NATO in the multi-order world

Abstract NATO has for 75 years been a remarkably resilient organization because it has been able to change when the world changed. NATO's longevity is in large part due to a dual structure, which has enabled the alliance to oscillate between a role as a military alliance and as a community of value. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and global geopolitical shifts such as the rise of China prompted NATO to prioritize its role as a military alliance and to add a new political focus on China. However, this article demonstrates that NATO's reading of the geopolitical transformation is incomplete. NATO should recognize the new global ordering architecture as a multi-order one, which requires NATO to distinguish clearly between the ‘unbounded’ global rules-based order in which several international orders now exist and the ‘bounded’ liberal international order of which NATO is a key institution. NATO needs to develop its policies accordingly—policies governing relations within the liberal international order must be clearly anchored in liberal values and designed to defend liberal international order, while policies governing relations between international orders cannot be anchored in liberal values, but must seek rules-based cooperation in areas of shared interests.