Managing Global Disorder
Project Expert

General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention and Director of the Center for Preventive Action
About the Project
Increasing geopolitical friction between the United States and other major powers—including China, the European Union, India, and Russia—not only increases the risk of major war but also lessens the likelihood that other sources of instability and conflict can be effectively managed. The Center for Preventive Action convenes international workshops and publishes discussion papers on how the United States can best manage the growing risk of a more disorderly world.
This project is made possible by the generous support of Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Events
Blogs
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Despite growing rivalry among the major powers, multilateral institutions like the United Nations can continue to play a vital role in the management of violent conflict. Washington should look for opportunities to work with these institutions and, where needed, bolster their role in cooperation with other powers to manage future regional threats to peace.
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The United States should regard distrust—not cooperation—as a baseline condition for starting negotiations around shared global threats and challenges with other major powers, such as China and Russia.
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South Asia will be both the venue for and the source of intensifying U.S.-China and China-India rivalries. The United States should prepare to manage these rivalries by collaborating with allies and partners, competing with rivals to protect U.S. interests, and grappling with the risk of conflict.
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Major power rivalry on the African continent cannot be ignored, but it should not dominate U.S.-Africa relations. The United States should pursue close, strategic partnerships with African states.
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To manage the increasingly stark geopolitical power shifts of the past decade-plus, the United States should pursue arms control strategies that regulate rivalry and introduce a broader array of reciprocal restraints.
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In an era of intensifying U.S.-China friction and volatility, the risks of conflict are real and growing in East Asia, and U.S. policymakers should revitalize existing tools and build new ones to manage an increasingly militarized competition.
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Great power competition is altering the prospects for managing conflicts in the Middle East. As policymakers rethink the United States’ role in the region, they should avoid the kind of strategic errors that have provided opportunities for other major powers, notably China and Russia, to undermine U.S. policy.
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Although the world seems destined to grow more competitive, congested, and contested in the coming years, the logic of major power cooperation remains inescapable. Any effort to shape a new international order that is stable, inclusive, and beneficial to all must be a collaborative undertaking.
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Relations between the United States and Russia have recently declined, but U.S., European, and Russian experts identify possible areas of cooperation for the two to work together to foster global stability.