But an approach to international order premised solely on respect for sovereignty, together with the maintenance of the balance of power necessary to secure it, is no longer sufficient. The globe’s traditional operating system—call it World Order 1.0—has been built around the protection and prerogatives of states. It is increasingly inadequate in today’s globalized world. Little now stays local; just about anyone and anything, from tourists, terrorists, and refugees to e-mails, diseases, dollars, and greenhouse gases, can reach almost anywhere. The result is that what goes on inside a country can no longer be considered the concern of that country alone. Today’s circumstances call for an updated operating system—call it World Order 2.0—that includes not only the rights of sovereign states but also those states’ obligations to others. [...]
A new international order will require an expanded set of norms and arrangements, beginning with a commonly agreed-on basis for statehood. There cannot be an unlimited right for any and all communities to achieve political self-determination. Reaching a consensus on how to limit such a right will not be easy, but it is necessary lest unilateral actions trigger conflict. A good start would be to amend the concept of self-determination so that it is regarded as something that has to be not only asserted but also granted. (The 1978 Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel, for example, did not extend the principle of self-determination to the Palestinians but rather supported the notion that “representatives of the Palestinian people should participate in negotiations on the resolution of the Palestinian problem in all its aspects.”) [...]
American policymakers must also face up to the reality that any world order will constrain U.S. choices as well as the choices of others. For although it is true that the United States has a special role in the world and unique responsibilities that sometimes call for bold unilateral actions, whenever it demands more of others than it does of itself, it appears hypocritical and forfeits authority and trust. In the South China Sea, for example, Washington has criticized Beijing for not following the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea—even as Congress has refused to ratify that very treaty. (Other similar cases, such as the U.S. refusal to join the International Criminal Court, can be managed through work-arounds, such as allowing for tribunals to be created to handle specific historical events.) Similarly, the United States’ ability to persuade other countries to help refugees more is hampered by obvious limits on what the United States itself is prepared to do in this sphere. The United States must also take care to be transparent: it did little for the cause of R2P when its 2011 intervention in Libya quickly morphed into one of regime change; humanitarian interventions should be narrow in scope.
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