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can last beyond America's era of preeminence and safeguard its interests in the coming
era when it cannot simply relay on its commanding power position. Ironically, strategic
restraint is a vital aspect of power, particularly in a global democratic age.
Provide public goods and connect their provision to cooperative and accommodative
policies of others. With the end of the Cold War, the task of providing—and getting
credit for providing—services for the global system has been harder, but it is also more
essential than ever. Security, economic openness, stability—these are the aspects of
global order that the United States can still uniquely influence. And it should wrap its
foreign policy in its hegemonic responsibility and engage other states in sharing burdens
with and giving support to it as it renews this liberal hegemonic role.
Build and renew international rules and institutions that work to reinforce the capacities
of states—that is, national governments—to govern and achieve security and economic
success. The liberal international order emerged in the 1940s as a successful system as
it provided services and supports for their expanding socioeconomic and security agen-
das. The Bretton Woods institutions were central to the establishment of a working in-
ternational order. States agreed to make commitments and obligations with the anticip-
ation that a flow of benefits and capacities would come their way in return. A liberal
international order is not just a commitment to open markets; it is a political pact aimed
at providing stability and security in the midst of openness. This logic should be redis-
covered and made the heart of liberal order building.
Keep the other liberal democracies close. Close affiliation with other democracies has
multiple benefits. Working with other high-capacity like-minded states leverages capa-
cities to get things accomplished. It is easier to work with these states and engage in sus-
tained and complex forms of cooperation. In domestic political circles, it is often easier
to make the case for internationalism when it is directed toward cooperation with other
liberal democracies. And beyond these considerations, seeking the counsel of other lib-
eral democracies serves as a potential check on imprudent foreign policy.
Let the global system itself do the deep work of liberal modernization. History may not
have ended, but liberal internationalists believe that history is on their side. Countries
will make small moves over many decades to integrate into an open, rule-based system.
Capitalism and internationally oriented economic development reinforces the commit-
ments that states make to an open, rule-based system. If the world is moving in a con-
genial direction, it is less necessary to engage in risky interventions or brute exercises
of force that end up, directly or indirectly, making the liberal order less legitimate. Keep
the system open, tolerate diversity, and let the complex global machinery of moderniz-
ation push and pull the world on a pathway that the United States, too, is traveling.
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