SHF2026｜Thomas Fingar

Thomas Fingar

Former Assistant Secretary of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, USA;

Shorenstein APARC Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

Good morning, and welcome to everybody attending. I am delighted to be back at Fudan. I am grateful to my very good and long-time friend, Wu Xinbo, as well as the other organizers of the forum, for extending the invitation for me to participate.

The invitation, and the title of the Forum, prompted me to think more systematically about the perils of transition to an as yet undefined new order. The now 80-year-old international system has contributed to unprecedented peace and prosperity, but it is no longer capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century. We must—and we can—build a better system. But doing so will not be easy, and it will not be fast.

When the young people here today reach the age of most of the speakers, I hope they will be able to describe the next few decades as an age of reconfiguration, innovation, and co-governance. The title and organizing framework of this year’s Shanghai Forum represent an optimistic prediction of how developments will unfold. I hope it proves to be accurate.

But experience has taught me that the transition from the U.S.-initiated and U.S.-led global system that has prevailed for nearly eight decades to whatever comes next will be contested, messy, and far from inevitable.

What happens will reflect—and result from—the myriad decisions made by governmental and non-governmental actors across multiple countries. Political agency, political skill, and chance—or serendipity—will all play a role in shaping the outcome. This reality makes confident predictions about both process and outcomes—whether based on political theory, historical examples, or ideological preferences—highly uncertain. In many cases, such predictions are used as substitutes for vision, consensus-building, and the kind of step-by-step adjustments that are essential along the way. 

Process matters.

I anticipate that we will hear many thoughtful proposals and predictions about the transition to a new global order during the next two days, and I very much look forward to hearing them. As I listen, I will pay particularly close attention to the precision of the proposals offered for achieving the projected or desired outcomes. Positing a desired end state without a strategy and a detailed plan to achieve it is not very helpful. Indeed, it is little more than an expression of aspiration. If we are to prepare for—and shape—the future, we must focus as much on process as we do on desired or anticipated outcomes.

The efficacy and character of the transition process will affect all nations and peoples, and are far too important to be left to chance. Projecting the future by declaring that China will replace the United States as the global hegemon, that the United States will revert to past practices after the 2028 presidential election, that all countries will have a greater say in shaping and managing the international system, or by offering any other idealized or realist depiction of the future—none of this tells us how such an end state will actually be achieved.

The central point of my remarks today is this: we share both an obligation—and indeed a necessity—to devote at least as much attention to process, and to “how” questions, as we do to predicting or expressing preferences for particular end states.

Basic questions must be addressed: Who will organize and lead the transition? Which institutions must be preserved, reformed, reconfigured, or replaced? Which objectives should be given the highest priority, and how can they best be integrated?

These are not the only process-related questions, but they illustrate the complexity of the challenge. How these challenges are framed—and who leads the effort to address them—are critical questions, and they do not have obvious or predetermined answers.

If you hope or expect that I will provide definitive answers to these questions, I am afraid you may be disappointed. I do not have a roadmap or a blueprint for resolving these dilemmas, prioritizing tasks, or assigning responsibilities to individuals, nations, or institutions. I do, however, have an approach—one shaped by my own experience, including when I was asked to lead the largest reform of the United States national security establishment since 1947. Put simply, I cannot offer definitive answers. But I can suggest ways to approach the challenges.

The first is that we must learn from the past. A useful—indeed necessary—first step is to understand how and why the existing system evolved, and what it was originally intended to achieve. The so-called U.S.-led, rules-based liberal international order, launched after the Second World War and still functioning—albeit imperfectly—was conceived and developed under conditions very different from those we face today. Those conditions shaped perceptions, priorities, and possibilities. They also included the unusual—and likely not reproducible—role of the United States. Any effort to reform and reinvigorate the global order must begin with a clear understanding of what has changed, and how those changes shape—and constrain—the possibilities before us.

Examples of these changes include the fact that no nation—or even group of nations—today dominates the international system to the extent that the United States did in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. There are roughly 140 more countries today than there were in 1945. Equally important, the world has become far more integrated and interdependent than it was then.

U.S. policies in the late 1940s were designed to constrain imperial rivalries and prevent the re-emergence of the conditions that had produced the Great Depression and global conflict. They were also intended to preserve American influence, promote prosperity, and build a stable, rules-based international order. However, Washington’s universalistic vision was quickly frustrated by the Cold War and the emergence of a rival system led by the Soviet Union. Until 1992, there existed two nearly diametrically opposed visions of global organization.

The U.S. vision sought to replace imperial competition and the pursuit of power through autarky and self-reliance with a system designed to reduce the risk of war and enhance collective prosperity through mutually beneficial interdependence. By contrast, the Soviet vision—often described as “socialism in one country”—sought, much like earlier imperial systems, to maximize state freedom of action by limiting trade and other forms of interdependence.

This is, of course, an oversimplification. But I offer it in order to highlight four critical differences between then and now.

The first difference is that, prior to 1992—following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991—there existed two clearly defined alternative visions and structures. These divided the world into members of the free world, the socialist bloc, and a group of non-aligned nations that avoided formal affiliation with either Washington or Moscow. In practice, many of these non-aligned states adopted policies closer to the Stalinist model, prioritizing self-reliance over prosperity. Today, no such clear or fully articulated alternative exists. Instead, we face a waning and deteriorating order without a ready replacement.

Virtually all nations now have a stake in preserving key elements of the rules-based system—but not necessarily all of them. Simply abandoning the existing order or replacing it wholesale with a ready-made alternative is not a viable option. The only economically and politically feasible path is to make incremental adjustments that preserve core functions until a more effective system can be developed. Whether a new system can be established more quickly than the current one deteriorates remains an open question. My expectation is that most stakeholders will prioritize slowing the erosion of the existing order over attempting to construct a demonstrably superior alternative in the near term.

The second difference is that the United States was once so preeminent that it could afford to provide asymmetric security and economic benefits in order to reduce the risk of war and promote development and prosperity among its partners. This took the form of extended security commitments—obligating the United States to defend others without requiring equivalent commitments in return—as well as preferential access to U.S. markets, capital, training, and other resources. These policies contributed to the longest period of sustained peace and prosperity in modern history.

They were strongly supported by American voters, who understood their strategic logic and benefited from them directly. For many years, the United States grew wealthier as its partners became more prosperous. This acceptance of asymmetry was a critical component of the system. However, today, policies that favor partners that are now stronger, wealthier, and more competitive are increasingly difficult to justify to the American public.

The third difference is that what began as an American initiative gradually evolved into a shared and highly valued foundation of global order. This transformation began with U.S. allies and, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, expanded to include nearly all countries. What was once accurately described as a U.S.-led global order has become indispensable to all. As a result, all nations now have a stake in the system—and understandably demand a voice in determining what should be preserved and what should be changed. This has made both international consensus-building and the generation of domestic political support significantly more difficult.

The fourth key difference is that the United States has been unusually—and perhaps uniquely—willing to accept constraints on its own freedom of action through international norms, rules, and multilateral institutions and commitments. This was, in many ways, an unnatural act for a major power—let alone for an unrivaled hegemon. Washington did not always conform to the rules that it helped to create, but it did so most of the time. Whether the most powerful members of any successor system will be equally willing to do so cannot be assumed—particularly given the demonstrated unwillingness of some regimes to be bound even by their own constitutions.

So how do we diagnose the problem?

The U.S.-led global order worked well for the United States and its partners for several decades. But for many years now, it has been losing both effectiveness and support. What went wrong?

Answering that question is critical to all efforts to prolong the effectiveness of existing institutions until they can be reformed or replaced—and to designing any viable successor system. It is both far too easy—and fundamentally wrong—to attribute these challenges solely to the personality and actions of President Trump. He is a symptom, and in some respects an exacerbating factor, but not the root cause of the problems we face today. This point deserves further elaboration, but not in this talk.

In fact, perhaps because of the central role the United States has played in this system, Americans have recognized the need for change for more than three decades. Administrations from George H. W. Bush to Joe Biden have attempted different approaches. These have ranged from Bush’s idea that the United States and Russia might jointly lead the world in a kind of “G2” framework, to Clinton’s efforts to reinvigorate the United Nations system, to Biden’s emphasis on strengthening alliances and, in some respects, reviving elements of Cold War rhetoric. None of these approaches proved successful.

President Trump pursued a fundamentally different strategy—rejecting continued reform efforts in favor of attempting to dismantle the system altogether, on the assumption that only by breaking it could something entirely new emerge. History will determine whether this approach proves more successful than earlier efforts to reform or replace existing institutions.

Another necessary step is to identify the ways in which the legacy system has, in some respects, become a victim of its own success. A clear example is the incorporation of China into what was then still considered the “free world” system, without requiring corresponding political change. The goal was to facilitate China’s development, prosperity, and partnership in the context of the Cold War. China’s success is, by any measure, a positive development—good for China, good for the world, and good for the United States.

But China’s scale is such that the asymmetries that were once manageable for smaller states and economies have instead undermined public support in the United States for the system itself. This has, in turn, weakened the vision of mutual benefit and shared stakes in a well-functioning global order. Many countries aspire to follow China’s path toward modernization. At the same time, many developed countries have begun to question the wisdom of ignoring differences in scale, and of allowing selective—or “à la carte”—adoption of rules and norms.

So—what comes next?

Everyone here recognizes the value of a well-functioning global order. And I doubt that any of us wish to return to an era defined by imperial rivalry and self-sufficiency. Some may expect—or hope, or fear—that the United States will revert to past practices after the end of the Trump administration, as was attempted in part by Joe Biden following Trump’s first presidency. Let me be clear: that is not going to happen.

The United States and the American people are both unwilling—and likely unable—to reassume primary responsibility for maintaining a system that demands more from them than from others. Simply waiting for the United States to “turn back the clock” is not a viable strategy.

Most countries are already searching for alternatives. While few were ever entirely satisfied with U.S. leadership, most are equally reluctant to exclude or significantly diminish the U.S. role in a future order. The challenge, therefore, is less about pushing the United States out, and more about ensuring that it remains engaged.

I am often asked whether the United States is prepared to share global leadership with China and other major powers. My answer is yes. Historically, Americans have been reluctant hegemons. The United States accepted the responsibilities and costs of leadership not out of preference, but because there was no acceptable alternative.

In my experience, most Americans are willing to share both the burdens and the benefits of leadership—provided that others are willing and able to contribute to maintaining peace and promoting prosperity. The United States has not been displaced by a more powerful rival offering a superior model. Rather, it has, to some extent, stepped back voluntarily—in the hope that China, Japan, the European Union, and others would join in building a more suitable system for the 21st century.

So far, that has not happened. The United States remains such a large and consequential actor that any serious effort to reinvigorate or redesign the global order must include it. Today, the United States accounts for less than 5% of the world’s population, yet produces approximately 25% of global economic output, and maintains the world’s most powerful military. Americans are neither eager nor willing to resume sole—or even primary—leadership across all dimensions of the international system. But neither do they wish to withdraw entirely.

It will take time and sustained effort for other nations to assume meaningful leadership roles, or to move toward genuine co-governance. Persuading countries to accept the costs, risks, and responsibilities associated with global leadership may be the greatest challenge of our time.

The United States has stepped back. The question is: who will step forward? And how those who do will manage the expectations, demands, and needs of 193 countries—and countless other international actors—will shape the future.

Meeting these challenges will not be easy. We should expect missteps, setbacks, and reversals in what is likely to be a long and uneven transition—one that may unfold over years, if not decades.

Good luck to all of us. And thank you for your attention.

(This article is edited based on the recording and has not been reviewed by the speaker.)