Collapse of the LIO triggers global war.

Michael Julian Gaines, “Whither the Liberal International Order? Does an Attenuated Liberal International Order Affect the Propensity, Incidence, and Intensity of Conflict?” Pardee RAND Graduate School, June 2022, pp. 139-141, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/rgs_dissertations/RGSDA2600/RGSDA2685-1/RAND_RGSDA2685-1.pdf.

Thomas Schelling once noted that there is "something we might call the 'inherent propensity toward peace or war' embodied in weaponry, the geography, and the military organization of the time."307 The propensity towards peace and cooperation is intertwined with the self-reinforcing aspects liberal trade, long shadow interactions, and coercive cooperation all of which are inherent in a strong U.S. led LIO. A strong U.S. led LIO enables liberal trade postures that take advantage of Ricardian trade verities and reduces opportunity costs (i.e., enabling economic interdependence and the deterrence of entanglement where the costs of initiating conflict outweigh even some of the most optimistic potential benefits).

Without the appropriate collection and distribution of funds, the role of a state government (particularly, the role internationalist state government who has given up some sovereignty/ autonomy of action) in economic activity will be weakened. Its ability to equilibrate the provision of public goods, address and correct negative externalities, and mandate economic activities that increase aggregate public good/satisfaction (e.g., addressing poorly functioning insurance markets or redistributing tax revenues to address income disparities) may decay further as the overall pie shrinks under mercantilist/beggar thy neighbor economic policies. Governments and policy makers must gain the trust and convey fundamental understanding of the benefits of trade to its citizenry to eschew the forces of nationalist thinking and move back to an internationalist perspective. These inequalities or market failures must be addressed by nation-states and regional and international institutions if the tides of nationalism are to be pushed back.

The LIO enables conditions that incentivizes behaviors to turn strategic complementary games and strategic irrelevant games into strategic cooperative games; the LIO enables core property solutions as it acts as an external force that compels (rewards) cooperation and penalizes defections. Put simply, the LIO imposes external enforcement cost and benefits that influence actor behaviors, increases bargaining spaces, and tilts the scale towards cooperation (i.e., achieving Pareto optimal solutions).

The LIO coerces cooperation based on long-shadow interactions and imposes on costs and grants benefits to states that incentivize cooperative behavior (i.e., the LIO drives interactions to non-zero cooperative games vice zero-sum non-cooperative games). The LIO supported by the long shadow of nuclear weapons and interaction reciprocity constrained the hostilities among the most powerful countries and provided the world a time of unprecedented peace and growth during the post WWII period. The LIO appears to drive interactions from zerosum games to positive non-zero games by increasing the cost of non-cooperation; it increases bargaining space among belligerents which decreases the propensity and incidence of conflict; finally its shapes conditions making the status quo more attractive that influences the risk profiles of state actors that move them from risk seeking actors to risk neutral or risk adverse actors all of which reinforces the other.

Whichever framework the US choses to adopt, it would be wise to consider the coherence with the goals of the framework that has enabled unprecedented influence across the globe for more than 70 years; a framework that has not only assured peace and prosperity in our time but also reduced the cost as a percentage of GDP of assuring that peace and prosperity (i.e., it has increased the inherent propensity towards cooperation and peace). This framework also eschewed nationalist propensities of populist leaders and incentivized closer ties among nations.

That framework is of course the strong rule-based LIO which was conceived of, birthed, and supported throughout its history by the US. Shaping conditions that incentivize cooperation and open doors to non-violent competition through other elements of national power given the maintenance of our national defense posture and strength should be a goal of policy and decision-makers. Now is not the time to abandon our order; now is the time to adjust to new realities and find ways to strengthen the order’s peace and prosperity functions to reduce conflict PIIs. We are at an inflection point in history where one path leads to stability and the other to conflict. It is in our interest to be vigilantly ready to secure peace and prosperity. We can do this if the US remains a leader within the LIO and the current order is not only maintained but strengthened. At least, that is my recommendation and hope.