In its basic sense the doctrine of integration argues for a global consensus or a global compact that will define the threats and the challenges of the new era and, very important, will define new rules for the management of the international system.

First the new rules regulating the post 9/11 international system should be developed around new core concepts-conditional sovereignty, responsibility to protect, responsibility to prevent, that should become the pillars of a new doctrine of international community responsibility (along the directions developed in the so-called Blair Doctrine articulated in the 22nd April 1999 speech).

At a second level this doctrine “would seek to translate this commitment into effective arrangements and actions”. At this level the doctrine of integration aims to gradually develop a procedural consensus on the institutions and mechanisms designed for the management of the international system. All in all the doctrine of integration aims to provide a stable institutional framework capable of an integrated and concerted response in order to deal with the post 9/11 security challenges. According to Haass the fundamental task for a 21st Concert is that of reforming the multilateral security system in order to provide to international society the necessary tools, means and assets to deal with today security threats and also to create an institutional infrastructure, an institutional acquis that will assume the tactical management of the system. The doctrine of integration intends to promote a coherent strategic response, a concerted approach that will sustain global security arrangements that will manage common risks with a shared responsibility of tackling them. Today’s international security challenges demand collective answers, global arrangements and tools that will project a concerted approach for today’s new strategic imperatives. Finally, the practical aim of this strategy should be the pooling of power, institutional capacities and assets in order to create a community of action fulfilling the security tasks of the international society.

I think that the ultimate purpose of a grand strategy built on this conceptual basis (liberal internationalism and doctrine of integration) should be the project of building a functional infrastructure of global governance (James Steinberg, An Elective Partnership: Salvaging Transatlantic Relations, in Survival, Summer 2003,page 130) capable of enforcing a constitutional international order (built around the new rules of responsibility to protect, conditional sovereignty ) and using US power, the Euro-Atlantic community and the concert of democracies as vital assets of the international order.

A fundamental point should be made on the concert of liberal democracies concept. In order to become a vital functional asset of the international society assuming and enforcing the responsibility to protect as a core duty of a rule based international order/ or a constitutional international order, the treaty establishing this concert should adopt also a formal clause of structured cooperation similar to the one incorporated in the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, Art.I-40: “those Member States whose military capabilities fulfill higher criteria and which have made more binding commitments to one another in this area with a view to the most demanding missions shall establish structured cooperation within the Union framework.”

This will mean not only creating standby multinational capacities capable of assuming the whole operational complexities of the Petersberg tasks or even the most demanding scenario that of expeditionary war as the NRF (NATO Response Force) is tailored for but also developing an infrastructure for operational planning, joint training and clear standards of interoperability. The Concert of Liberal Democracies should become an enforcement community, a crisis response community focused on developing high readiness capabilities around the European concept of multinational battle groups-some small speedy projectable units prepared for rapid insertion in some very demanding security circumstances. The Concert of Liberal Democracies should be focused on developing a pool of standby and high-readiness capabilities and assets in order to provide to the international society a critical mass of crisis response forces.

Engaging the world as a liberal Leviathan in order to recast the international system, to remake the world around new constitutional rules governing the use of force and making states accountable to the international society, is a must.

The US should not solve all the world’s problems by itself….but it should use this extraordinary window of opportunity provided by the unipolar moment for creating a multilateral “infrastructure of capacity and cooperation” (Ikenberry) capable of projecting a networked response in order to enforce the rules and norms of a constitutional international system.

American policy makers should use the unipolar opportunity to prepare the world for the post-unipolar era by designing a constitutional order and security arrangements that should gradually develop concerted power-projection capabilities for crisis response.

The US should use its unipolar assets in shaping a constitutional design for a post-unipolar moment era, an era far beyond the old classic geopolitical rivalries defined by a 21 st century Concert (Haass) and by a liberal Leviathan (Ikenberry): an enforcement community with networked power–projection capabilities for crisis response; this era should be fundamentally defined as a post-Westphalian world with an hyper institutionalized order structure reflecting a doctrine of international community responsibility (built around the new emerging norms such as conditional sovereignty, responsibility to protect, responsibility to prevent). A constitutional order should be developed as a widely integrative framework offering status-quo incentives to the potential revisionist players.

Octavian Manea