This chapter analyses the ever-changing global political environment and offers key insights that underpin the understanding of the term ‚World Order‘. In doing so, a brief journey through time will reveal conceptual insights into an ongoing dynamical process between the two extremes of Multipolarism and Unipolarism (M.U.M. Model), its dynamics, and how it relates to potential concepts such as balance, imbalance, and the subjective restoration of what has been lost. Based on these general findings and clarifications, a look into the future will allow the reader to add a prominent individual value to currently existing ideologies such as a unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar world order, and will stimulate the creation of a more personal, lasting, and independent conceptual understanding beyond such terminology in common use.
Keywords: unipolar, bipolar, multipolar, world order, fragmentation, political divergence, global alliance.
Introduction
Starting this journey into the depth of the terminology’s meaning of World Order and its impact on our daily life, I strongly believe that we, first of all, need to agree on two specific aspects, namely that a political and/or global order per se is only a temporary phenomenon, and second that we may always identify an epoch previous to and follow up on the time lapse in question. Based on such agreements and findings, we are able to see that the world community finds itself potentially in a fortunate situation to learn from the past and to build a future in a more meaningful and sustainable way. Even though analyzing the political past does not sound like a ground-breaking innovation, we still need to assume that this source of knowledge is broadly ignored in today’s political decision-making. Accepting that such historical resources are ignored and claiming that such persons in charge of building a secure global environment to live in, fumble in the dark, turns out to be the only option to save the face of a broad quantity of politicians in regard to their professional executive strategies. More often than not, such actions are made in an egocentric way, suppressing the global community’s needs. The UN Secretary-General questions the number of men in executive positions and calls for an increasing number of women in decision-making processes, counting on female rational competencies (Besheer, 2023). But let us go back in history, learn from the past, and find out how we can make better decisions in a constantly changing world.
Accordingly, we will need to verify what the term ‚World Order‘ potentially meant throughout the ages, how it impacted regional and global affairs, and how it developed over the period of the last centuries. We all may further agree that the topic of global politics and international affairs is a complex and complicated one. Therefore, we need to start dwelling in this field carefully and step by step, ensuring that our common understanding grows from one headline to the next one. Accordingly, we should start discussing the topics of unipolarism, bipolarism, and multipolarism in this proper logical current. We will finish the chapter by having a look at historical global affairs from a more holistic perspective, giving a prominent focus on a crucial aspect that has ruled global politics ever since, namely communication.
In order to start off with the fundamental core term, namely ‚World Order‘, I may share with you that there is no concrete and sole definition per se. While some scholars describe it as an arrangement between major powers on how to rule the rest of the world, others define it as a concept of regional rules that are applicable to the rest of the world (Rodrik, 2021). Let us proceed and build our own understanding of this term and construct.
Unipolarism on a Regional and Global Level
As briefly outlined in the introduction, regional, national, continental, and intercontinental affairs are of a temporary character and, therefore, highly dynamic. Accordingly, we will not be able to adequately label a specific starting point from when international connections gave birth to strategic alliances, etc. More likely it is a lack of documentation that prevents us going further back in history.
Basically, we could go back some 3 – 4.000 years when nomadic tribes started to settle in Sumer (Lawson, 2016) and establish trade alliances. Such micro alliances gave potentially birth to more complex settings of interconnectivity and could be a concrete cradle of regional impact, as such trust, acceptance, and interregional relation must have existed, as such tribes could not have moved peacefully and secure on their specific routes without an infrastructure based on mutual acceptance. Interpersonal connections are a fundamental need of a human being, not only in the professional environment but also in the proper social setting. Based on the fact that humans are social creatures, a social structure of interaction and exchange builds part of the first education of a being. Therefore, we are conditioned to interact with other parties from our childhood on, and it only turns out being logic that each type of order or harmony represents the balancing processes between order and disorder (Blackwill, Wright, 2020). This is a strong hint towards the fact that trust and acceptance are not giving birth rights but need to be established, in all environment of human interaction.
The mentioned primary education builds the cornerstone of a human’s interactive superstructure that may grow and become more complex, referring to its proper individual’s setting and ability. At this point, we are able to see that the concept of unipolarism starts on an individual’s level, namely within the proper family. From a baby’s egocentric perspective, the family forms the first functional cell, namely the child’s world per se. As time goes by, the child will discover that there are more families living in the same area and that connecting with such parallel cells forms part of a social individual’s life. Such connections are the root cause of social aid, exchange, stability, and growth. Accordingly, we can say that concepts of polarism are born with the individual’s self-realization and by placing such findings into a wider environment.
Lifting this content up to the level of clans, ethnicities, nations, and even professional environments, we will see that the value of personal interaction is not losing importance while the size of the setting grows. On an international level, heads of state foster their relations on a personal level by dialoguing and mutual visits. Based on common trust and understanding, international projects, such as trade alliances, educational exchanges, and/or health care support, are planned and initiated. Most likely having the mutual stability on a multilevel aspect as a goal.
Reviewing the news and even historical references, we may learn that such interactions can be found all over the globe, throughout all ages, following a diverse range of strategies. The intensity of one’s network does not label a stakeholder automatically to be the ruling force of a unipolar concept. Apart of that, it is important to realize that several strong stakeholders and even empires coexisted globally at the same time. The term unipolarism became crucially relevant not long ago. Basically, it outlines a period when one regional superpower did / does not face any major power as a competitor (Ahere, 2011), and identifies potentially several minor powers that may play a specific role with or without crucial abilities, but this will be discussed later on. To continue our journey, a tremendous change in the global community was needed to initiate this phenomenon.
An intermediate process before finally arriving at what we may consider to truly, but temporary, be unipolar in modern age, are the imperialistic epochs. Here, we may count on empires such as the Mongolian, the Ottoman, the Mayan, the Roman (Blackwill, Wright, 2020), and the epoch of European colonialism. Accordingly, we may realize that the wealth and dominance of Western European countries were based on historical circumstances and exploitation (Lawson, 2016), which caused a significant imbalance of global markets and specially selected access of the global community to such markets. The prominent stage generated out of these circumstances, led the Western European imperialists being comfortably settled for over three hundred years. During this time, such managed to create lasting benefits from their imperialistic activities (Lawson, 2016), leading, in some cases, up to the present age.
In order to get back thematically to the initially mentioned dynamics of global politics, we may connect deeper with the topic of globally spread coexisting regional dominant parties. Even though we can count several of them on a global level, they remain locally and regionally eminent and do not generate an overall global impact, which makes them follow a locally unipolar concept. To regional-bound citizens, such sociopolitical constructs represent the world per se. Obviously assuming that such individuals did not experience traveling or did not envision to look over their shoulder.
Having in mind that terms like polarism strongly depend on external factors, such being of a hard-skill and/or soft-skill nature, we could further put these thoughts into practice and create some examples. Applied hard skills materialize, for example, in regional dominance related to trade and/or military power. While relevant soft skills refer more likely to the importance and impact of external alliances. We could now go further and even integrate the terms of bipolarism and multipolarism to our reflection, but we are not there yet.
What changed over the last centuries, and this being identified as a soft skill or fact, is the speed and quantity of communication. The ability to send a telegram within minutes, to do a phone call, and more recently to have access to the internet made the world community gather much closer side by side and turned more likely regional wallflowers into parties with an increasing level of global impact. This initiated a new level of dynamics, namely that individuals, nations, and companies could react within minutes to decisions made or statements shared at the other extreme of the globe. This was the moment when even individual traveling and the shipping of goods sped up, and the worldwide spread super, major, and minor powers turned into one global community. Now, forming one global community, it is obvious that the terms related to polarism reach another level of importance and relevance.
Bipolarism and its Dramatic Birth
The global community, as described above, arranged itself within a balance of existing regional and interregional ruling authorities. According to global dynamics and circumstances, such empires bloomed and disappeared from time to time, as such developments strongly depend on the specific and overall circumstances of such historical sequences (Koechler, 2023). More recently, European colonialism pushed this naturally balancing process to collapse. Being caught up in an extreme rivalry of expanding global impact, gathering natural resources, and shifting ethnic groups from one continent to another, such invasive behavior challenged the existing world order of a multitude of globally spread unipolar empires to its limits and was widely overtaken by European intruders, acting under the egocentric banner of imperialism.
Interestingly enough, the timeline between 1871 and 1914 is recognized as the great period of peace within the Western European alliance (Flanagan, 2011). Obviously, this statement places its focus on the European territory, excluding the proceedings and dramas that took place in the territories to be annexed, where fierce fighting between existing civilizations and European invaders formed, more often than not, a long-lasting, brutal, and sad reality.
The above-mentioned 43 years of European peace imply the assumption that countries involved in the conquest of regions abroad were simply too busy looting their new territories, and it seemed impossible to fight each other on European terrain. However, this ought to change, namely when inner European relations were stressed and the fear of a German takeover of the continental political power arose (Flanagan, 2011). As a consequence of this fear and other circumstances, the political balance between the the European Cluster Powers a) Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy, and b) Britain, France, and Russia got out of balance (Sakhawat, 2019) and culminated in the beginning of World War I. Obviously, this is only one of several theories on the causes that supported the start of WWI.
The global community unfortunately experienced not only WWI but also WWII within a period of about three decades only. While, as a consequence of WWI, Germany was bound to fulfill the constituent parts of the Treaty of Versailles, WWII gave birth to another scenario, namely the long-lasting split of the victorious powers, Great Britain, France, Soviet Union, and the United States of America, and as a consequence of such, to the Cold War (Schweitzer, 2014).
As there are no conflicts without the building of new alliances, we may briefly say that a consequence of the early and ongoing stages of the Cold War, appeared the long-lasting desire within the world community to finally obtain ‘Ordo Ab Chao’. Accordingly, each party of the former united victorious powers attempted to establish, support, and materialize their own concept of global order. The major players of the world community split into two camps, namely the American and the Soviet one (Blackwill, Wright, 2020). One attempt in doing so was realized by the Western alliance by founding the North Atlantic Trade Organization and the counter movement by Eastern European nations in signing the Warsaw Pact and creating the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Mastny, 2001). Based on the economic relevance, both Russia and the US, had a crucial impact within their alliance and played a key role in building nowadays global political scenario (Varisco, 2013).
In order to support our common understanding of this situation, we need to share some additional information on the topic of bipolarism, namely that two appearances of such exist. On one side, we have power-based polarism. Such describes two major stakeholders facing themselves on one level of economic power and/or military opportunities. On the other side, and this one is more relevant for us right now, we can find the cluster-based Polarism, which is a setting where one major camp, out of several like-minded previously minor powers, is built. Obviously, the Cold War period is a mix out of both (Ahere, 2011), as we may identify the East and the West with the USSR and the USA only, ignoring their minor partners.
Giving historical credit to all the above-mentioned sociopolitical events, we finally arrived at the post-WWII epoch, namely in the middle of the Cold War, when 12 of the Western European countries and the United States of America founded the NATO (NATO, 2024), while 7 Eastern European nations signed the Warsaw Pact and founded the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Mastny, 2001).
Summing our findings briefly up, we started our journey throughout the time when a multitude of more likely unipolar empires coexisted on the global surface. Here, we may see that polarity describes a temporary balance of power and impact between or within the conglomerate of main actors (Ahere, 2011). This balance was interrupted by the colonialist activities of Western European countries, when such lost themselves in an imperialist trade war, not focussing on inner European affairs. Even though none of the colonialists owned a proper empire, most of them longed for such by extending their territories abroad. WWI and WWII finalized the imperialistic epoch. The pre-colonialist order, gave birth – due to the colonialist transformative centuries – to even more stakeholders looking for an impactful status, that they could not handle afterwards in real life. After WWII, the early stages of creating political order were overshadowed by the fundamental desire to foster economic impact and advantages. In such a way, the North Atlantic Trade Organization and, as a response act, the Warsaw Treaty Organization were founded. Both attempts to receive and secure the largest piece of the cake.
As the success and impact of both organizations were measured in economic strength, the NATO placed itself into a comfortable and eminent position, dominating international markets for several decades, surpassing the WTO by far and turning it into an irrelevant body that hardly is remembered. Based on the collapse of the USSR in 1990, exposing to the public its incapability to uphold the aimed leadership position (Ciambra, 2007), the former Eastern Bloc focussed on reorganizing itself and thus gave even more space for the NATO to raise to its top position (Adams, 2023). This unipolar epoch led by NATO, established a short period of major peace and less international rivalry between the former mentioned blocs (Ahere, 2011), based on the fact that Russia and China were simply too weak to challenge the US, back than (Blackwill, Wright, 2020).
The unrivaled global standing of the US did not promote a mandatorily quiet and balanced one at all (Mastanduno, 2009). Even though roughly peaceful, we may ascertain that such unstable political circumstances basically call for further development on the potential opponents side, in one direction or the other (Ciambra, 2007). This status of political unipolar autonomy enabled the NATO to focus on building new alliances (Ciambra, 2007). This seemed to be highly necessary, as a unipolar standing within a global community of indecisive states, more likely tastes like a one against all, and could turn out easily being a bipolar setting of one major power and a fragmented opponent, totally unpredictable in its development. Facing and maintaining such a status quo, in an highly dynamic context, is build on political and economic costs that remain prohibitive (Dall’Agnol, 2018). Furthermore, based on the continuous economic growth of such former minor powers, these continuously qualify for more crucial positions of impact within world politics and need to be taken into future account (Wade, 2011).
However, the former founding of the WTO should not have been the last and only attempt to build a counterpart towards NATO. In 2001, an economic researcher introduced the term BRIC nations for the first time and initiated thereby indirectly the existence of what later on became a proper intergovernmental organization, starting off with members such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China (Erdmann, 2024-b). Afterwards, South Africa was accepted to build the solid fifth member. In 2024, additional states joined, namely Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (Jütten, Falkenberg, 2024), looking for credibility and legitimacy, while most of them follow authoritarian concepts (Adams, 2023).
While the proper building process of BRICS is outlined in my above-mentioned article, I wish to stress your attention to the fact that nowadays, BRICS, such as NATO, is a relic of Cold War dynamics and keeps the potential rivalry between the West and the East still alive (Stares et al., 2020). Needless to say, that human nature basically attempts to constantly develop and change, namely to improve. Such moderate competitive behavior may support a sound and stable growth. But where does such rivalry lead to on a state level, specially when a rational balance might be missing and one party only longs for external power, while it struggles with internal corruption, institutional weaknesses, and political instability (Adams, 2023)? I strongly believe that two opposing parties can still follow common overall goals, in particular when we live in an epoch when terms such as ‚you‘ and ‚me‘ are more likely replaced by ‚us‘.
As previously discussed, all of us form nowadays part of the global community, a setting that is built upon communication abilities and that distinguishes itself by the necessity of responsibility towards oneself and the global community per se. Therefore, it is obvious that decisions need to be taken in favor of mankind and planet Earth and that personal interests need to be weighed out and put into relation to the necessities of the world community. Obviously, there is no place for blind rivalry and politicians who act like they are playing egocentric games in a sandbox. War and Violence per se do not form part of a mature person’s mindset. Based on this finding, we all may agree that politicians and citizens need to overcome their most basic intrinsic instincts and master their mindsets in order to start thinking truly as One. There is obviously nothing to lose, as we can only generate global benefits in a conglomerate of likewise thinking minds. In the history of mankind, fragmentation has more likely always been a tool of or a door to isolation, destructiveness, shortsighted decision-making, and weakness (Erdmann, 2024-a).
The fact that BRICS countries make up about 50 percent of the global population (Adams, 2023) does not automatically support peace, balance, or constructive dialog. In order to understand the NATO’s counterpart better, we need to grasp what BRICS truly stands for. BRICS is not only an ideologic antipole, but more likely an economic power, a military might, and a political alliance that is constantly developing itself (Adams, 2023). Even Russia’s ongoing aggression towards Ukraine, could not detain several states to officially join BRICS in 2024.
At this point, we may recognize that another fundamental change in the global trade war took place. Misled by the Cold War scenario, the global community still labels the two camps of major actors in a potentially bipolar world: Russia and the US. Here, we need to admit to our concept that China replaced Russia by a stronger economic impact and a more significant military might (Ashford, Cooper, 2023). Interesting enough, what this fact may mean for the power balance within BRICS itself.
Such happenings are only a slight hint on how complex the interlinkages are, how static international negotiations can become, and how the global community distances itself more and more of a crucial and sustainable Oneness. While it is noteworthy that a lasting Oneness could also have a bipolar fundament.
Multipolarism in the Past and Nowadays
As we can see, based on the previous two sections, there has always been more than truly one single unipolar empire or ruling concept throughout the history of mankind. Wherever we find a ruling authority, there may also exist a dynamic of resistance, struggling for power itself or at least for a broader availability of choice and opportunity. Such dynamics do not form a solid platform for sustainable peace, are more likely fragile (Wolforth, 1999), and do not represent a power balance per se. While we had several regional empires coexisting in the past, we moved onwards to an epoch when this multipolar balance of coexistence collapsed. Taking advantage of these chaotic circumstances, with the colonial interlude and WWI and WWII, the NATO partners took over and formed a unipolar and economically dominant concept that ruled over the global markets for several decades (Blackwill, Wright, 2020). And such a development caused a debate on a global scale (Mastanduno, 2009), and directly results in our timeline from the previous described appearance of a multipolar balance (Straus, 1997).
Then, based on this unipolar setting, something very interesting happened. It is not only the fact that BRICS built a counterpart to NATO and challenged the recently existing main world order (Adams, 2023), but also the shift from a fragmented world order towards an interconnected global community. The two main characters, namely the Western and the Eastern alliances, struggling for economic dominance and impact, are only two parts of the triad. We now need to take a third party into account and realize that we are talking about a new setting of multipolarism in a new epoch. Personally, I label this journey, from one specific form of Multipolarism towards a temporary Unipolarism, a process that enabled a new setting of Multipolarism. This M.U.M. model, outlines that terms and concepts repeat itself but change their setting from time to time. The process of improving repetition can be visualized by imagining a winding staircase, you arrive at the same spot over and over again, but on a new level.
The third party, to build modern multipolarism, is formed by a group of fragmented, isolated, or indecisive nations that do not wish to affiliate to one of the main parties or that wait and see with which alignment could generate the most significant benefit in the short or in the long run. Such a conglomerate of more likely opportunist nations is able to initiate unpredictable dynamics in world politics. Based on the fact that the U.S. does not show nowadays a strong economic impact as it used to do in the past (Ashford, Cooper, 2023), the potentially fragmented minor powers are free to choose which superpower they may follow and which alliance turns out being more beneficial in the long run. Countries such as India, Japan, and Australia, would appreciate a stronger US commitment against China (Burrows, 2017), while India, being a BRICS member like China, has the ability to become a major power by itself. All these tensions, inside and outside of BRICS, complicate the balancing process towards an overall Oneness.
Accordingly, these minor powers, and/or nations with lots of development potential, not only consume a lot of the main stakeholders’ energy and time while they are courted, but they also imply the capacity to properly organize themselves and to establish a functioning third party, longing for a proper main character’s position by itself. Accordingly, the modern multipolarism would be born (Ahere, 2011). The fact that all stakeholders, at all their levels of impact, still depend on and exchange with each other, often on an economic level, describes the absurdity of this global overall interconnectivity (Tella, 2015).
Even economically weak, we can identify several states that try to upgrade their standing within the global community, individually or as part of a proper camp, by increasing their relevance towards peace, by building nuclear weapons (Blackwill, Wright, 2020). While nuclear weapons were used in the past in a dissuasive way, it is questionable if countries such as India, Pakistan, and North Korea follow the same concept if a potential national threat occurs (Burrows, 2017). Based on these developments, this period in time entails radical international uncertainty (Blackwill, Wright, 2020), and an ongoing rivalry between nuclear major powers does not build a lasting stable and peaceful time at all (Martin, 2022).
Conclusion
The benefits, challenges, and threats of such a complex construct like polarism are obvious. Even though it seems to be a natural process to identify competition between poles (Ahere, 2011), stakeholders find themselves in a setting that does not really promote constructive and sustainable decision-making in favor of the world community. All initially listed terms lose their constructive potential based on the fact that being driven by the basic fear of ending up neglected by global business, political decision-makers select paths that further promote fragmentation, restlessness, and egocentric behavior at its best, instead of initiating and strengthening global unity and responsibility.
In order to strictly label our status quo, we find ourselves in a political environment where we shift from a more likely natural setting of two poles to an absurd, inscrutable construct of three poles. The proper third pole completes the construct of a fragmented and polarized pluralism and represents a variable that is unpredictable in itself. These minor parties may connect individually with a more settled and impactful major party, or they may complete the scrap for power and impact by forming an authority by itself. Nowadays, we see fragmented third parties being connected to both major players. India entails the potential to become a sole major power, but also forms part of BRICS and G20 at the same time.
Even splitting and reorganizing itself turns out being highly complex. Russia and China, obvious both being members of BRICS, cooperate on one platform but struggle on another one such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Here, Russia tried to make India and Pakistan join, even though both suffer a highly tensioned relationship per se, in order to weaken China’s impact within this Eurasian partnership (Burrows, 2017). Potentially, this was also one reason for the acceptance of a multitude of new BRICS members in 2024.
In order to challenge our reality a bit further and to breathe even more life into the term of pluralism, it is mandatory to outline that none of the main stakeholder parties is bound to such a major camp forever. Potential fragmentation, as we can see, does not only happen on the level of ideologic ideas and visions, but also on an economic level, as done by Latin America when it removed from IMF and World Bank in order to follow its proper Latin America Development Bank (Alexander, 2014). Something similar happened when BRICS nations connected to the New Development Bank (Erdmann, 2024-b). Potentially, the constant back and forth of the non-Western states, is their weakest point that truly prevents them in obtaining a lasting leadership role.
On a global scale, we can witness new entries and withdrawals from main player’s networks that potentially fuel the global political fire even more. Accordingly, lots of obvious paradox political decisions take place that even stress existing alliances and question the participant’s overall loyal positions, for example the Russian invasion in Ukraine, and the fact that India hosts a G20 gathering (Ashford, Cooper, 2023). The only way to master nowadays global tasks and challenges is by making use of constructive dialog that guarantees the individuals’ necessity to be heard, and that makes all people and political stakeholders understand that only unity enables us to crow over the destructive forces. Historic rivalry and egocentric decision-making does not take us, as a community, anywhere. Living in a multipolar global order requires, from all parties, flexibility and openness (Ashford, Cooper, 2023) in order to accept one’s diversity, and to achieve what was scheduled as a common goal. Having taken a winding staircase throughout history, we were able to discover the dynamics of the M.U.M. Model. Now, we have no other option than acting wiser as our predecessors, and to implement our findings to today’s decision-making.
The age of maturity calls the global citizens to get rid of egocentric fears, to believe in the importance and strength of community, to mutually improve, and to live life with peers. Man is a social being, and life implies being surrounded by individuals who respect each other, and love life itself. This love towards life, means caring for the community. Therefore, personal interests can never surpass the community’s needs. Life is a sum of mindful moments, truths, and discoveries. Let us read between the lines, look behind the curtain, and swim against the stream. Think twice, and act wise! Future generations may not pardon the tensions that currently occur. More likely, they will demand mature decision-making from people in charge. Mankind is build on diversity. Accepting diverse mindsets does not diminish one’s value or strength. We form one human race, and life shows us its colors in the broad quantity of differences. Such do not separate us, but enrich our common ability to discuss, exchange, and improve. Accordingly, we are diverse, but united in diversity. And such conglomerate of thoughts, ideas, and visions adds a unique value to our common life. This is the path, the path to unity. Let us overcome whatever seems to challenge our Peace, let us become One.
References
Note: Internet pages added on May 27th, 2024
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