The mathematical community was very competitive in its early years, but in the last 70 to 100 years, it has been generally less competitive and very collegial. The community was in a good place, and progress has been very good. In a few cases when competitiveness was ramped up, it lead to bad behaviour and destructive fights. Few would like to return to those competitive years.
Maybe it’s a dynamic equilibrium? We will become competitive for a while, then run out of questions, which in turn rewards pockets of collaboration?
I think both the competitiveness and and lack of problems will mean fewer people will do mathematics. I think collaboration will always be there, but the community as a whole will be smaller and weaker.
The overarching geopolitics have always taken precedent over the preferences of the mathematical community as far as I can tell
Same is true for any area/topic though. Countries at war stop playing friendly football games against each other, as a very basic example.