More than at any other time in history, the future of humankind is
being shaped by issues that are beyond any one nation’s ability
to solve. Climate change, avian flu, financial instability, terrorism, waves of
migrants and refugees, water scarcities, disappearing fisheries, stark and
seemingly intractable poverty—all of these are examples of global issueswhose
solution requires cooperation among nations. Each issue seems at first to be
little connected to the next; the problems appear to come in all shapes and
from all directions. But if one reflects a moment on these examples, some
common features soon become apparent: