International relations are in turmoil. The international system is changing in some profound and often contradictory ways and in a number of different and often diverging directions. There is an ongoing global power shift from ‘west’ to ‘east’. A less clear, but as far-reaching trend is that power becomes more widely distributed, more accessible, and more fleeting, without losing amplitude. As Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens wrote, ‘[t]he founding assumption of the post cold war settlement was that global economic integration would drive closer political cohesion. In today’s post, post cold war order, economic and political nationalism are marching together in the opposite direction.’
Read the whole article, written by Frank Bekkers on Europeangeostrategy.org, here.