Burden-sharing devoid of U.S. leadership may push others to step up. Yet, thus far it has borne out little evidence that the resulting policies promote American interests in the region. Lacking U.S. engagement to set the agenda and deconflict challenges among regional powers, local actors are incentivized to pursue their own aims, regardless of the impact on the United States—and we should not be surprised if we dislike the outcome.

The announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017 yielded a flurry of predictions of Chinese dominance of the East Asian economic order. The late SeNATOr John McCain lamented the “opening for China to rewrite the economic rules of the road.” Beijing indeed appeared ready to capitalize on the opportunity to push its own trade arrangement—the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)—that it had promoted since 2011. Yet, one year later eleven Asia-Pacific nations signed the revised Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which involved neither RCEP nor China.

Given the prevailing fears, the CPTPP ought to be heralded as a burden-sharing victory. As Mireya Solís and Jennifer Mason have written, “as the United States retreats from its traditional role as champion of trade liberalization, the successful conclusion of the CPTPP has illustrated that other countries can and will step in to fill the void and provide trade leadership.”

When Washington stepped back, Tokyo stepped up. Japan took the lead in salvaging this new agreement from the ashes of the TPP, and the United States certainly benefited. As Matthew Goodman has noted, “the trade and investment rules in areas such as e-commerce and SOEs [state-owned enterprises] established in the CPTPP help advance U.S. objectives even without [American] participation.”

Yet, even in this successful outcome, the CPTPP agreement falls short of achieving the best result for U.S. national interests. While the agreement bolsters a rules-based economic order, its final form eliminated or changed twenty-two provisions most sought by Washington, particularly around investment and intellectual property.

Nor would seeking to join this new trade deal ensure that the United States will achieve its broader economic and foreign policy objectives. As the Japanese minister for the TPP11, Toshimitsu Motegi, stated in April 2018: “The eleven participating countries share the thinking that it would be extremely difficult to take out part of the TPP and renegotiate or change it.” U.S. disengagement on TPP, consequently, has left some $2 billion in income on the table for U.S. firms outside the CPTPP zone.

If not present to promote its own interests, the United States can, at best, hope for beneficial outcomes only if its objectives match those of other nations. Burden-sharing by withdrawal, consequently, may foist the costs of solving problems on other nations, but it also surrenders the initiative to shape the responses to those challenges, and thereby maximize benefits for Americans.

What lessons emerge as to what kind of U.S. leadership and institutions win the quantity and quality of burden-sharing the United States desires? Some cases assessed here offer models, while others offer cautionary tales.

Recognize innate burden-sharing in some institutions. NATO seeks to prevent the immense human and financial cost of Americans fighting wars on the Eurasian landmass, as they were forced to in World Wars I and II. The very existence of UN peacekeeping shifts the burden for implementing deployments away from the world’s largest military power, enabling Washington to play to its comparative advantages of deterrence, defending allies and denial of aggressors. So too, the Global Fund encourages other nations toward participating in a highly-focused effort on the most devastating three diseases to help reduce and ultimately end the epidemics by contributing two dollars for each dollar from the United States.

Value institutions where U.S. influence is weighty and use that influence. The United States need not, cannot and should not lead on each and every issue. However, it should capitalize on the institutions and fora that are aimed at and suited to critical challenges, and in which it wields strong influence. The United States is the undisputed, institutionalized leader of NATO. Our allies, in truth, value when Washington serves as an active agenda-setter. One should take care not to drive them toward alternative arrangements—ones that could prove either insufficient to the task or ambivalent to American interests. UN peacekeeping, imperfect as it may be with misconduct by some troops or unresolved civil strife in nations with deployments, complements U.S. military commitments. Continuing to seek a longstanding goal since Holbrooke’s time of no more than twenty-five percent share is highly justified, but the outcome of the United States once again amassing arrears, of earning opprobrium from others and of under-resourced operations must be averted. The Global Fund accords the United States a significant voice on crucial issues of global health, which it uses to seek results, accountability, transparency and civil society participation in national plans and implementation.

To get burden-sharing, use honey as well as vinegar. The Holbrooke initiative to win changes in the U.S. share of the regular and peacekeeping funding was a tour de force. It displayed the vinegar (congressional conditionality on funding and its personification in the form of Helms) and offered honey (engaging the smallest players, offering concessions on other nations’ priorities and speaking to African concerns in the UN Security Council—including HIV/AIDS). Persuasion and carrots complement demands by providing a more legitimate foundation for winning help that meets U.S. needs.

Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. Pulling out of NATO or obfuscating the certainty of the Article V commitment in the North Atlantic Treaty would hurt U.S. interests more than an alliance with some free-riderism. When NATO allies agree to spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense by 2024, those forming tangible plans deserve recognition—and the time necessary to get there. By paying thirty-three percent of the Global Fund’s budget, the United States persuades other donors to contribute two-thirds to a cause they might not otherwise underwrite, offering an additive benefit to consequential U.S. bilateral programs against epidemics as health security threats. When Richard Holbrooke got the U.S. share of the peacekeeping dues from over thirty-one percent to twenty-six percent in December 2000, it made sense to seize the achievement, even if short of the twenty-five percent ideal goal. Leaving the Trans-Pacific Partnership has removed a U.S. voice inside the tent and lost earlier concessions of value to the United States (e.g., on intellectual property). Japan and others are leaving an empty seat at the table for the United States—like that left for Elijah at the Passover dinner. But even if Washington returns, it will find fewer benefits than before.

Avoid outsourcing action without ensuring shared aims and strategy. Holding Saudi Arabia’s coat while it intervenes in Yemen is just such a case. Instead of an ally serving as regional surrogate or stabilizer in the best vision of the Nixon Doctrine, Saudi Arabia’s actions have worsened humanitarian conditions in Yemen and undermined American counterterror objectives. The United States is sharing intelligence for targeting and refueling Saudi aircraft—without employing its leverage to dissuade decisions with which it may disagree. Devolution of European security decisions, peace operations and fighting pandemic disease to others without preserving a voice in decisions might yield similar poor results, if the burden is picked up at all.

Burden-sharing is not just the vogue du jour. It has been a long-standing U.S. desire and is much merited. Yet qualitative, beneficial burden-sharing requires leadership. That leadership necessitates recognizing a venue that amplifies U.S. influence. It requires using American influence in collective enterprises effectively to advance our security and economic interests. And it requires persuasion as much as tough love. Without a strategy based on such an understanding, Americans are likely to discover a world in which other states let crises go unheeded or act without regard for U.S. objectives. Burdens can be shifted, but U.S. strategic vision and initiative cannot be outsourced in large part to other actors.

Mark P. Lagon is chief policy officer at Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, distinguished senior scholar at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, and co-editor of Human Dignity and the Future of Global Institutions.

Will Moreland is an associate fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution and contributor to The Marshall Plan and the Shaping of American Strategy.

Image: Reuters