It requires a complete change of mindset by the powerful as well as the weak. This will be difficult and painful to achieve. What is required is an unprecedented and qualitatively new kind of international cooperation. Not just cooperation based on the alignment of national interests as has occurred throughout history. It requires the redefinition of what constitutes both 'nation' and 'interests'.
States can no longer just collide or cooperate at the boundaries of their sovereignties.
It demands nothing less than shared responsibility for governance and a pooling of sovereignties. For this new kind of international cooperation to be constructed and take root, the imperative of cooperation must be supported by practical experience that demonstrates that it is superior to any other political alternative. It is here that the intersection and interplay of globalisation and the post Cold War international order complicates matters. The end of the Cold War at first seemed to promise a new dawn for the UN, opening up vast potentialities for international cooperation unfettered by ideological conflict. These hopes have long been dashed.