Can adversarial nations work together for the common good? It’s natural to despair over prospects for international cooperation given the state of the world order. Geopolitical competition is straining the multilateral system, which has helped maintain global stability since the Cold War. The most powerful nations cannot seem to agree on how to solve urgent global problems, from the climate crisis to governing economic competition and international trade to regulating artificial intelligence.
Geopolitical competition doesn’t naturally advance international cooperation. The economic historian Charles Kindleberger showed how a lack of global leadership and international cooperation prolonged the Great Depression. Yet at other times geopolitical competition has, paradoxically, raised international cooperation. During the Cold War, for example, Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy advanced US leadership in open markets, free trade, and other global public goods to counter communism.
Multilateralism is splintering today—not because of geopolitical competition alone—but because it’s an expensive global public good. It benefits all humanity but distributes costs unevenly across nations.
Even in today’s polarized world, geopolitical rivals can still agree on common goals—the planet should be hospitable to human beings, the next pandemic should be controlled and confined through sensible public health safeguards, global economic policy should yield prosperity for all. Nations might disagree on how to achieve these goals—arguing that one approach or another unfairly benefits a rival—or they might accuse others of free riding by failing to contribute toward solving a common problem.
Carbon, for example, has been accumulating in the atmosphere for centuries. How should we divide the burden of tackling climate change between past and present emitters? Or how should we share responsibility for providing financial stability and restoring global growth? An advanced economy might expend considerable resources to ensure growth and stability while others fail to behave prudently.
Read the full article on International Monetary Fund which was first published in September 2025.