The Future of International Relations after COVID-19 Pandemic
By: Putri Samudra
Tags: United States, International Relations, Donald Trump, Covid 19, China

The spread of COVID-19 has been the most severe global crisis threatening the planet. That is what the commonsense says.

Source: BBC.com

If anarchism is the characteristic of international relations that has been imprinted by the realist theory according to the theories of Hobbes,

Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, and Mearsheimer were titles of classic realism, structural realism, offensive realism, and new classic realism, then all of which emphasized the conflict rather than cooperation is what characterizes international relations.

The spread of COVID-19 disease has revealed the fragility of health systems in all countries in the world, large and small, and put financial allocations gradually for this sector within the financial budgets, and that it is the most severe test faced by the world since the Great Depression in 1929. The catastrophic effects on the global economy, food supply, as well as the effects on Social, cultural, and other human beings have revealed the need of conducting a comprehensive review on the international relations framework by focusing on global environmental cooperation, to address future risks that the world may face, as the result of the increasing carbon dioxide emission, and its destructive impacts on the financial environment, which will be the incubator for the spread of new epidemics, especially in what is witnessed as the state of competition between the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America in controlling the significant emissions from gas, which is contradictory to what was stipulated in the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, and the imminent threat posed to humanity.

It has become apparent that the repercussions of COVID-19 pandemic have affected the relations of the European Union, which are threatening the future of its existence. It has strengthened the growth of the power of the right-wing populists. The reflected potential for winning a broad majority in any upcoming presidential or parliamentary elections, which will enhance the politics of self-sufficiency and its isolation, which leads to the destabilization of the European Union and its institutions, has been evident in Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and even Germany.

On the other hand, COVID-19 crisis will shift the cooperation more than competition and conflict which were the dominant characters in international relations.

After the era of conspiracy theories where various parties blame each other about “where the virus is originated from” (such as the United States that continues to blame China as the mastermind behind this pandemic), the author realizes that the areas of the cooperation carried out by the United States, China, and Russia in managing the consequences of the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic are expanding, especially in the framework of exchanging information, cooperation, experiences.

Can the international relations be a sort of breakthrough in deepening cooperation among countries? Or will the world be prepared to face the harsher and more severe consequences of COVID-19 pandemic and its successive strains or other emerging viruses?