Partners in Preventive Action: The United States and International Institutions

Paul B. Stares · Micah Zenko

Jan 2011 · CSR (New York, N.Y.) Book 62 · Council on Foreign Relations

About this ebook

The unipolar moment, to the extent it ever existed, has now truly passed. The United States is part of a globalized world, in which the flows of goods, finance, people, and much more connect us to other countries as never before. But for all the myriad benefits globalization brings, it also means that the challenges of the coming decades -- be they generated by resource competition, climate change, cybercrime, terrorism, or classic competition and rivalry -- cannot be solved or even mitigated by one country alone. Countries will need to cooperate on policies that extend across borders to address issues that affect them all. In this report, the authors argue that the United States should increasingly look to international institutions -- the United Nations and regional organizations like the European Union, the African Union, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- as partners in conflict prevention and peacemaking worldwide. These organizations can serve as a platform for developing and enforcing international norms; provide a source of legitimacy for diplomatic and military efforts; and aggregate the operational resources of their members, all of which can increase the ease and effectiveness of American peacemaking efforts.

About the author

Paul B. Stares is the General John W. Vessey senior fellow for conflict prevention and director of the Center for Preventive Action (CPA) at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Prior to joining CFR, Stares was the vice president and director of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the United States Institute of Peace. He worked as an associate director and senior research scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation from 2000 to 2002 and was a senior research fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs and then director of studies at the Japan Center for International Exchange from 1996 to 2000. From 1984 to 1996, he was a research associate and later a senior fellow in the foreign policy studies program at the Brookings Institution. He has also been a NATO fellow and a scholar-in-residence at the MacArthur Foundation's Moscow office. He is the author or editor of ten books and numerous articles and reports, including most recently the CFR publications "Enhancing U.S Crisis Preparedness" (Policy Innovation Memorandum No. 4), "Military Escalation in Korea" (Contingency Planning Memorandum No. 10), Enhancing U.S. Preventive Action (Council Special Report No. 48), and Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea (Council Special Report No. 42).