works for Everyone’,” February 16, 2024, https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2024-02-16/secretary-generals-remarks-the-munich-security-conference-growing-the-pie-global-order-works-for-everyone-delivered. ↩︎