This report examines options for future U.S. policies with respect to the order. To do so, it distills ongoing debates about the U.S. role in the world and identifies four strategic visions of order that the United States could pursue. These visions differ primarily in the characteristics of the rules of the order: who makes the rules and how binding those rules are on state behavior. The report then considers the fundamental assumptions that would motivate a U.S. choice between these alternatives, and it concludes by outlining policies that the United States would need to pursue to promote each vision of order.

Since 1945, the United States has pursued its global interests through creating and maintaining international economic institutions, bilateral and regional security organizations, and liberal political norms; these ordering mechanisms are often collectively referred to as the international order. In recent years, rising powers have begun to challenge aspects of this order.

This research was sponsored by the Office of Net Assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community.

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