Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

International relations and the new world governance
the United Kingdom and France, wish to take part and will decide case
by case on the basis of exclusive national interests. Chancellor Schroeder
was right when he stated that strategic dialogue had disappeared from
NATO owing largely to positions such as that upheld by his government.
Dialogue had shifted to the bilateral sphere, to the nation states belonging
to the Westphalian tradition, whether western or in other parts of the planet.
The most characteristic feature of this new landscape is that dialogue
has become global; concepts rooted in western cultural tradition no longer
prevail and it is much richer and more complex as it incorporates perspectives
rooted in different age old and histories.
THE «G» ENIGMA AND NEW WORLD GOVERNANCE
The limitations of the United Nations system are patently obvious as
is the need to equip ourselves with international mechanisms for the joint
resolution of the serious problems of all kind which we face. The outbreak
of the current economic crisis led the then US president George W. Bush
to convene the so-called Group of 20 or G-20 after consulting with other
world leaders. In doing so he highlighted the lack of a better forum while
acknowledging that nor was the group the perfect option either. The convening
of the meeting established a dialogue between the major states on
the characteristics of this future entity capable of acting as an effective
framework for discussing and adopting by consensus relevant measures
for shaping the new international society. We are therefore at the threshold
of the design of new mechanisms of world governance, on whose success
our wellbeing and security will depend.
The G-20 has become an everyday institution. Its meetings are
followed in detail by the media and it is evident that it has played a significant
role in managing the economic crisis. It did not succeed in reaching
a general agreement on the most advisable policy. Nor did the European
Union achieve an agreement of this kind. However, it does not appear that
the significance or continuity of its work is being questioned. The future of
world governance in economic affairs, whatever it may be, is in the making
at the G-20. Will it have an external and security dimension in future given
the close relationship between these two spheres? Only time will tell. So
far it seems much more focused on tackling the necessary reform of the
international economic organisations dating from the forties.
Making progress in this direction fitted in perfectly with the conceptual
parameters of President Bush’s Republican administration. They never
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