Multinational Military Exercises, the US Combatant Command System, and the Assembling of the American Security Order

Abstract Arguments about the stability or decline of the current international order have overlooked two significant developments of the last 30 years that increasingly undergird that order. These phenomena are the increasing pace and complexity of multinational military exercises involving the USA and its security partners and the global organization of these activities by the US combatant commands. Together, they represent a significant change since the Second World War in how conventional violence is organized on a global scale. To grasp their implications, I apply an understanding of ordering that emphasizes process, practice, and the concept of assemblage. This approach foregrounds the materially-mediated ties and practices that form an under-appreciated resource for ordering international politics. In doing so, it complicates linear narratives of persistence or decline, highlights historical contingencies in the development of order, and draws attention to how it is deeply interwoven but characterized by persistent tensions and fragilities.