The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the fragility of the US-led liberal international order, says professor John Ikenberry of Princeton University, but the world should rebuild the system and improve it. Ikenberry, a prominent US scholar whose focus is the liberal international order, acknowledged that the liberal order had been “breaking up” for years and said the pandemic had revealed the system’s limits and the need for international cooperation. “But it’s not done yet,” Ikenberry, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University and a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University, told The Korea Herald in a recent interview via Zoom. “It’s an order that we want to see succeed for another cycle of history. It has been the most successful world order in history, defined in terms of provision of security, the generation of wealth and social justice.” He called on people to defend this order, rebuild it and make it better for the post-pandemic era. “All the great advances in the liberal international order over the last century has been done when liberal democracies have worked together and been dominant in the international system,” said Ikenberry. “We should hope that these countries, led by the US and its allies, can step forward and put forward an agenda for a strengthened set of institutions, regimes and protocols for what might be a permanent pandemic.” For the system to be restored effectively, it will need to be more inclusive, the scholar said. “We are at a crisis. How can we rebuild it and how can we make it better? I think that involves making it more inclusive, not just the same old countries running the show, but broadening the coalition,” he said, adding that democratic countries such as South Korea and Australia need to play greater roles on the international stage. But this expansion is not only limited to the like-minded democracies, but also to those nations that don’t necessarily share similar ideologies, namely China and Russia, he said, stressing simultaneous competition and cooperation. -Korea Herald
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