It is this weakness that is triggering seismic waves in the power corridors of the world. After dominating the world for 250 years, the Western cultural and economic hegemony is declining and a new multi-polar world is taking shape. This change is the product of the declining economic and technological power of the West compounded by the United States indulgence in self created conflicts. The emerging digital age has challenged and weakened western democracies that were the over-lords of global liberal systems. The promotion of globalization, or attempts to install it, have weakened the political basis of the western liberal values. In a classical way, the rise of regional powers are stoking new rivalries and attempts to counter it are weakening the international rule based order and institutions, eroding the collectivism required to ran a globalized world. Certainly, the current world order is not suited to today’s chaotic international system.
The US President Donald Trump is a symptom not the main reason for the ensuing anti-establishment anger generated in the US and around the World. Trump and other populist leader had promises to bring down the old order. They, collectively lack will, weight, vision and skills to dis-mental the existing order or to build a new one. Therefore, it is upon the international bureaucracy to prepare for the post-Trump era and workout a plan for governing an interdependent world as the current setup may be falling apart sooner than later.
The most serious challenge to the Western dominance came rather quietly. The 21st century started with the war on terror beginning on September 11, 2001. It is at last over as the priority to counter terrorism no longer takes center stage in the current US policy priority. It has been overshadowed by newer priorities of the Middle East. One thing is quite established that in the period before 9/11 the US government and its security apparatus failed to imagination the threat despite clear signs as did Israel in September 2023 by ignoring call by UAE monarch. Why these failings were not headed to? Was it for some strategic gains of plain incompetence?
Needless to say that building a new world order should begin with recognizing the new power centers and their demands. These power centers demand decentralization and alignment with new authority(s). This new order must recognize new realities from the regional groupings based on geographic proximity, commercial ties, political and cultural recognition. The regional power based order will support a multi-power system that accommodates new ideological, demographic, religious and political realities.
Now that the extremists have access to newer technologies at their disposal that were not available earlier, situation demands that these existing vulnerabilities need to be plugged by the policymakers, intelligence community, and law enforcement agencies. The new order should be cumulative, political, institutional, cultural and normative response to the newer instabilities and extremism. The World needs to learn how to survive in a system that is without rules. Also, the nuclear parity that provided a false sense of security is no longer a credible guarantee as newer interception systems will question its delivery apparatus.
President Trump is still living in MAGA era while its allies are moving on and away from false securities provided by the US. The Makka Accord, the European Union renewed focus on indigenous security arrangement and Canada are working toward a new, relationships ranging from trade to security, NATO is looking partners to build a new alliance to steer it away from China and the US conflict to name a few. The Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government’s priority is a stronger EU partnership a top priority. In the meantime, Canadian retaliatory tariffs against the US kicked in. China on the other hand has refused to accept new US sanctions on Iran. Such actions were unimaginable a decade earlier.
The debate about the strength and future of world order takes into consideration issues like security and economic arrangements. The debate revolves around questions such as a) China’s rise, b) Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, c) America’s security and tariff decisions, and d) the role of UN and reform of its institutions. Despite UN’s apparent weaknesses on security issue, few will desire the UN to disappear nor do world want to see the nuclear security order collapse.
In the past century, the scientific developments have resulted in increased the amount, quality, delivery and availability of food, fuel, shelter, safe transport, security, medicine, sanitation, education and information expansion. It had created unimaginable wealth, misery, wants, literacy, health improved, and life expectancy doubled. Also, pandemics, famines, fires, pogroms, wars and other disasters no longer pose existential threat. This prosperity has, however, created vast inequality, mass migration, drugs, cyber-crimes and human trafficking.
The greatest test to the existing order came during the pandemic of the century, and the failure of the global efforts to deal effectively with the Covid-19 that killed over 20 million people. Also, the failure in dealing with; demography, climate change, technology, inequality, migration and other problems that will put a question mark on the legitimacy of the system.
The future of the present order looks shaky, inward looking, not unlike previous and confident older, as visible by shrinking populations and growing poverty. It is becoming less pluralistic, nationalism and disorder, high tariffs, violence to name a few. The technologies, such as micro-manufacturing, cultivated/cell-centred food, synthetic production, renewable energy, automation and robotics fueled by artificial intelligence, etc, will dominate states behaviour. The new order will probably deal with less wars as ageing and declining populations will not favour new conflicts.
The new order will have to deal with AI led wars, security issues produced by political decisions and decisions to settle violence. Other problems emerging through abundance, future pandemics, a climate crisis, crisis of new multiple use technology etc. These issues makes it hard to build robust policy and legitimacy for national and international cooperation during crisis. Worst case scenario can be a collapse of agriculture leading to famine, pestilence and mass migration, pending lethal pandemic (s) that give rise to the need of robust response.
Key question remains, what is the future of the world order? No one knows. What will be the state of current world order in 10, 15, 20 years from now? Any analysis of world order and its future is only as good as the underlying assumptions it is based upon.
It will be decided between the play and interaction between structural, established forces in a complex-interactive world with rampant chaos and uncertainty. We are compelled to ask what the future holds for the humanity. We have no idea what unexpected, consequential events will take place – though we know it is likely to be something undesirable. We need to be more explicit about it, interrogate and debate our ideas of how it will unfold, to guess about underlying trends and forces that will frame the future of the current international system and the shape of the future order.
