A nice paper by William Savedoff of CGDEV. He says mixed
coalitions or multipolarity is how the world has always been.
The period 1945-90 was an abherration: This essay addresses the
question of what these changes mean for the future of
international cooperation from a broad historical perspective. -
In particular, I argue that multipolarity is actually the norm
in international relations. The growing power of countries like
China and India represents a return to the global distribution
of power preceding the acceleration of economic and military
expansion in the United States, Europe, and Japan. - Second, the
rise of mixed forms of international cooperation, of
opportunistic alliances, is not new; rather, such mechanisms for
addressing international issues preceded the rise of global
governance institutions in the post-WWII period. In other words,
the world we are living in today is normal; the world of
1945–1990 was the aberration. - Finally, while global governance
institutions will continue to be importan