_{Photo Credit: Mark Van Scyoc / Shutterstock, Inc.}

Sustaining, deepening and enlarging the liberal international order has long been a central part of GMF’s mission. In 2017, this order is under assault on multiple fronts, both internal and external, and on both sides of the Atlantic: from populist forces in America to Russian interference in Western elections, from anti-EU movements to the backlash against new trade agreements, from the rise of great power revisionism to question marks over the future of U.S. alliance leadership.

GMF’s initiative on the future of the liberal international order seeks to preserve the open, rules-based system the transatlantic allies built together -- and to develop a comprehensive action plan to reform and strengthen it.  We must address today’s political and economic turbulence in a manner that is attuned to long-term economic, technological, political, and power dynamics.  Before we can act, we also need to understand what is happening. What liberal international order are we defending? What are the driving forces (from populism to technology to globalization) behind the fraying consensus and what scenarios could lead the international order to unravel or adapt? What can we learn from history? Are there models for success we can learn from? All of these questions and more inform our work on the liberal international order, and our aim to identify a way to reinforce and adapt it.