Diving into a Complex Multipolarity

The model of world order changed dramatically from bipolarity to unipolarity after the collapse of USSR in 1991, when the US became the world’s sole superpower. But a complex multipolarity started to emerge after  the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. There are many significant constraints towards this transition. After the financial crisis of 2008 the world economic order initially started to shift in 3 dominant poles: the United States, China and the European Union. But recent progresses in the international events make us dive into Complex Multipolarity.

During this transitional period the world's political structure has been becoming more complex for - 1. Emerging Sino-American bipolarity  2. Rise of Russia, Turkey and India as strong regional political and military powers influencing the world economy  3. The EU became weaker in economic power and lost its grip on the  geopolitical influences in the globe. The expansion of BRICs and the G77, and the shift in the centre of economic gravity from the rich trans-Atlantic democracies to Asia also contributed enough in this transition of a complex multipolarity. With rise of China in dense network of bilateral trading relationships with ASEAN as its largest trading partner, the old capitalist world system has started creating new poles and power blocs around the globe. The demographically large Asian countries like China, India and Indonesia started dominating the consumer market of the world and created large and growing mass domestic markets. The continued geopolitical tensions between the US and China has fueled the development models like improved Sino-Russian relations, the emergence of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), rise in the role of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank with the creation of New Development Bank (previously known as the BRICS Bank). These events initiated a great shift towards a complex multipolar world providing alternatives to the Bretton Woods system of supremacy of US dollar. The growth in the BRICs solidarity has made China and India as new poles in the international system. The revitalised and enlarged Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) now has become a new pole in the world economic order.

The EU as a regional bloc is  also in the process of gaining the polarity dominance through the expansion of  NATO with prospective new memberships of Sweden and Finland, and the Ukraine pending. But, the separation of United Kingdom made EU weaker as well as damaging the  economy of UK itself . Again, the indipendent actions  of both Germany and France to protect their national interests made EU's structure more volatile. While the formation of AUKUS and the Indo-Pacific Quad strengthened the EU to some extend. The Europe’s energy crisis caused by the Russian invasion in Ukraine is also a big issue which remains to be solved by EU in the coming future. Again, the Middle East has now become a Muslim pole through the leadership of Turkey and Iran, with relationships to other Muslim states in the Asia-Pacific, embracing their own religion, language and ideology.