Goodbye to Going It Alone
There have been several recent proposals to make multilateralism more effective. While none of them is perfect, they all reflect a new understanding that countries cannot address most of the serious challenges they face today – problems like climate change, pandemics, financial stability, and terrorism –by acting alone.
A key lesson that the next American president will take away from the experiences of the Bush administration is certain to be that multilateralism matters. Notions of American hegemony and unilateral responses make little sense when most of the serious challenges that countries face today – problems like climate change, pandemics, financial stability, and terrorism – fall outside the control of even the largest countries. All of them require multilateral cooperation.
A key lesson that the next American president will take away from the experiences of the Bush administration is certain to be that multilateralism matters. Notions of American hegemony and unilateral responses make little sense when most of the serious challenges that countries face today – problems like climate change, pandemics, financial stability, and terrorism – fall outside the control of even the largest countries. All of them require multilateral cooperation.