Conclusion: The Durability of Liberal International Order - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 248

it will be X, Y , or Z . Moreover, even if we could identify X, Y , or Z as the premier threat
around which all others turn, it is likely to be complex and interlinked with lots of other in-
ternational moving parts. Global pandemics are connected to failed states, homeland secur-
ity, international public health capacities, et cetera. Terrorism is related to the Middle East
peace process, economic and political development, nonproliferation, intelligence coopera-
tion, European social and immigration policy, et cetera. The rise of China is related to al-
liance cooperation, energy security, democracy promotion, the WTO, management of the
world economy, et cetera. So again, we are back to renewing and rebuilding the architecture
of global governance and frameworks of cooperation to allow the United States to marshal
resources and tackle problems along a wide and shifting spectrum of possibilities.
In a world of multiple threats and uncertainty about their relative significance in the dec-
ades to come, it is useful to think of grand strategy as an investment problem. Where do you
invest your resources, build capacities, and take actions so as to maximize your ability to be
positioned to confront tomorrow's unknown unknowns? Grand strategy is about setting pri-
orities, but it is also about diversifying risks and avoiding surprises.
This is why a milieu-based grand strategy is attractive. The objective is to shape the in-
ternational environment to maximize your capacities to protect the nation from uncertain,
diffuse, and shifting threats. Engaging in liberal order building is investment in international
cooperative frameworks—that is, rules, institutions, partnerships, networks, standby capacit-
ies, social knowledge, et cetera—in which the United States operates. To build international
order is to increase the global stock of “social capital”—which is the term Pierre Bourdieu,
Robert Putnam, and others have used to define the actual and potential resources and capacit-
ies within a political community, manifest in and through its networks of social relations, that
are available for solving collective problems. Taken together, liberal order building involves
the investment in the enhancement of global social capital so as to create capacities to solve
problems that left unattended will threaten national security.
If American grand strategy is to be organized around liberal order building, what are the
specific objectives and what is the policy agenda? First, the United States needs to lead in the
building of an enhanced protective infrastructure that helps prevent the emergence of threats
and limits the damage if they do materialize. 17 Many of the threats mentioned above are
manifest as socioeconomic backwardness and failure that generate regional and international
instability and conflict. These are the sorts of threats that are likely to arise with the coming
of global warming and epidemic disease. What is needed here is institutional cooperation to
strengthen the capacity of governments and the international community to prevent epidem-
ics or food shortages or mass migrations that create global upheaval—and mitigate the effects
of these upheavals if they in fact occur.
It is useful to think of strengthening the protective infrastructure as an investment in global
social services—much as cities and states invest in such services. It typically is money well