Darwinian multipolarity: Why the new global order will not be equal |
For years, diplomats, analysts, and global institutions have celebrated the arrival of multipolarity as if it were a political awakening-an escape from America’s imperial shadow and a long-awaited redistribution of global influence. In countless speeches from Brasília to Beijing, leaders describe a world in which every state occupies an equal seat at the table, guided not by dominance but by coexistence, dignity, and mutual respect. Yet this polished rhetoric obscures the fundamental truth of the age now emerging: Multipolarity is not equality-nor is it meant to be. It is the natural evolution of international politics under conditions of rivalry, scarce sovereignty, and the rise of several powerful civilizational states.
The world that is taking shape today is not governed by the fantasies of egalitarian globalism or the illusions of rules-based stability. It is forged through pressure, competition, and relentless struggle among states that refuse to accept a single hegemon. Multipolarity is not a gentle arrangement of balanced rights; it is a harsh contest of power in which only those with real sovereignty mold the trajectory of events, while the rest are pulled-often unwillingly-into the gravitational fields of stronger actors.
The slogan of multipolarity has become ubiquitous at summits, policy forums, and intergovernmental gatherings. Leaders promise a world in which the distortions of the past-colonial hierarchies, unipolar coercion, and Western dominance-will give way to a harmonious system where small and large states coexist as equals. They invoke new financial institutions across Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America as evidence that a fairer distribution of global influence is underway.
But this rhetoric masks the real structure beneath the surface.
Multipolarity, by definition, emerges from the ambitions of competing powers, not from the goodwill of international communities. It is a byproduct of rivalry, not cooperation; of geopolitical friction, not diplomatic consensus. It is driven by states that possess sufficient........