What Is Next for the International Community?

Introduction

The bulk of this work has focused on the rising of a new world order that replaces the globalized international community that has centered around the free flow and sharing of data, information, goods, services, markets, culture, politics, and more. The specific threads that are threatened by this wave of de-globalization has also been accompanied with an influx of nationalist discourse and politics that have called into question the stability of democracy around the world. The globalization crisis has roots in the interdependent market economy that has intertwined politics and economics throughout the international community; there was never a utopian application of free market globalization that impacted developed and developing nations equally. The focus in the globalization era (which rose during the third wave of democratization – Huntington) has been on the economics, providing for better investments and returns, rising stock prices, and the global supply chain system that has for better or worse, supplied Western countries with necessities and luxuries over the course of the last 30 years. Yet, the building and ultimate domination of the global market economy has created vulnerabilities in the system, as well as putting supply chains at risk in times of crises (such as the pandemic), which (as the world has witnessed) has caused certain countries that are plugged into the chain to receive better and more plentiful equipment, while other countries twist in the wind (e.g.: India currently).

As has been stated, the current system of globalization and world order has hit an obvious snag with the spread of the coronavirus to pandemic levels in 2020, which has caused countries including China and the United States to become much more protectionist when it comes to their national economies but also the national supply of resources to combat the spread of the virus, including ventilators, surgical grade masks, and of course, emphasized earlier, vaccinations. The era of globalization, while being touted as a time of unprecedented cooperation amongst the international community, ally and adversary alike, has led to the explosive situation in domestic politics around the world – leaning towards an embrace of increasingly isolationist, nationalist, and populist politics that could subsequently usher in a power struggle between regional blocs and hegemonic powers (China vs. U.S. vs. Russia). For example, in the early days of the pandemic, the Trump administration realized the role that American company 3M played in the manufacture of medical masks; although the masks are produced using various global supply chains it is cheaper to make the masks in China than the U.S. Recognizing this early in the pandemic, China’s government “blocked all exports of masks, forcing 3M’s Chinese factories to produce for China alone” (Farrell & Newman, 2020). This move led to retaliation on the part of the Trump administration, who in April 2020 requested that 3M not export respirators from the United States to Canada and Latin America companies (Farrell & Newman, 2020). Farrell and Newman note, “To move forward from our current crisis of globalization, we need to build something better in its stead: a system that mitigates the risks of economic and political dependency and supports a new vision of global society” (2020). This is but an example of the vitriolic tensions that have plagued international cooperation amongst allies and adversaries in the 21^st century that were enflamed by the Trump administration.