World order changing from Cooperation to competition to conflict::
Introduction:: Over the last few years, the world has experienced a gradual slide from cooperation to competition to conflict. The post–Cold War international order has been replaced, first by a period of intensifying global rivalry and then by war in Europe. In this new and unsettled era, world leaders must adapt their understanding and practice of geopolitics because time is running out to address critical global challenges.
In a year that began with conflict and warning signs of geoeconomic fragmentation, it was remarkable that November 2022 delivered a restoration of U.S.-Chinese climate dialogue, a reaffirmation by the G-20 of the need for economic cooperation, and an agreement at the UN Climate Conference in Egypt that provided historic “loss and damage” climate adaptation funding for vulnerable countries. But such welcome news should not be taken as a sign that a retreat from geopolitical rivalry is underway or that a cooperative order can be fully restored.
ERA OF COOPERATION:: For a quarter century after the end of the Cold War, global collaboration was based on mutually agreed-upon “rules” of transnational relations. Countries worked together to advance shared interests, particularly on issues related to the economy, the environment, and technology.
To be sure, there were significant episodes of disagreement. But to a large extent, countries looked to maintain stability, security, and prosperity. During this time, the share of the world’s population living in extreme poverty declined from over 35 percent to close to 11 percent. For the bottom 40 percent of global population, overall income increased by close to 50 percent. These results were largely possible thanks to a more integrated global economy.
Cooperation in WTO and in the wake of 2008 global financial crisis::
The birth of the World Trade Organization in 1995 and China’s entry to it in 2001 were illustrative of this cooperative economic ethos. Between 1992 and 2017, trade as a proportion of world GDP rose by almost half, and as the World Economic Forum has noted, trade and capital liberalization “brought the integration of markets and cross-border expansion of value chains to a new plateau.” The coordinated global response to the 2008 financial crisis, including by central banks and G-20 countries, showcased the prevailing instinct for economic cooperation.
Coopperation in Climate change and technology:
On climate change, a similar sentiment was evident in the 2015 Paris agreement, which committed 196 parties to advancing far-reaching climate targets and to “enhancing international cooperation for climate action.” Technology added yet another layer to the fabric of global cooperation as the Internet connected countries in new ways and enabled new forms of collaboration. In 2015, over 40 percent of the world was connected to the Internet, up from about 15 percent a decade earlier.
Competition replacing Cooperation::
But by 2020, the World Economic Forum was warning that an “expansion of geopolitics” was taking place. As cooperation waned and competition intensified, domains where countries had
previously cooperated—including the economy, the environment, and technology—were turning into zero-sum zones of competition.
For instance, trade-restrictive measures such as tariffs reached historic highs in 2018—not just to protect domestic industries but also to challenge the very foundation of an integrated global economy.
Competition and geopolitics in Climate and technology:: Efforts to combat climate change have suffered from a similar cooperative breakdown. Instead of building on the momentum of the Paris agreement to accelerate climate action, many countries have sought to exploit newly accessible natural resources. And data technologies have been weaponized as never before, serving not to connect distant and diverse societies but to sow mistrust between and within them..
Cooperation: Certainly not in the offing..
Global businesses provide a mechanism of cooperation depsite geopolitical interests::
The first involves looking at interests through a holistic prism. Companies assess the degree to which they embrace stakeholder capitalism by looking at their performance on a variety of environmental, social, and governance metrics. Similarly, governments could assess their commitment to stakeholder geopolitics by looking at how they factor global threats and opportunities into their strategic decision-making. The plural here is deliberate. Although governments need to address specific challenges, such as climate change or a worsening global economy, it is crucial that they do not view these issues as discrete areas of action. States should assess how their strategic actions affect global priorities and calibrate their behavior accordingly. More specifically, states should ensure that their efforts to improve their geopolitical position also advance common aims such as those delineated in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Placing Climate Change in the center::
States are already factoring global challenges into their strategic planning. For instance, the National Security Strategy released by the Biden administration in October 2022 places climate action front and center on the United States’ national security agenda. China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, released in 2021, similarly made climate action a central policy priority. This is an important start.
Restricting Food export curbs:: The Declaration on Food Security made at a ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization last June, in which leaders committed to avoiding export restrictions on food, offers a model for how governments could apply a stakeholder geopolitics lens to policymaking.
Learning from private sector:: The final priority of stakeholder geopolitics is collaboration. Coinciding with the rise of stakeholder capitalism has been the formation of purpose-driven partnerships across the business community. For instance, the World Economic Forum’s Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, founded in 2014, brings together the CEOs of over 120 companies—some of which compete directly with each other—to set ambitious climate targets and reduce their companies’ emissions.