Global multilateral cooperation structurally fails---overwhelming data confirms

Equally important, liberal internationalists and others tend to assume that international relations are a positive sum game (Keohane, 1984; Ruggie, 1993). Experiences with multilateralism and with regional international institutions are said to encourage cooperation. Transparency, reciprocity and habits of collaboration are seen as self-reinforcing. In order to achieve their own domestic needs for economic growth, countries find not only these experiences beneficial, but such cooperation spills over across related functions and issue areas. A generation ago, scholars writing and theorizing about regional integration in Western Europe defined this process as one of ‘spillover’. For liberal internationalists and globalists there is at least an implied analogy with that European experience despite the immense differences in geography, history and path dependence.5 That assumption has some basis in the areas of economics and trade, though the mercantilist and predatory behavior of China provides a serious contrary indicator. In the security realm, however, there is little reason for such an optimistic assumption. Cases in point include nuclear proliferation (North Korea, Iran), tensions in East Asia (China, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines, the East and South China Seas) and conflicts in the Middle East (Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Lebanon, as well as Israel and the Palestinians). Nonetheless there are exceptions. Brazil has played a continuing role in UN Peacekeeping. It assigns nearly 2500 military and police personnel to those missions and has played a leading role in Haiti, where it has commanded the UN’s operation since 2004. It also has headed the maritime component of UNIFIL (Lebanon) since 2011. In addition, Turkey has participated actively in NATO-led peacekeeping missions in Bosnia (SFOR), Kosovo (KFOR), and Afghanistan (ISAF).

Skepticism about the BRICS and the momentum assumed by liberal internationalists has not been scarce.6 Realist scholars have understandably been critical of the assumptions underlying these approaches as well as of the foreign policy choices they imply. However, other scholars too have found increasing reason for criticism. For example, Barma et al (2013, p. 56) have recently observed that, ‘Instead of a gradual trend toward global problem solving punctuated by isolated failures, we have seen over the last several years essentially the opposite: stunningly few instances of international cooperation on significant issues’. Moreover, Patrick (2010, p. 44) of the Council on Foreign Relations has cautioned that, ‘The United States should be under no illusions about the ease of socializing rising nations. Emerging powers may be clamoring for greater global influence, but they often oppose the political and economic ground rules of the inherited Western liberal order, seek to transform existing multilateral arrangements, and shy away from assuming significant global responsibilities’. In this regard, Laidi has argued that despite their own heterogeneity, the BRICS actually share a common objective in opposing Western liberal internationalist narratives that run counter to traditional state sovereignty. Instead, they seek to protect their own prerogatives, independence of action and national autonomy in an increasingly interdependent world (Laidi, 2012, pp. 614–615).