In global politics and international re­lations, polarity is defined as the dis­tribution of power among states, ac­cording to eminent international scholar Kenneth Waltz. It is, therefore, said in the rise and fall of great pow­ers, the structure and polarity of global politics has remained in flux. Historians argued that the world before World War 1 and World 2 was constituted of multipolarity, the confluence of great powers during which Great Brit­ain emerged as a hegemon.

However, the balance of power greatly shifted towards the US and USSR follow­ing the end of World War 2, setting the stage for the Cold War. Again, during the Cold War, the system was bipolar where majorities had to align themselves with either the USA or USSR for the protec­tion of their core national interests. In­terestingly, nuclear deterrence was the primary reason for thwarting the Cold War into a hot war, although major con­flicts and wars broke out in the Third World, famously in the Korean peninsu­la (1950-53) and Vietnam (1955-1975).

Moving forward, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979) and the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) contributed to the vanquishing of the USSR, marking the end of the Cold War. The USA emerged as the sole superpower and embarked on the agenda of a liberal world, marked by the spread of democracy and the growth of free markets and globalization. Conse­quently, many liberals argued the age of unipolarity under American leadership was a peaceful era in human history.

However, the flip side of the story is that America used her unbridled mil­itary and economic might to destroy countries like Afghanistan (2001), and Iraq (2003) and was involved else­where in the Middle East, allegedly in the........

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