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1、PerspectiveEXPERT INSIGHTS ON A TIMELY POLICY ISSUEMICHAEL J. MAZARR, TIM MCDONALDCompeting for the SystemThe Essence of Emerging Strategic RivalriesNovember 2022C O R P O R A T I O NContentsCompeting in Systemic Terms1Competing for the Shape of the International System3Competing with a Systems Mind
2、set10Conceptualizing Systemic Competition14Principles to Guide a Strategy of Competing for the System24Conclusions and Recommendations33Notes38References43About RANDThe RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout
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9、CorporationThe United States has now established strategic competition with two leading rivalsChina and Russiaas the centerpiece of its national security strategy.1 Russias invasion of Ukraine in Febru-ary 2022 dramatically raised the intensity of that bilateral rivalry and the general tenor of glob
10、al competition. Many recent analyses have concluded that the United States is engaged in classic strategic rivalries with both countries, likely to persist for decades and involve all instruments of national power.2Yet competition is an activity, not a strategy; a means, not an end.3 Asserting that
11、the United States is engaged in a competition or rivalry begs an obvious follow-up question: What is the United States competing for? Toward what end is U.S. strategy directed, and what then does this make the rivalries fundamentally about?Competing in Systemic TermsIn this Perspective, we contend t
12、hat the United States should conceive of these rivalries primarily in systemic terms. In one sense, this means something straightforward: The United States should seek to maintain predominant influence over the international systemits institutions,rules, norms, processes, networks, and values. In th
13、e lead-ing rivalry in world politics today, for example, the United States and China are competing to establish the founda-tional global paradigmthe essential ideas, habits, and expectations that govern international politicsand the broader system that produces that paradigm.4 That system includes a
14、ctors or nodes ranging from states to industries, institutions, and nongovernmental organizations, as well as the relationships among them, such as agreements, rules, and forms of mutual exchange. Each of the main rivals is seeking to shape these components of the international system to produce an
15、order oriented to its interests, goals, and values.But competing in systemic terms also implies a second requirement, one more abstract and far more challenging to fulfill: to think and act in systemic termsto develop strategies that are inherently designed to shape holistic, indirect, and networked
16、 systemic effects as much as, and even more than, successes on individual disputes. That means moving away from linear, problem- and issue-specific strategies and working to generate broader and more indirect effects. The United States cannot ignore individual challenges and will not always have the
17、 time or institutional capacity to look beyond their narrow focus1when it chooses policies. But as much as possible, compet-ing in systemic terms means focusing on the whole rather than its parts, thinking in terms of indirect and secondary outcomes, and shaping systemic effects to its advantage. It
18、 means “understanding the system as a system and giving primary value to the relationships that exist among seem-ingly discrete parts.”5In this Perspective, we make two arguments. First, in these growing rivalries, the United States is principally competing for predominant influence over the structu
19、re of the global system, including institutions, rules, and norms. In this concept, the work of bilateral competition, or nego-tiation over specific issues, is instrumental toward estab-lishing the system structure and ultimately to the emer-gence of a global paradigm. When the system structure and
20、related norms are aligned with U.S. national interests and values, competition occurs in a context of incentives that works in the United States favor.But trends in any international system are fluid and emergent. Because the world is continually evolving, these systems must actively be maintained,
21、and sometimes rede-signed, if they are to continue reflecting U.S. interests and preferences. At some moments, the international system arrives at inflection points where a much greater number of its essential rules and values are at stake. Given the cur-rent stresses on the liberal world order, now
22、 is one of those times. We argue that a systemic perspective is essential for developing a strategy to shape the outcome of this systemic reset.Second, in the process of pursuing this overarching strategic imperative of shaping the system, the United States must make strategy and undertake specific
23、policy initiatives through a lens of system dynamics. That means a constant effort to place individual actions in the con-text of systemic realities, and to appreciate the nature of systems as opposed to discrete, issue-specific action. The United States must not only compete for the system. It must
24、 compete using systemic strategies.This analysis builds on several prior RAND Corpora-tion reports that have assessed both the nature of inter-national orders and the nature of the emerging rivalries.6 In the following sections, we explore areas of dispute in the current shape of the international s
25、ystem; introduce systemic competition as a conceptual frame to think about competition for the international order; illustrate histori-cal and contemporary examples of systemic orders; assess the current U.S. capabilities for developing system-shaping strategy; and identify principles to guide devel
26、opment of national strategy for competing for the system.The United States is principally competing for predominant influence over the structure of the global system, including institutions, rules, and norms.2Competing for the Shape of the International SystemScholars and analysts have offered multi
27、ple theories about the fundamental character of the U.S. rivalries with Russia and, especially, China.7 In the case of China, some view the competition as primarily military, involving a con-test for supremacy in the Indo-Pacific. Others see it as an economic-technological contest for dominance of a
28、 hand-ful of cutting-edge industries. A few focus on the ideologi-cal aspects of the rivalry. Our case for the centrality of systemic factors relies on two primary sources of support. One is historicalin the following section, we briefly make the case that the history of various eras of order-buildi
29、ng demonstrates the importance of systemic factors in deter-mining geopolitical outcomes. The second source of sup - port is the evidence of clear Chinese strategic objectives and tools oriented toward a systemic competition. We sum-marize these below.We do not argue that the U.S. rivalries with Chi
30、na are Russia are only competitions for the system. They clearly have military, economic, and technological components. Some of those discrete contests can have important echoes through the system: For example, were U.S. military power in the Indo-Pacific to decay to the point of being clearly outma
31、tched by China, that development would have pro-found systemic implications. Our argument is merely that, both in terms of the leading objectives of the competitors and the most important mindsets for competition, a sys - temic approach should provide the essential framework for how the United State
32、s approaches these rivalries.The Historical Importance of Competing for the SystemThe history of a series of systemic rivalries from ancient times to the postCold War order highlights the competi-tive advantage that nations can gain from defining the pre-vailing regional or global system and paradig
33、m. In ancient Greece, Athens reached the apogee of its power in part by dominating trade in the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas through various means, including its alliance network, the Delian League. Rome gained advantages from a similar control of regional seaborne trade after its defeat of Car-tha
34、ge, but even before that Rome had worked to generate an order of supportive (indeed quasi-vassal) city-states throughout Italy. Even in these ancient cases, the systems that grew up around these city-states were far more than the product of empire: They included flows of trade, net-works of ideas an
35、d scientific exploration, and an increas - ingly interconnected elite class. Leading powers became magnets for the systemic dynamics of their era.8In Europe beginning in the 17th century, a new system based on more formalized national sovereignty emerged at the end of the Thirty Years War, typically
36、 called the West-phalian System.9 It represented an effort to stabilize Euro-pean politics and reduce the incidence of war by building greater respect for the norm of state sovereignty. The resulting context created the basis for national competitive advantage: Political entities that managed to dev
37、elop into more coherent, stable, competitive states accumulated more power and influence than those that remained more frag-mented and ill-governed.More recent historical examples also highlight the importance of systemic effects in global rivalries. The Brit-3ish Empire, spanning from the mid-1600s
38、 until the end of World War II, was a network of colonies and dependencies managed through a series of economic, social, and legal relationships that effectively amounted to a comprehen-sive systemic architecture to promote British interests.10 Its economic relationships included flows of goods and
39、resources with colonies, dominions, and trading partners, maintained through a preeminent maritime network.An accompanying set of social and cultural relationships included migration, language, and rule-of-law standards prevalent throughout the Commonwealth as coloniza-tion spread military, economic
40、, and religious influence. The empire also reflected legal relationships, maintained through widespread use of the English common law and statutory law systems, which were diffused by settlers and traders and adapted to local environments.Through these arrangements, the British Empire gen-erated sub
41、stantial political, economic, and social influence for a relatively small island nation. At its peak in the early 20th century, the empire covered nearly a quarter of both the world population and total land area. It is important to stress, however, that all of these effects depended on larger syste
42、mic processes well beyond direct British impe-rial activities. Britain, in a very different way but somewhat akin to Athens and Rome before it, became the hub of the dominant networks of exchangeeconomic, intellectual, and culturalof the time. It came to have decisive influ-ence over the trends in t
43、he larger system.While the British Empire was maintaining a global system of colonies, dominions, and trade, the major powers of continental Europe gathered in Vienna in the wakeof Napoleons 1815 defeat at Waterloo. They developed a series of alliances and mechanisms for dispute resolutionintended t
44、o strengthen cohesion among the continental powers, suppress revolutionary and liberal movements, and maintain the balance of power for established governments and monarchies. The arrangements came to be known as the Concert of Europe or Vienna System and persisted, with some adaptations, for nearly
45、 100 years until the dissolution of the alliance in advance of the outbreak of World War I.11 These agreements provided benefits to members and cre-ated costs to leaving the system or transgressing it. Eventu-ally, cracks began to emerge with shifting alliances, but in dominant terms for a century t
46、hroughout Europe, through the Crimean War, and beyond, the Vienna System achieved important geopolitical effects by shaping systemic realities and incentives.Perhaps the most important and successful system-level strategy in the modern era emerged in Europe after World War II, with the Marshall and
47、Schuman Plans and the effort to begin the integration of Europe.12 The Schuman Plan, for example, sought to align the interests of industry, unions, and political leaders on the principle of interdependence, facilitated through economic and security cooperation.13 Cooperative agreements over the min
48、ing and processing of coal and steel led to the Euro-pean Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), enabling France, West Germany, and the Benelux countries to rebuild economically while making war among them materially difficult, or even impossible. With the principle of interde-pendence established, other nations joined additional trade and political unions, leading to the European Economic Community (Common Market) and eventually the Euro-