Opinion | We need a new system that reflects the world’s complexity
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Yet the lessons of recent history appear to be forgotten as the world fractures and polarises, with many reaching for demagogues and scapegoats rather than patiently focusing on economic performance, cooperative security and social cohesion. The West appears stuck in binary thinking that makes a catastrophe out of risks and fails to sufficiently respond to disruptions.
Sustainable internationalism would seek to uphold cooperation and avoid conflict, providing a platform for international collaboration to proportionately respond to collective challenges, while acknowledging competition between nations on realist grounds.
Sustainable internationalism would need to tolerate complexity and indeed be committed to diversity, rather than an expectation that one world view can prevail over all others. It would require a new realism rooted in an evidence-based approach to problem-solving, rather than a grand theory that imagines the world’s vast complexity can be reduced to a chessboard of black and white or a single set of norms for all.
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