September 21st was a symbolic day as it marked an international event devoted to spreading unity, solidarity and global independence, while celebrating the not-so-impossible thought of world peace. September 21st was World Peace Day.

For strategic leaders of the 21st century primarily concerned with issues of foreign policy and national security, the international system which they deal with today is far from traditional. The new era of globalization has brought with it a plethora of issues, including threats of terror, growing wealth inequality, and environmental degradation.

The international community will be coming together on several occasions this year to address the upcoming challenges of the 21^st century. This will involve assessing the structure of relationships that exist at the international level, including the roles of state and non-state actors, multinational corporations and non-governmental organizations. This report highlights some of the upcoming challenges of our time, and explains why we are at a comparative advantage to generations of the past despite of the seemingly “bleak” future ahead.

To begin, the dominant economic model of our time is a concept known as globalization. It is fueled by the idea that the operation of the world system as a single global economy (with a universal set of rules set by corporations and financial markets) is inevitable. The roots of economic globalization stem back five hundred years ago to a time when Europe was trying to seize the resources of the world. Back then, huge corporations such as the Hudson’s Bay and the East India Trading Company were among the first examples of transnational corporations. The world is going through the same historical transformation today, but more rapidly.

Hence, the pros and cons of the forces of globalization have been a heated subject of debate. I am not an anti-capitalist, but empirically it is apparent that globalization has created enormous wealth disparity. Joseph Stiglitz, a renowned economist, wrote about the Price of Inequality in the United States. At the crux of his study was the question: how has inequality been growing and what will be the future impact? He found that the share of wealth that goes to the top 1%, or even the top tenth of the 1% of the population in the US has doubled and tripled respectively. Median wealth in has fallen to the level that it was in the early 1990s, indicating that substantial gains in wealth have essentially gone to the top of the income distribution.

Of course, this is just one among numerous examples of wealth inequality, and addressing such divergences between social groups is one of the most significant challenges we face today.

This is not to underplay the tremendous amount that is being done in terms of aid and development. The Millennium Development Goals ending this year are a testament to the collective effort being made on the global front to combat absolute poverty. Nevertheless, as a student of international relations, I have learned that it is almost always justifiable to be wary of aid and in its various forms.

William Easterly, a World Bank economist, claims developed countries have collectively spent over $2.3 trillion in official foreign aid over the last 5 decades, yet three billion people continue to live on less than $2 a day. Evidently, there lies a discrepancy here – why is this money not enough to eradicate poverty?

A decade ago, world famous economist Jeffrey Sachs devised the millennium villages project to rid the world’s least developed countries from deepening poverty. His advice extended to developed countries budgets, as he urged them to allocate 0.7% of their GDP to foreign aid and development. While Sach’s suggestion was well informed, it is essential to question the sustainability of any aid in the long run, and a need to follow streams of funding to assure that the money reaches the other end of the line.

Another challenge to the international system is terrorism. One theory is that this is particularly fed by the intrusion of Western values and institutions onto the rest of the world through the process of free- market globalization. In 1996, Samuel Huntington made a compelling argument about a ‘Clash of Civilizations’, hypothesising that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. Instead, he claims that the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. The central axis of world politics in the future is likely to be conflict between “the West and the Rest” and the responses of non-Western civilizations to Western power and values.

Whether this will be the case, only time will tell. Although there have already been incidences that point to an “us vs. them” dynamic, terrorism is a very complex phenomenon and that has been approached from a variety of perspectives. Surprisingly, the United Nations still lacks a formal definition for terrorism – one step would be to finalize this in order to combat it.

Finally, global climate change is yet another significant threat we face today. According to the American Meteorological Society, there is a 90 percent probability that global temperatures will rise by 3.5- 7.4 degrees Celsius in less than one hundred years. Total emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading long-term cause of global warming, have also risen by more than 50 percent since the 1980s and are poised to rise by more than 30 percent in the next two to three decades.

The anticipated effects of this continued warming are deeply troubling, they include: rising sea levels, a thinning Arctic icecap, extreme weather events, ocean acidification, and loss of natural habitats. Perhaps even more fearsome, however, are the effects with odds and consequences that are unknown, such as the danger of melting permafrost in the Arctic, which could release more gases, leading to a vicious cycle of more warming. Ultimately, rising temperatures per se may not be the paramount concern. What matters most are the knock-on effects on agricultural productivity, sea levels, storm frequency, and infectious disease. Environmentalists warn us that an apocalypse awaits, while economists tell us that minimal fixes will get us through. We need to find a way to move beyond the impasse.

There are only a small group of countries, including Japan and the members of the European Union, who now regulate their emissions in accord with the existing agreements. But most states, including the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, have failed to make much progress. Furthermore, the ineffectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol and withdrawal of countries such as Canada have raised grave questions about what the future holds with regard to mineral and resource development. The upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in December may be the most valuable discussion in months. The goal is to formulate a legally binding agreement on climate change, but a universal consensus will be a tough venture.

There is a silver lining, however. Jared Diamond, a renowned biologist who has delved into the study of civilizations for over 30 years, suggests in his book ‘Collapse’ some of the major problems our civilization will face in the coming decades, including food and water shortage as well as a desperate and crippling energy crisis. He points out that humans are at an advantage as we have at our disposal the ability to look back into the past and study what led to the collapse of our predecessors’ complex and structured societies. We can use that knowledge, combined with our rapidly advancing fields of science, to prevent such events from repeating. Unfortunately, we only look to the immediate future as we are inherently more concerned about the short-term, and, perhaps, it is simply a matter of refocusing our gaze.

All in all, from the perspective of a 21st century strategic leader, these emerging transnational threats will create numerous challenges that will have to be addressed with non-combative, sustainable, long-term solutions. Let’s hope some changes happen by next year’s world peace day and the many more ahead.