New Rules for a New World: How Europe Should Respond to an Illiberal Order

The liberal-international order has collapsed, but in its place is arising a hierarchical order dominated by the preferences of three illiberal great powers – China, Russia and the United States. These three illiberal states are converging around a series of informal rules for governing the system which grant them exceptional privileges in their spheres of influence and leave other states in a subordinate, rule-taking position. Rather than accept a tiered, unequal order, European states should work with like-minded liberal democracies and other partners to enact a policy of sustained legal, political and economic containment of the three illiberal powers in the hopes of limiting the scope of their rule-making in Europe and beyond.