Page:The Elements of the China Challenge (November 2020).pdf/48

 Second, the United States must maintain the world’s most powerful, agile, and technologically sophisticated military while enhancing security cooperation, grounded in common interests and shared responsibility, with allies and partners. A strong military depends on a strong economy — to provide the resources to train and maintain troops, to purchase the best equipment, and to conduct the research and development to produce the next generation of state-of-the-art weapons. At the same time, a strong economy depends on a strong military — to ensure the open seas, safe skies, and secure communications networks that enable international commerce to thrive. For the sake of security and prosperity, moreover, the United States must rededicate itself to preserving its status as the world’s leader in technological innovation. Since neither security nor prosperity can be achieved by one country alone, the United States must regard the cultivation of allies and partners with whom it can share responsibilities as a strategic imperative.

Third, the United States must fortify the free, open, and rules-based international order — which it led in creating after World War II — composed of sovereign nation-states and based on respect for human rights and the rule of law. Such an order reflects American principles and serves American interests.

Fourth, the United States must reevaluate its alliance system and the panoply of international organizations in which it participates to determine where they fortify the free, open, and rules-based international order and where they fall short. A thorough assessment is long overdue.

Fifth, in light of that assessment, the United States must strengthen its alliance system by more effectively sharing responsibilities with friends and partners and by forming a variety of groupings and coalitions to address specific threats to freedom. At the same time, in cooperation with the world’s democracies and other like-minded partners, the United States must reform international organizations where possible and, where necessary, build new ones rooted in the underlying principles of the established international order. To those ends, the United States must not only share responsibility for peace and security but also must work with friends and partners to reconfigure supply chains to eliminate dependence on China for critical materials and goods; to devise common standards for trade, technology, communications, travel, and health; and, building on such initiatives as the International Development Finance Corporation and the emerging Blue Dot Network, to invest in friendly Rh