IF EVER the modern world faced a “perfect storm,” this is it. The combination of a deadly and highly infectious virus, an emerging worldwide economic depression, the collapse of global governance, and an absence of a coordinated and effective international response—all have contributed to a tragedy of historic magnitude, one that will not be easily overcome. While quarantines and self-isolation have helped mitigate the crisis, few believe that these measures alone can solve it, let alone provide a roadmap for the future.

How this storm will end remains unknown, beyond the virtual certainty that the world will eventually weather it. Eventually, a satisfactory remedy will emerge through some combination of vaccines, improved treatment methods, social distancing, and new mechanisms of international trade. Exactly when and how this solution will be arrived at is difficult, if not impossible, to predict. But it is clear that the internecine political feuding that has consumed America and diverted its attention from dangerous threats must come to a halt. The costs have been enormous.

At the same time, the general approach of governments around the world of narrowly defining their priorities created a climate and context in which the virus emerged and in which necessary precautions were ignored. Ending the pandemic requires effective responses, both individual and collective, from key political and economic powers such as the United States, China, the European Union, Russia, Great Britain, and Saudi Arabia. For any broad solutions to emerge to combat the coronavirus and to prepare the world for similar challenges in the future, we must first explore why and how this unprecedented medical, political, and economic threat developed.

ONE LESSON we should learn is the primacy of sovereign states. The notion that sovereignty is outdated is itself outdated. It is patently obvious that the pandemic is prompting governments to focus on their national interests first. Only on that basis can they then seek to engage in international cooperation. However, the governments of the great powers should acknowledge their collective culpability for failing to identify global priorities and instead taking imprudent steps that diverted attention from issues of major global concern in favor of non-essential and outright cavalier pursuits. Even less justifiable was the near destruction of the international system designed to create and enforce a rules-based mechanism of international trade, and the weaponization of global commerce by states to promote their unilateral interests, subjective values, or domestic political ambitions. Institutions like the UN, World Trade Organization, and World Health Organization (WHO) are not a panacea for world ills. But they can provide useful, if limited, signals ahead of trouble and serve as shock absorbers for international disagreements. As Henry Kissinger has eloquently expressed in the Wall Street Journal, “No country, not even the U.S., can in a purely national effort overcome the virus. Addressing the necessities of the moment must ultimately be coupled with a global collaborative vision and program. If we cannot do both in tandem, we will face the worst of each.”

It is not as though we couldn’t have seen this coming. In the past twenty years alone, there were three major global outbreaks of deadly viruses: SARS from 2002–2004, H1N1 in 2009–2010, and Ebola from 2013–2016. None of these outbreaks created the type of global devastation we currently face, as these viruses lacked the specific combination of lethality, ease of transfer, delayed manifestation of symptoms, and the lack of vaccines and widespread testing infrastructure which allowed the coronavirus to thrive. But each epidemic made clear the prospect for global disaster.

In a globally connected world with increasingly interdependent economies and an unprecedented high-speed flow of both people and goods across the world, it did not require an excessive imagination to foresee the risk of a future pandemic. Indeed, international bodies such as the World Health Organization, non-profits such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and domestic government agencies such as the Center for Disease Control all sounded the alarm on the lack of preparedness. The 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community, issued by President Donald Trump’s own Director of National Intelligence, warned “that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.” However, none of these warnings developed any real political momentum in the United States or elsewhere. Instead, they were simply registered and discussed in passing.

Like most countries, the United States tended to address immediate challenges that had receptive audiences at home. Congress devoted much of its energies to debating the use of economic sanctions against any nation that did not comply with America’s perceived interests and values, regardless of whether that state was a true threat to America’s national interest, or even whether these “values” were backed up by a domestic political consensus. With the Trump White House continuing the pattern of post-Cold War administrations to employ trade as a political weapon which could be used to achieve both international and domestic goals, major trade confrontations quickly followed. The European Union went even further, determining that its mandate expanded far beyond the questions of tax and economic policies which inspired its inception. Instead, the EU sought to impose its values beyond its borders, including with relying on force in the Balkans, where Europeans had strong political opinions but limited geopolitical and economic interests. The world’s most powerful nations began thinking not in terms of their fundamental national priorities, but, rather, how they could maximize their immediate competitive advantages.

Domestic problems also crowded out any space for action on this issue. Contrary to what George H.W. Bush said about America becoming a kinder, gentler nation, what we need is for it to become tougher and more focused. Consider illegal immigration. The liberal social engineering engaged on immigration—most prominently by the Obama administration—ensured that cities and states devoted precious resources to integrating illegal immigrants, both in terms of education and healthcare costs. Had America not expended huge sums on those who were in the United States illegally it would have had the resources to focus on looming threats such as a pandemic. The pandemic illustrates that America cannot indulge in what seems desirable, but must remain alert to top threats and challenges. In the increasingly politically polarized United States, inattention to viral threats was one of the few matters which crossed party lines. While congressional Democrats focused heavily on the threat posed by climate change, no such call to action emerged to address the demonstrable threat of global pandemics. Furthermore, since Trump was elected president, the Democrats adopted a “take no prisoners” war against the administration, culminating in February’s failed attempt to remove the president from office, which many Republicans interpreted as little short of an attempted coup. Trump easily survived impeachment and, until the virus became an epidemic, was on something of a roll. But with so much of his administration’s attention constantly turned toward waging partisan struggles, there was little push from inside the White House to focus the federal government’s energy on less obvious but still existential threats. There were senior officials in the Trump administration who sounded alarms about the pandemic danger but went unheeded. Festering partisanship rendered any attempts at long-term planning wholly unrealistic.

WHILE THERE are hopeful signs coming from China and elsewhere that social distancing and carefully designed quarantines can work, the time and the economic and human sacrifice needed for these measures to end the crisis are impossible to predict. The president appears to believe that he can master this crisis in a matter of weeks, and there is something to be said for projecting hope and optimism to a country that is currently short on both. What is not acceptable, however, is to act cavalierly upon these optimistic assumptions. As Dr. Anthony Fauci suggests, when it comes to health crisis contingency planning, the only correct approach to the current crisis is to assume the worst precisely in order to avoid it. For a country as rich as the United States, there is no good reason not to spend the requisite funds to acquire any equipment, supplies, and manpower needed to prepare for this worst-case scenario. Should this money prove to have been spent needlessly, it would still pale in comparison to the costs that would be incurred should the worst come to pass.

Finally, America requires an effective communication strategy. Congress, the administration and the Democrats’ likely presidential nominee Joe Biden cannot reasonably be expected to speak with one voice, especially during an election year. However, it is not unreasonable to expect the Trump administration to present a clear, unified message to the American people. Every day, Americans receive multiple contradictory statements from the administration about the nature of the crisis, the government’s response, and what is expected of them. This confusion, often highlighted by the media, is unacceptable, and it is the responsibility of the president to put an end to it.

A PRUDENT international response is also required. It is clear that America’s primary foreign policy focus should be on stopping the pandemic, that steps such as travel bans and quarantines must continue, and that some limits on exports of essential medical supplies are appropriate and inevitable. But, in trade policy as in life, there can be too much of a good thing. The last thing America needs is to allow necessary restrictions to produce further animosity, and particularly trade wars, with other major powers. China is the most obvious point of concern. While America’s excessive reliance on Chinese medicine and manufacturing clearly must be addressed, these problems must be attacked with a scalpel rather than an axe to avoid triggering a global economic depression through further U.S.-China trade confrontation.

Of course, China remains a potent geopolitical rival to the United States and each side bears some blame for the erosion in the longstanding ties between the two nations. Beijing may even emerge as a stronger one from the coronavirus crisis and Washington must seek to ensure that it does not supplant its influence and power in the Pacific. Then there is Russia. American actions may have contributed to a deterioration in our relations with Russia, but that does not mean that it should lurch to the extreme of dismissing the challenge posed by Moscow. Nor does it imply that America should hesitate to defend NATO members in the face of genuine Russian aggression. Quite the contrary.

Furthermore, American politicians must be realistic about the potential consequences of its foreign policy. We must recognize at long last that, since the end of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy has lacked a true strategic direction. Indeed, American triumphalism after 1989 boomeranged. Too often Washington defined countries as enemies not on the basis of clashes of military or economic interests, but merely if they subscribed to a disagreeable political system. Nations such as Russia bridled at America's claim to primacy, partly due to predictable pride, partly on the basis of real national interests. The irony was that in cavalierly treating these nations as adversaries, America made it difficult to work with them in international institutions to create a new and stable global framework. America became preoccupied with parochial pursuits at the expense of the issues which are truly essential for American prosperity and security. It was in this climate that existential global threats such as the current pandemic were left unaddressed in favor of the unilateral pursuit of short-term objectives and outright posturing, often producing results that proved inimical to America’s national interest.

For instance, the administration’s campaign against Nordstream II, which Russia perceives as an effort to elevate the United States as the global leader in oil and gas production, has contributed to Moscow rejecting the continuation or expansion of current OPEC-initiated constraints on oil production, which established limits on Saudi Arabia and Russia that allowed American energy growth to skyrocket. While the resulting collapse in oil prices is beneficial in the short term to the American consumer, they are devastating to America’s Gulf allies such as Saudi Arabia and damaging in the long run to the U.S. shale industry, which cannot survive if oil prices remain anywhere near their current low levels. That this dramatic decline in oil prices has upended international markets at the least opportune moment for the United States is particularly frustrating, since America’s primary interest in stopping Nordstream II (forcing Russia to continue using Ukrainian pipelines), pales in comparison to its interest in a stable oil market.

Reforming American foreign policy requires nothing less than the recognition that the liberal world order—the battle cry of global elites on both sides of the Atlantic—was largely a myth rooted in illusions and double standards. Since the times of Aristotle, there has always been a debate over the relative merits of democracy and autocracy and what combination of the two is the most appropriate for a particular society under particular circumstances. Rendering democracy promotion one of America’s defining foreign policy objectives was always bound to create a powerful international backlash. It ensured that China and Russia would combine against American interests and forced the United States and Europe to whitewash misbehavior by their allies as they proclaim loyalty to the new Atlanticist hegemon.

By what perverse logic, for instance, could it be considered a priority for the West to demand Crimea’s return to Ukraine when Crimea was not only historically a part of Russia, but had an overwhelming Russian-speaking majority which repeatedly indicated its preference for association with Moscow, including in elections under Ukrainian control? America should have anticipated that Russia would consider it unacceptable to return Crimea to Ukraine in the interest of Ukrainian unity, just as it would be unreasonable to support a proposition that Ukraine be returned to Moscow’s control in the name of Russian unity. That America would actively pursue this objective knowing full well that Russia would not relent barring a massive military defeat or an outright collapse is especially perplexing.

America’s entire system of alliances, particularly NATO, appears increasingly obsolete in their current form. A variety of statesmen and experts, most notably George F. Kennan, warned that NATO expansion into the Baltics would turn Russia, a nation after the  Soviet collapse was eager to join forces with the West, into a dangerous adversary. The United States did not heed these cautions and instead created a self-fulfilling prophecy in which NATO’s expansion ironically enhanced the threat posed by Russia to the very states it sought to guarantee. These alliances currently serve primarily to entangle the United States in the internecine disputes of European nations. As George Washington presciently asked in his farewell address, “Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?”

As a candidate, Trump correctly identified the fundamental deficiencies of America’s European alliances, which are based on pretenses of moral superiority and are bereft of a strategic vision. European elites became habituated to a relationship in which America advances their parochial objectives without question, leaving them free to introduce new tariffs and taxes against American companies and openly challenge the United States on issues like climate change or immigration. The infamous “European solidarity” was a myth championed by Poland and other Eastern European states seeking to gain NATO support against Russia. As the pandemic crisis made particularly clear, however, European nations are not only reluctant to assist the United States, but even each other, as many rapidly moved to limit exports on medical supplies as the coronavirus crisis took shape. It is only in its historical animosity to Russia that most of Europe truly remains united. And signs are that even that unity may prove elusive if tested by a real confrontation.

Make no mistake: withdrawing from NATO or undermining its foundations is not a sensible approach. America cannot not remedy one extreme by going to another. What is needed instead is a keen appreciation of the status of American alliances, their relative costs and benefits, how each supports America’s national interest, and how to reform them effectively. In place of a preoccupation with parochial alliances, the United States must focus, in addition to its unilateral efforts and bilateral diplomacy, on working with institutions from the G20 to a reformed WHO. Neither America nor the rest of the world can afford to again fall prey to emotionally appealing, but less than essential distractions that impede them from addressing key threats to global stability. And indeed to the very survival of millions of people in civilized societies.

WHAT THE United States confronts, then, is a moment of truth. Unfortunately, there is scant evidence that we are learning lessons about the imperative of strategic thinking. It’s encouraging that Trump played a key role in helping to reach a useful, if uncertain, deal in reducing foreign oil production with Russia and Saudi Arabia. Less encouraging are the strident voices in Congress and elsewhere about the need to punish China for the coronavirus, which would lead to a resumption of the trade war at the least opportune moment. Old habits are dying hard: little attention is being paid to averting a closer alignment between Beijing and Moscow. In addition, the nuclear arms-control regime is collapsing and signs of animosity between great powers are growing. The perils of an outright conflict should not be wished away for the current pandemic demonstrates how the unthinkable can quickly occur.

America was and remains an exceptional nation in terms of the spirit of its people, creativity of its economic system, and ability to adapt to new circumstances. But exceptionalism is not a mandate for the reckless pursuit of peripheral objectives at the expense of real global priorities, nor for championing short-term gains over America’s long-term interest without anticipating predictable consequences. The Chinese character for “crisis” famously carries a second meaning: “opportunity.” Although the world currently finds itself in the center of an existential crisis, a promising opportunity may well rest just over the horizon.

Dimitri K. Simes, publisher of the National Interest, is President and CEO of the Center for the National Interest.