The end of the Cold War has called into question the international burden-sharing arrangements and formulas of the past. At the same time, the spread of global wealth has broadened the scope for international partnerships. The uncertainties of the new international environment have led to differences and debates concerning both the appropriate scope for international cooperative efforts and the arrangements for sharing leadership and costs.Within the United States, public opinion is marked by the dichotomy between broad support for U.S. participation in international efforts to address global problems -- security, economic, and those relating to "new global issues" such as the environment and drug and crime syndicates -- and a widely inflated perception of the proportion of the current burden the United States is actually undertaking.In New Global Partnerships, David F. Gordon argues that in the new global context, it is no longer possible to segregate international burden-sharing discussions by issue area.

His analysis provides an analytical framework to integrate the various elements of international burden-sharing. He concludes that U.S. efforts to promote expanded participation in a range of security-related areas would be facilitated by an enhanced commitment by the United States to maintain its commitments in the multilateral systems that address both development and the new global issues.