The post-1945 diplomatic order was designed for a different world: two superpowers, clear frontlines, and a set of shared institutional rules that most states, however reluctantly, accepted. That order is fracturing. A rising China, a revisionist Russia, an increasingly transactional United States, and a growing bloc of middle powers unwilling to align with either camp have produced a world that is genuinely multipolar for the first time in decades. Nobody has a playbook for what comes next.
Into this fragmentation come risks that respect no spheres of influence: climate shocks cascading through food systems and driving displacement; AI accelerating both military competition and the collapse of shared informational reality; pandemics exposing the cost of dismantled multilateral cooperation. These are not peripheral to diplomacy. They are the central challenge diplomacy now has to answer, and most diplomatic institutions were not built to address them.
Drawing on three decades leading global institutions, Achim Steiner will argue that the question is not whether diplomacy remains relevant but whether it can evolve fast enough to matter. What does effective statecraft look like when the threats are systemic, the actors are multiplying, and the shared ground for negotiation is eroding in real time? And what might a new diplomatic architecture, fit for this century, actually require?
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