problems of international relations today that could lead to a major conflict

Running head: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS1
International Relations: Problems & Conflict
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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

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International Relations: Problems & Conflict
Under current global state of affairs, international relations are experiencing extreme polarization politically, economically and culturally. Politically, China's emergence as world's next presumptive first superpower is changing national, regional and international alliances.
Economically, a neoliberal model is showing increasing cracks and giving way to different yet fragmented forms of economic enterprise. Culturally, centuries-old, nationalistic ideologies and beliefs are revived and inflame national and international cultural dialogues. The current geopolitical global state of affairs is, apparently, giving way to a new world order whose exact frameworks, practices and rules are still unfolding. This shift, not uncommon in international relations – in fact a constant given in international relations going as far back as Westphalian consensus on nation states as acceptable political polities forming major founding blocks of sovereign countries – is assuming interesting directions in more recent years. If anything, contestation, not cooperation, defines current international relations climate. Specifically, major international powers – including, most notably, U.S., China, Europe, in addition to military, political and economic alliances such as NATO, ASIAN, OECD and, more recently, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – are currently engaged in a wide range of direct and by-proxy conflicts over a diversity of political, economic and cultural issues. Indeed, recent developments in international affairs show differences over matters affecting global dominance of established. i.e. U.S. and Europe, and emerging powers, e.g. China. There are as many issues of differences as one can imagine in an international context. Three issues, or conflicts, are, for current purposes of main interest: (i) climate change, (ii) advanced next generation technologies, and (iii) space dominance. These problems, projected to develop into a major conflict, appear at
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

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a face value far removed from a (conventional) conception of conflicts, particularly military conflicts, in international relations. This assumption cannot be more mistaken. To put matters into perspective, one problem, climate change, is discussed. Specifically, climate change is discussed in current paper in order to show ways differences in international relations, particularly between world powers, could escalate current problems of climate change into a full and open major conflict.
There is an almost global consensus on climate change as a priority. The accumulating evidence, scientific and physical, are making clear enough impact of climate change on politics, economy, society and planet at large. The consensus world's majority of nation states share devolve, however, into a state of fragmentation, if not sometimes direct confrontation, over ways to stop – and, perhaps more importantly, who is going to pay bills of – climate change. The Paris Agreement on...