The Alliances Issue

It’s hardly controversial these days to point out that the United Nations seems paralyzed. When you have a Security Council that gives Russia’s Vladimir Putin veto power, you have a problem. Add the fact that China and the United States agree on very little, and you have a recipe for despair—even before considering how to reform an institution that was born in a different era, 78 years ago, when the global south was preoccupied by hunger, not smartphones or clean energy.

Other august institutions born in that postwar moment seem similarly out of touch: The World Bank always has a president nominated by the United States; the International Monetary Fund always has a leader from Europe. It’s little wonder that as countries such as China, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria grow in influence this century, they will look for other forums that give voice to their clout.

September marks the beginning of the season for leaders to gather, at the United Nations and other multilateral convenings, so the Foreign Policy team thought it was a good time to explore where the real work of policymaking and diplomacy is now taking place.

In the lead essay for our cover package “The Alliances That Matter Now,” Princeton University scholar G. John Ikenberry makes the case for the G-7, a group that brings together Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the European Union, which joins as a “non-enumerated member.” U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has called the G-7 the “steering committee of the free world,” citing its ability to formally condemn Russia for invading Ukraine and its success in bringing Japan and South Korea closer together.

Neither of those accomplishments are cheered on in Beijing or Moscow. Bonny Lin, a former Asia policy-maker at the U.S. Defense Department, explains why as she examines the strengthening ties between China and Russia and how those countries’ partnership could accelerate in the event of a major shock such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Don’t forget about the rest of the world. C. Raja Mohan, an FP columnist based in New Delhi, charts the rise of so-called minilateralism, the clubbing together of small groups of countries, as world leaders especially across the global south seek more nimble arrangements to advance their regional or ideological goals.

The most obvious important alliance is the one many wrote off a few years ago: NATO. The North Atlantic alliance is back with a bang, writes former Norwegian diplomat Jo Inge Bekkevold, but will face a continued challenge from Russia—and also from China, if the alliance continues to cast its eyes farther east.

There are other clubs of nations we could have singled out, of course. There’s the G-20, which India is leading this year with great enthusiasm, and BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—which is expanding but whose members share little in common beyond the group’s origin story as a marketing buzzword coined at Goldman Sachs. These convenings are in search of organizing principles and struggle to get much done as a result.

For readers left concerned about the world’s ability to truly join hands and tackle global issues such as hunger, pandemics, or the climate crisis, we have just the tonic. Former U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown argues that Washington needs to reengage with the United Nations, the World Bank, and the IMF—the very institutions it created and has now abandoned. While the argument isn’t new, of course, Brown actually has a plan for how to refinance and reinvigorate these institutions. And China will just have to go along, Brown writes, or have its bluff called.

There’s lots more in the issue. Thanks for your support and for reading us.

As ever,

Ravi Agrawal

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