A New World Order Isn't Comingit's Already Here

2025-09-12 01:08:51

(MENAFN- Asia Times) On September 3, 2025, China celebrated the 80th anniversary of its victory over Japan by staging a carefully choreographed event in which 26 world leaders were offered a podium view of Beijing's impressive military might .

The show of strength was deliberate and reignited a debate in Western media over whether we are on the cusp of a China-centric“new world order” to replace the US-dominated international“rules-based order .”

But as someone who writes about geopolitics , I believe we are already there. It might be in flux, and the US still has a big role in it, but a new world order has begun – and as it develops, it will look increasingly different than what it's replacing.

A brief history of world orders

Global history can be understood as the rise and fall of different orders, defined as a given era's dominant power relations and attendant institutions and norms.

From 1815 to 1880, the United Kingdom was the undisputed world superpower , with an empire and navy that spanned the globe. The period from 1880 to 1945 was one of imperial rivalries as other countries – largely European and the US – sought to copy Britain's success and replace its dominance. Supplanting that was the bipolar world of two competing superpowers, the Soviet Union and the US, marking the period from 1945 to 1991.

The fall of the Soviet Union was the beginning of a brief period, from 1991 to 2008, of a unipolar world centered on US global dominance, military power and economic might. With the retreat of global communism, the US increased its influence, and that of the international rules-based order it helped establish after 1945, through institutions such as the World Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

The tearing down of the Berlin Wall marked the end of the Cold War. Photo: Colin Campbell / Getty Images via The Conversation

It did not last long in the face of a long war on terrorism , the fiasco of the invasion of Iraq , the long occupation of Afghanistan and finally the 2008 global financial crisis that undermined US strength and weakened domestic support for Washington's role as the world's policeman.

Toward a multipolar world

In recent years, a new multipolar world has emerged with at least four distinct sources of power.

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