Came across this article "Collaboration or collapse: Why Earth observation must be a global mission" which basically focused on how nations need to work together across boarders for the sake of space development.
However, the article talks as if space expansion only involves nations.
In the future most space activity will be private enterprise, just like manufacturing, transport and many other things are here on Earth.
Not just nations funding private enterprise, but operating for it's own purpose.
In fact one could argue that it's already the case! SpaceX has more satellites in orbit that any nation and by far the largest number of rocket launches.