Introduction: Navigating Unchartered Waters

Abstract

Deepening intrastate conflicts; growing interstate tensions; and a slew of old and new transnational threats, including the climate and COVID-19 crises—coupled with the populist challenges to globalization, evident in the messy trade wars; the crisis in multilateralism along with the emergence of a disorderly multipolar and multi-stakeholder world; the rapid pace of technology evolution and diffusion with the potential of creating asymmetrical competition; and widespread distrust of authority due to global social media and “fake news”—reflect disruptions and discontinuities in global affairs, and have the potential for the destruction of the world order as we know it. This chapter argues that while destruction is not inevitable, navigating the multitude of discontinuities and disruptions will require concerted collective action at all levels, from the individual to the global.