THERE is little doubt that the world is in the throes of one of its most unsettled periods. The coronavirus pandemic has only added to uncertainty in international politics at a time when the world is in flux — with global power shifting, the stand-off between the world’s two superpowers continuing and a rules-based order eroding as big powers qualify their support to multilateralism.
How does one describe this era? The latest Strategic Survey by the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, among the best annual reviews of geopolitics, grapples with this question but rejects the idea that a single phrase or typology can capture it. It refers to several descriptions including “return to great power politics”, “A G2 world”, “The Asian century” but finds that none of them work to reflect a multidimensional reality. Diverse issues have strategic impact, it says.
Nevertheless, even without invoking a single overarching phrase to depict present-day geopolitics certain key features of the strategic environment stand out. They include fierce competition between the two global powers, weakening commitment to multilateralism amid growing multipolarity, intensification of tech wars, retreat of globalisation, renewal of regional conflicts, rise of hyper-nationalism as well as of authoritarian, populist leaders.
The policy and intellectual debate about the international landscape that has to be negotiated today is enriched by several new books. One of them is the...
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