Toward a Better Security Order

The world is moving toward three 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 between major powers, along with heated disputes between established and rising powers and the global majority.

Second, the world faces a new set of interconnected 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 them. These include climate change, artificial intelligence, or AI, and other emerging technologies, as well as aspects of the global commons likely to fall victim to “weaponized interdependence,” such as financial systems.

Third, the reaction of the United States to its fading dominance has oscillated between denial, bloc formation to prolong America’s dominant position (e.g., the “autocracies vs. democracies” framing and the “rules-based international order”), and increasingly assertive policies such as tariffs, aggressive military posturing, and frontal assaults on multilateral institutions and international norms.

If left unresolved, these 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.

This could either lead to the collapse of critical elements of the multilateral system and international law or to the birthing of a multi-order (rather than multipolar) world. In such a world, states will no longer differ over competing interpretations of laws and norms but instead will proffer competing sets of rules and norms altogether. Both scenarios would put at risk the ability of states to interact with one another on the basis of universal norms, laws, and multilateral institutions, even those that are limited and focused. This would gravely weaken or even eliminate the constraints that have helped make conflicts less likely.

The multi-order outcome would arguably create a more dangerous and unpredictable situation than what humanity faced during the Cold War. Although the Cold War featured what were, in effect, two separate international orders, this was accompanied by 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. A multi-order reality in which that superstructure is decaying, but that nonetheless remains nested within an integrated and globalized world, could prove even more unstable and difficult to navigate.

Enter the “rules-based international order”

Prior to the reelection of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, these emerging crises manifested through the heated debate over the Western–favored “rules-based international order,” or RBIO. Although a relatively new term, the RBIO had already become the subject of controversy and diverging interpretations. Observers in the West, especially in Europe, tended to view it as a neutral description of the post–World War II order centered on proliferating norms and international institutions. U.S. strategists viewed the RBIO as the only construct preventing the disintegration of inter-state relations into chaos and disorder.¹ Outside the West, however, the RBIO was often seen as synonymous with efforts to reverse the political trends that would allow for a more equitable order, better reflecting an increasingly diffuse balance of power.

These subjective perceptions of the RBIO obscured 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 did not necessarily represent continuity but, rather, an effort to replace an international law-based order with one based on often vaguely defined and subjectively interpreted rules. Presumably, the RBIO existed as a distinct term partly because it was 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, less ambiguous, and consists of verifiable customary practices or legal agreements that states voluntarily agree to. Instead, what we have seen is an international discourse based on “rules,” formulated by a subset of states with the power and intention to impose them on others, which has inevitably led to instances of political manipulation and double standards. Every international order relies, to a significant extent, on informal rules of the game. But one cannot forge an international order based on “rules” conceived by a small group of like-minded states and assert that they have the force of binding norms and laws.

Given the negative perception of the RBIO in many parts of the world, including some democracies in the Global South, aggressively promoting it helped create profound splits in the international community. Precisely because the RBIO had become a contested concept, its dogged pursuit was likely to engender the very chaos its advocates sought to avoid.

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

The White House ostensibly framed the RBIO as a kind of defensive alliance that countries could “subscribe to,” at which point they would have been given security assistance against foreign threats. But just as Washington perceived Beijing and Moscow 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 viewed the RBIO as an instrument to preserve U.S. primacy.⁴

In other words, the RBIO’s primary purpose as a rhetorical tool and strategy was to preserve the West’s status as the world’s preeminent term-setter; otherwise, its remit was decidedly focused on shaping the order of the future rather than defending the institutions and mechanisms of the past. In a less and less unipolar world, the latter can only be achieved by constructing a more inclusive order.

The Trump factor…and beyond

The return of Donald Trump to the White House in 2025 and his disregard for international norms and laws have obscured the structural factors as well as policies that had already put the United States increasingly at odds with the very same multilateral system it once played an instrumental role in establishing. 

When the narrative a superpower tells itself is one of fading dominance, anxiety follows. Confronting growing multipolarity and reckoning with decline are, by all accounts, difficult and have rarely occurred smoothly historically. 

While the personality of a leader like President Trump certainly matters and, at a minimum, shapes style, the contours of U.S. foreign policy are largely conditioned by structural shifts. Systemic decline — manifested in overcommitment, fiscal strain, and technological rivalry — creates a feedback loop of anxiety. This anxiety drives reactive and sometimes incoherent policy choices, as leaders attempt to compensate for diminished authority on the world stage.

The Trump administration’s assertive policies — tariffs, military posturing, territorial expansion, and withdrawal from multilateral institutions — should consequently be understood not solely as a manifestation of the president’s personal whims but also as a national overreaction to strategic erosion. 

Both the Biden administration’s bloc-formation strategy and Trump’s America-alone approach have flowed from a broader reckoning with this reality. Decline, accompanied by the loss of unipolar control, has arguably bred a posture of insecurity — manifesting itself in a retreat from multilateralism and, as time has progressed, intensified norm violations and unpredictability.

Understanding this is essential: policy solutions should focus not merely on the need for leadership but on building a more resilient international order. An American shift away from the current assault on or retreat from multilateralism, and back toward coalition-of-the-willing bloc formations à la the RBIO, would only swap one hostile reaction to America’s relative decline with another. These reactions are two sides of the same coin. And both pose, in different ways and to different degrees, critical challenges to today’s universal order based on multilateralism and international law.

A changing security order will create new incentive structures for all actors, giving root to new modes of thinking and redefining the ways in which states conceive of their interests. For instance, 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. The Trump administration has already recognized the multipolar character of the world and declared the unipolarity of recent decades to have been an aberration.⁵ As it gradually ceases to be a unipolar power, the United States may soon discover the value that a universal, law-centered order has had for its security. 

America’s ability to constrain rival powers will continue to wane as its relative power declines. This will fuel the need for alternative instruments to bind rival powers, of which an upgraded multilateral system is the most obvious and readily available. In short, as the global balance of power continues to shift, the bargain of international law — that is, a state’s acceptance of constraints on itself in return for identical constraints on other states — will become more and more attractive to the United States. These dynamics must be taken into account when considering the political viability of deep-seated reforms to the international order’s institutional architecture.

Back to basics

The profound changes and challenges facing the world today require a rejuvenated, inclusive global order with enhanced norms and updated principles for governance and novel mechanisms to enhance stability. Such an order should be 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.”⁶

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, while leaving all actors — large states and small — content with the revised global governance social contract.

An effort is required to close the gap between the reality of an integrated world and the rise in normative contestation witnessed over recent years. Relying on a limited set of common global norms (e.g., respect for sovereignty and the facilitation of trade) will likely prove insufficient in slowing the drift toward a multi-order world, as sub-global institutions and blocs will continue to grow more robust. Rather, what is needed is a series of face-saving and politically viable yet ambitious and forward-looking reforms to strengthen the universal international order centered on the United Nations.

While many norms and institutions of the postwar order are increasingly disregarded or dysfunctional, constructing an alternative ex nihilo risks creating an order rooted in political commitments weaker than those found in the U.N. Charter. The fiction of the RBIO was that if the United States and its allies did not make the rules, then the world would be subject to the law of the jungle. This has proven manifestly untrue. A post-unipolar world can — and, indeed, must — find ways to accommodate diverse perspectives, if we wish to preserve viable avenues for global cooperation and conflict prevention.

Formulating a coherent response to crises

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 more than 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, as well as from all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, or the P5 — 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. In this scenario, 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 appear 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 and containing a total of seven variables that will shape the future of peace and security in this century.

Proposed package of reforms

Under the category of Regulation of Force and Coercion, we present 12 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 AI and emerging technologies.

Finally, under the Regional Flashpoints and Ordering category, we present three proposals to stabilize existing flashpoints in Europe and the Middle East. Both of these regions are currently home to hot conflicts that are further destabilizing 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 diverse backgrounds to imagine and pursue equally creative and forward-thinking solutions in other dimensions of the international order.

While not a panacea, the Better Order Project’s proposed reforms would significantly contribute to 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://2021-2025.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, no 2 (2023): 223–32, 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. Trita Parsi, “What Rubio Said about Multipolarity Should Get More Attention,” Responsible Statecraft, Feb. 3, 2025. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/marco-rubio. ↩︎
6. 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. ↩︎