The end of the 45-year Cold War produced a big kid to influence and interfere in the geopolitical world: the United States of America. Since then, America has enjoyed the status of the sole superpower in the unipolar world system. The well-defined hierarchy of power has enabled America to produce emerging economic greats. Thus, the US possesses a robust hard power, a blue water navy, a political and strategic webbing throughout the world, accompanied by a cultural hegemony over third world states, i.e. America’s influence on the third world, though not conspicuous, through cultural foundations to maintain its hegemony. But it seems that the glorious hegemony and dominance will come to an end in the coming decades. The world in the 21st century has changed in unprecedented ways. The times and dynamics have changed. The United States’ disregard for international norms and society, its reduced engagement with the world, the economic muscle of a rising China, the resurgence of mighty Russia, popping up of nuclear warheads around the globe leave room to contemplate the status quo of this big kid.
The powerful rise of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) to great nations are shifting the balance of power. The multipolar world with multiple superpowers is seemingly on the horizon of the 21st century, but this multipolarity will differ from the multipolar world system of the past. The projected geopolitical bloc will not be a mesh of military muscle and hard powers. This time, the multipolar world system will be a complex amalgam of hard power, economies, populations, soft power, strategic alliances, nuclear arsenals, and the complexity of competition between mighty adversaries.
The American-led international order is likely to be replaced in the coming decades by international order of great power friction. For the first time in history, the stability of the future world plus the balance of power will be determined not only by the unpredictability of rivalry between symmetrical great powers but also by the lethal potential of middle and small countries and non-state actors possessing nuclear weapons.. Iran, Pakistan, the DPRK, and terrorist organizations will be rare great powers or poles in the future multipolar globe. However, the consequences of their activities can quickly ricochet around the world, creating a new source of potential instability.
An example of this is the event in 2009 when the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) sent a communications satellite into space on a Taepodong 2 ballistic missile. Concerned neighbors and the U.S. saw the missile launch as a cover for testing long-range ballistic missile technologies as a threat to their national security. Pyongyang claimed the satellite had entered orbit, but U.S. specialists deemed it a failure noting that the missile had traveled 3,200 kilometers before landing in the Pacific Ocean. A careless launch of a communications satellite or military exercise by a country with the 197th Gross Domestic Product per capita in the world can become a threat “to international peace and security” (Obama, Prague Statement) and a significant cause of global instability shortly.
Moreover, the importance of artificial intelligence and cyber in the future multipolar world must be emphasized. The command and control networks responsible for the use of nuclear weapons are vulnerable to advances in AI and cyber. Furthermore, no technology is immune to mistakes. Failures in the nuclear business, where so much is at stake, can be extremely disastrous. Hypersonic weapons are the most dangerous of the emerging technologies in the nuclear world. Because of their speed and maneuverability, they can fly in unexpected patterns that elude standard missile defense systems. With that, intangible cyber operations cannot be quantified or tracked in the same way that actual nuclear hardware, such as missiles, can be counted and limited.
This new class of weaponry drew a lot of attention when Russian President Vladimir Putin declared in 2019 that Russia had deployed its hypersonic glide vehicle, the Avangard. In what many are calling a new “arms race,” Russia, China, and the U.S. are racing to develop their own hypersonic capabilities. While the U.S. has stated that it wants to have a fully operational hypersonic weapon by 2022, China and Russia seem to be ahead of the game.
So, one may enquire whether the emerging multipolar geopolitical bloc will be potentially stable or not? Many IR neo-realists see unipolarity as a source of potential instability, leading actors to use hard force to counterbalance the influence of the hegemon, while multipolarity, on the other hand, ensures global stability. Now, here it is important to remember that times have changed, regional and global dynamics have altered unprecedentedly. The approaching nuclear multipolarity does not seem to enjoy stability in this regard. There are some new crises and challenges that would be a part of coming multipolar world as well such as loose nukes, Iran and DPRK illegal nuclear status, Iran – Israel confrontation, perpetuating war-like scenarios between two nuclear warheads India and Pakistan, Taiwan and Japan fear of nuclear threats from DPRK and the chutzpah of populist leaders around the world igniting the flame of xenophobia and islamophobia. All these challenges appear to be chasing the approaching multipolar world with its balance of power and seem to be throwing the world into disarray instead of letting it enjoy the peace and harmony between multiple superpowers.
Undeniably, Asia will write the future of nuclear powers. Here, major and sub-regional systems collide in multiple and complex ways. The ability of India and Pakistan to (1) codify their stated commitment to minimal restraint and prevent an arms race, and (2) avert a crisis over Kashmir that leads them into a nuclear conflict, will determine their nuclear fate. The American tendency to characterize the South Asian nuclear issue in terms of this bipolar dynamic overlooks the important role of China; Pakistan is focused on India, while India is focused on China. Moreover, unlike Pakistan, India is motivated by great power ambitions. In the next decade, the nuclear future could be much more dynamic than in the past.
Finally, bear in mind that while America is losing its economic and military hegemony over the world, it still has a master bench in the geopolitical bloc that no one can occupy. America has a chance to solidify its role as the world’s key power and still holds better cards than any of its rivals. Russia’s military budget is ten times that of the United States. Its economy is smaller than Texas’, and its population is projected to shrink by 30% over the next thirty years. Russia has no allies to speak of and is up against NATO. The United States is institutionally a mess, but China’s system is even worse. “The United States is a flawed democracy, while China is an oligarchy headed by a dictator for life”(Michael Beckley in his book unraveled). Compared to all the expected poles in the near multipolar world, America is the only nation that is both large, young, and well educated. Hence America seems to play a central role in the coming world order, and its influence and gravity cannot be ignored in any balance of power.
The author of this opinion article, Ayesha Zafar is from National Defence University Student of International Relations.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Pakistan Frontier.