The Multilateral Umbrella

The technological revolution in the 1970’s has, indeed, carried with it a range of legacies whose impact on world affairs can hardly be adequately emphasised.
However, it is within these legacies, or an elaborate combination of them, that leap out and communicate the very essence of the new diplomacy, that of multilateralism. Although I continue to recognise the necessity of bilateral negotiations and agreements, under the global umbrella of economic interdependence and political overlaps, it appears that multilateralism has once and for all changed the very nature of diplomacy.
My reasons are deeply embedded in the international events that have made the headlines worldwide within a remarkably short period of time. It ranges from the negotiations in the trade war between the United States and China at the G20 Summit in Seoul (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328995/G20-Seoul-Summit-World-leaders-pledge-ceasefire-currency-war.html) to the historical line-drawing between past and future in the partnership between NATO member states and Russia (http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/news_68876.htm), removing the iron curtain by the roots.
It seems that multilateral cooperation has been recognised as mutually beneficial resulting in constraints on unilateral behaviour.
Nevertheless, multilateral diplomacy still deals with dominant actors- strong states- in the process of negotiations and it is fair to say that weaker states are constraint in their influence on the outcome, a suggestion that power politics remains a producer of unfavourable outcome for those who are less powerful (Walker, 247). However, it is a problem that demands to be addressed by those in charge and ought to find its remedies in reforms of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) (www.hks.harvard.edu/visions/publication/keohane_nye.pdf) and the United Nations (articles) and adjustment in the cooperative behaviour of states.
The trade war between the United States witnesses the downside of multilateral diplomacy evident in the deadlock in negotiations whose reason relates to previously mentioned power politics. The reluctance by both states to compromise on such an essential matter finds its explanatory power in the economic power that is more or less equally distributed.
I substantiate my argument for the crucial existence of multilateral diplomatic resolutions, partly, in its inevitability in the presence of political and economic integration, but mainly because security issues and peaceful solutions are only appropriately met in a global cooperative manner.
Furthermore, multilateral diplomatic trends of increasing, although not carried out to completion, transparency, which has allowed for the vigorous participation of NGOs and civil society, encourage future prospects of the legitimacy- the ingredient international regimes are often accused of lacking.

I believe there exists a mutually reinforcing power between states and international regimes, because the latter is impossible without the former, but that the latter, simultaneously, operates as a cooperative educator to the former and, thus, represents the slow, but steady, adjustment process the former will need to follow.
Few changes are painless affairs and backsliding can only be expected. But multilateral diplomacy is here to stay, despite the many lessons ahead.