In today’s era, no country can solve global problems alone. The difficulties facing humanity regardless of land, sea or air borders are great and dangerous. We could mention the overpopulation which in turn causes overheating, the overbleeding of the planet’s wealth-producing sources, pandemics and the increase in the trafficking and acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Uncontrolled immigration to obtain a better life has always existed, but today due to the overpopulation of the earth it is even greater as a problem.
These are problems that will either be solved on a global scale or not. If they are solved, all the peoples of the earth will benefit without exception. If they are not resolved, everyone will suffer.
To deal with these global problems, what economists call public goods will have to be produced on a massive scale. These are goods whose use by one consumer does not preclude the benefit of others. A public good is the use of electricity, the use of water, the use of scientific progress such as engineering, medicine, etc.
At the internal level of each country, the government of a country ensures the financing and the uninterrupted flow of these public goods so that they are distributed to all citizens of the country regardless of their income level. A country’s armed forces, for example, provide security for all residents and are therefore paid and organized by the government. At the global level, however, there is no world government or global consensus to ensure both funding and the seamless flow of public goods across the planet. So who should secure and provide global public goods?
It is a thorny problem that admits of few solutions. If a country is powerful enough to impose its system of government on its citizens and other countries, it is called hegemonic. Hegemonic powers have always been interested in enforcing the most basic public good, which is order. This is what the British Empire did in its time. Maintaining hegemony is costly, however, and leaders eventually lose power. The same with the Empires. In order to avoid this trap, the American Empire after the end of World War II applied the system of multilateralism in certain types of decisions such as trade, defense, financing, etc. This system where all countries cooperate voluntarily for the common good channeled through organizations such as the United Nations.
However, the competition with the USSR did not use this model, and in order to win the Western economic-political governance system, the “mini multilateralism” was launched: a dominant power such as the United States accumulates all kinds of decisions concerning the Western system, equipping cases a network of powerful countries working together to finance, control and provide global commons. NATO is the best example of such global governance.
The results of this cooperation were extremely positive: never before had so many people lived with such prosperity and security. Between 1945 and 2018, absolute poverty fell globally from 55% to 10% of the population, while at the same time the population quadrupled. The example of the war in Ukraine shows us that there are countries that do not accept and do not trust the American leadership and for this reason do not want to participate in the system of governance and values of the West. These countries, each for their own reasons, are more and more powerful.
Today, and as we move into the future, global cooperation is not only necessary but also imperative to deal with threats such as overpopulation, which in turn causes climate change, etc.
The demand for global commons is growing, while the supply is shrinking. If no one manages to impose some order on the world system, global anarchy will inevitably prevail. Perhaps only one extended to NATO members that will also include member countries from Asia, Africa and South America, countries that embrace the values of the Western political-economic system and culture respectively to play such a role, making NATO and the multilateral decision-making process of the first World-type government that will successfully deal with all these global problems of humanity.
