The stability all states are seeking

Realism, trade-expectations theory and liberalism agree that states pursue stable conditions; the disorder is a coordination failure. There is a practical way back - a map of where countries sit, a ladder of how pressure escalates, and the levers that have restored balance before.

Authors

The disorder of recent years seems to be how international politics now works. Borders are being tested, supply chains are being turned into instruments of pressure, and rules are being set aside when they are inconvenient. The Strait of Hormuz has been largely closed since February 2026 after strikes on Iran and Iranian retaliation; the US and China have spent three years restricting each other’s access to chips and minerals and agreed in late 2025 only to pause the fight for a year; and global military spending reached about $2.72 trillion in 2024, the steepest rise since the Cold War. It would seem reasonable to conclude that the wise course is to seize what leverage one can before others do. But that is like a self-fulfilling prophesy - acting on it is part of what makes it true.

The major theories of international politics, for all their differences, point the same way. Realism holds that states seek survival, and are most secure when the balance among them is stable and predictable. Trade-expectations theory says that interdependence keeps the peace only while states expect access to continue, so what they want is reliable access. Liberalism postulates that self-interested states build rules because cooperation under clear rules produces gains and lowers the uncertainty that leaves everyone worse off. Evidently, all three describe stability as the goal, even if disorder is often what lies on the path to that goal. History provides us examples of this. Self-interested great powers built the Concert of Europe after 1815 and a rules-based order after 1945 that has kept the leading powers from direct war for eighty years. Power and order has been the aspiration, and while 1914 and 1939 were interruptions, each was followed by deliberate rebuilding. The disorder of the moment is a failure to coordinate.

The first thing to do the coordination effectively is a map. Place any country on two independent measures: its position in the networks that matter - finance, shipping, critical inputs, materials, etc. - running from peripheral user to controller of a central node; and its expectation of future access, running from negative to positive. The two are orthogonal. A controller that expects access to last would keep its networks open, because openness pays. This would be the stabilising corner. A controller that expects to lose ground will very likely turn its nodes into weapons, which is where the chip, mineral, finance and Hormuz contests now sit. A peripheral state, that expects access to last, trades and invests. A peripheral state, that expects to be cut off, arms and stockpiles. India sits here today, trying to diversify suppliers and build its own semiconductor ecosystem, defence and other capacities against a future which seems uncertain and unstable. The concerning spiral is the drift of states out of the trading corner toward coercion, and what moves them is not just their current strength but their expectation of the future. The aim of everything that follows is to move states back towards the open corner, where keeping access flowing serves them more than choking it does.

The second useful tool is an escalation ladder, which recognises how pressure and escalation work. The lowest rung is mapping, where a state just analyses who depends on whom. The next is imposing conditionality - tariffs, licences, quotas, and threats attached to access - which still leaves room to retreat. Above these sits a clear line, below which, moves can be reversed, giving the system a chance to correct itself. Above it, each step leaves sunk costs that make the next one easier and more attractive, and reversal harder: first targeted denial against named firms; then denial across a whole sector, such as chips or minerals; then financial exclusion, cutting a state from payments or seizing its assets, after which trust is difficult to return for years. Today’s contests can be placed on these steps. The chip and mineral controls sit at sectoral denial, and the Hormuz closure has reached the rung above, where economic pressure has turned physical. The year 1941 shows the danger of the upper rungs. After Japan moved into Indochina, the US froze its assets and, with Britain and the Dutch, cut off most of its oil. The freeze was meant as leverage, but officials hardened it into a total embargo, and Japan, with about a year of reserves and no way back, chose war over retreat. This is how most ladders end up getting climbed - by drift, in unintended steps.

The third useful tool in this analysis is a set of leverage points that have the ability to pull the system back, each working through self-interest rather than goodwill. The first is information. Surprise and uncertainty is what makes a rival assume the worst, so the remedy is advance notice and published criteria before a country restricts an export, lists a firm, raises a major tariff or imposes a blockade. After the 1962 Cuban crisis, which Kennedy contained by choosing a naval quarantine over air strikes, Washington and Moscow built a direct line so signals would not be lost to delay, and the 1975 Helsinki Final Act later required 21 days’ notice of major military exercises to stop adversaries misreading each other. The second is access security: long-dated supply guarantees for critical inputs, backed by collateral or neutral custody rather than promises. These could take various forms like, for instance, multi-year contracts a supplier cannot go back on without facing penalties. The aim is to turn expectations positive and make states stop hoarding. The third is redundancy. In 1973, Arab producers cut oil and prices nearly quadrupled, but consuming countries responded by building the International Energy Agency and strategic reserves and diversifying supply, so that no single producer could shut the market down. That system is working now as can be seen during the Hormuz blockade. The Hormuz closure has removed far more oil than 1973 did, yet IEA members have released hundreds of millions of barrels from those reserves, thereby limiting the damage to some extent. The same logic could be extended to chips, minerals, materials, and payments. If one can lower the payoff to coercion until the weapon is no longer worth using, the chances of returning to an efficient equilibrium increase.

None of this requires everyone to move at once, or to trust anyone. A core of countries that adopt notice and supply guarantees among themselves could create terms others would want to join because joining pays, the way the energy agency grew from a handful of consumers into a system that steadies the whole market. Rising and middle powers would be the natural first movers, since they gain most from limits on coercion and least from a free-for-all downward spiral, and India, well placed to become one of the second sources the system needs, is among them. A search for order has been the norm before, built by states no less self-interested than today’s. It is still within reach, if enough of them decide to reach for it together.