The Emerging New Global (Dis)Order

Abstract

In this paper, we first attempt to track post-WWII shifts in the balance of power between a number of big powers in the international system. By relying on a number of possible proxies for power in the international arena, we argue that what the international system is going through today is not a relatively indiscriminate diffusion of power from the centre towards the periphery, but a marked rise of China that seems to have left the rest of the “emerging world” behind. We then delve deeper into the foreign policies of the US and China, the two main powers in this seemingly neo-bipolar system. We find that risks of confrontation are rising. On the one hand, this is related to the US’s continued preference for a strategy bent on “primacy”, rather than on strategic restraint. On the other hand, Beijing’s foreign policy is growing increasingly assertive, and does not hide anymore within the rhetoric of the “peaceful rise”. We conclude by showing that this shift in international power, coupled by the grand strategies preferred by China and the US, are imperilling the fragile scaffolding of global governance. The risk is that, rather than leading us towards a new but sustainable global order, the transition will only lead us backwards: to a world in which rules are less confidently upholded, and where the logic of the balance of power and of arms races further gains momentum.