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What is the defining issue of our times? Ask Al Gore and he would tell you that it's global climate destabilization. Talk to Bill Gates and you will most likely hear about how technology and Internet are continuing to revolutionize the world. Jeremy Greenstock, UK Ambassador to the UN, on the other hand, believes the defining issue is a shift of relative power around the world.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the end of the Cold War, it seems appropriate that we reexamine the changes in worldwide status quo. In 1988, the United States and Soviet Union were engaged in protracted long-term conflict that played out via proxy wars around the globe; Internet was a fledgling tool far from the economic big bang story it was to become. In terms of climate change, the only major issue on the agenda was the ozone layer and CFCs, and even this was put forth by a handful of Green parties in Western Europe. If one looks even further in the distant past, international affairs for most part were managed -- or perhaps more appropriately, mismanaged -- by a few pieces on the diplomatic chess board.

Contrast that to today's world, where global and regional actors have been taking on increasingly proactive roles in global affairs. Western and Eastern Europe have come together in a way unthinkable in the late 1980s; China and India are emerging as global economic powerhouses; Iran and North Korea are in the process of acquiring nuclear capabilities and a multitude of international agencies are taking on projects around the world. As far as calamities around the world are concerned, the role of the United Nations to prevent human suffering and injustice has been left in the dust. Even the UN can not be better than its membership, and the more there are of them, the more difficult it is to reach an agreement. The burgeoning complexity in world politics is something that shows no signs of abating.

With all of this to consider, what then is the nature of the status quo in contemporary international relations? In short, we believe, there is no such thing as a status quo.

It is said that hindsight is often 20/20. Events constantly albeit only slightly change things on the ground at any given time. Indeed, short-term happenings are often not seen as key developments until many years later. Therefore, whatever occurs now will have major consequences for the future, being the enlargement of the Europe Union, military confrontation with Iran, or UN reform. Still, this cause and effect way to examining the world is superficial and does little to get at the heart of change. Moreover, it does not put forth a model to explain how or why certain events in the world have unfolded as such.

The status quo referred to in the news media and by politicians is an ever-changing dynamic and complex relationship between the thousands of players in world politics, influenced by millions of individuals around the world. A prominent example of this is the blurring line between domestic and international politics, what some scholars have come to call 'intermestic' politics. There is a certain danger of this sort of box-like thinking. Pundits often argue that the solution to thinking outside the box lies in changing the way we think, but this inevitably ends up with a host of new concrete ideas and concepts.

We argue that it is not the shape of the box but its composition. Why should one operate under the assumption that international relations should be empirically explained and attached to a particular set of ideas? Many would simply say it is convenient. Reforming the UN for instance, would require another set of changes in the future, because existing doctrines simply do not hold water well enough to withstand the test of time. The same can be said for global climate change or the global economic order; both are hallmark examples of the cooperative spirit known by liberalist ideology. Clearly, no single doctrine is suitable for explaining the world as it exists today.

Contemporary international relations are very much like personal relations.
Just as one cannot hold individual relationships and expect to see the same things, he or she can also not assume that the state of the world today is best explained using a single set of ideas. To conclude, it would be noteworthy to recall a famous statement written almost two centuries ago back in 1822 by the British Foreign Secretary at the time George Canning: "Things are getting back to a wholesale state again. Every nation for itself and God for us all".

Lukas Vitalijus holds an MA in European Studies from University of British Columbia. This article was originally published in here in Global Affairs.