“The next five to ten years will likely determine the world order for decades to come,” writes Finnish President Alexander Stubb in a new essay in the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs. As Western and Eastern powers “pull in different directions,” the countries of the so-called global South will have the deciding vote, determining “whether geopolitics in the next era leans toward cooperation, fragmentation, or domination.”
For Finland and its Western partners, the challenge now is to win over these “swing states,” Stubb argues, starting with reforms to international institutions to “give the South a seat at the table.” Without significant changes, “the multilateral system as it exists will crumble,” he warns. And “the alternatives are much worse: spheres of influence, chaos, and disorder.”
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