In November 2024, Carnegie Council President Joel Rosenthal published the article, "A New International Order Is Emerging, We Must Bring Our Principles With Us." In it, he offered four moral-political principles that he viewed as essential at a moment when geopolitics seemed to be entering a period of transition and turmoil.
The first principle Rosenthal selected was cooperation, writing that “the commitment to international cooperation is a moral proposition because it goes to the essence of ethics—recognizing what is common for all, while managing the intrinsic and inevitable differences between and among people." He also warned that “to simply assert power is irresponsible and, in the end, counterproductive.”
Fast forward to June 2026. The principle of international cooperation is under even greater pressure: powerful actors violating state sovereignty, the defunding of multilateral institutions, and ongoing military conflicts carrying catastrophic human, economic, and moral costs.
The preference for military action and raw, often corrupt, quid pro quo transactionalism stands in stark contrast to good-faith diplomacy and reciprocity as both the means and ends of international relations.
In a new article for Carnegie Council, “Iran Is Not Venezuela—But That’s Not the Point: The Ethics of American Tactical Power,” Neda Bolourchi from Eurasia Group’s Institute for Global Affairs, asks:
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