IV. The international system and law

Chapter:

1. Introduction: International stability and human security in 2019

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2020

Author(s):

Dan Smith

The need for cooperation on climate is matched by a similar need on other major challenges of our age—for example in the cyber realm or the risk of pandemics—as well as on the traditional and major issues of peace and trade. The degree to which international politics are characterized by tensions and disagreements among the major players is a serious cause for concern. There are various issues in dispute among China, Russia and the USA, which also has difficult relations on some issues with France and the UK, its allies. Disharmony at the heart of the international system has been increasingly marked during the last decade.⁸³ Its contours are made sharper by what is, as remarked upon in the 2019 edition of this Yearbook, an oddity of today’s international scene, namely that none of the three great powers—China, Russia and the USA—is a committed status quo power. Each challenges aspects of the world political order. This makes international politics less predictable. In particular, there is more uncertainty than only a few years ago about whether the laws, rules and norms of the international order, such as it is, will be respected. This makes cooperation a more complex and less attractive approach to some key international problems than a more unilateral approach.