World Order and Great Powers: Bipolar or Multipolar World

Global Power Shifts or more of the Same?

Despite frequent claims of American decline and talk of a rising “multipolar world,” the United States remained the dominant global power during the first Trump term in 2018. Historical cycles of perceived decline (post‑WWII, Vietnam, 1970s) have repeated, but U.S. actions continue to drive major international events (North Korea, Iran, China trade). You should be aware that multipolarity is often more wishful thinking or political rhetoric than an accurate description of how world power actually operates today.  Main Points:

Historical perspective: U.S. dominance after WWII was soon challenged, producing cycles of confidence and perceived decline (Korea, Vietnam, 1970s), but the U.S. later reasserted strength (Reagan era, end of the Soviet Union).

“Multipolar world” is often a normative or rhetorical claim by both friends and foes; it frequently reflects wishes or biases more than current reality.

In 2018 the U.S. still largely drove major global developments (Korean Peninsula negotiations, Iran sanctions debate, China trade tensions), showing continued unipolar influence. The question is has this changed in 2025?

While U.S. primacy isn’t guaranteed forever — rising powers and internal weaknesses could change the balance — as of 2018 the world remained effectively unipolar. However, during the second Trump term, many would argue that the world is heading towards multipolarity in 2025. Is that really the case?

Arguments for a Multipolar World

While the United States and China remain the dominant powers, the world is shifting toward an “unbalanced multipolarity” in which influential middle powers (e.g., Japan, India, Turkey, Brazil, Australia) matter more. Relying on a Cold War–style, bloc-building containment strategy against China is ill-suited to this reality and risks isolating the U.S., encouraging free-riding by allies, and damaging U.S. economic influence. Instead, the U.S. should adapt by leveraging allies’ capabilities, pursuing flexible economic engagement (not protectionism), and favoring targeted bilateral or minilateral partnerships to advance American interests in a more distributed global order. Key points of this view:

• Polarity = distribution of power; today’s system is neither strictly bipolar nor purely unipolar but “unbalanced multipolar,” with power concentrated in the U.S. and China yet dispersed more than in the Cold War.
• Middle powers are increasingly influential; global events (Ukraine, G-20, regional conflicts) show limits of great-power-only solutions.
• A Cold War–style bloc strategy risks weak partnerships, allied free-riding, economic backlash, and overstretch.
• Recommended U.S. strategy: (1) leverage and burden-share with allies instead of suppressing their roles, (2) pursue open, mutually beneficial economic ties and trade leadership, and (3) favor bilateral/minilateral coalitions centered on concrete shared interests rather than grand anti-China blocs.

There are two common assumptions about the global-power debate: (1) what polarity is emerging (unipolar, bipolar, multipolar), and (2) whether multipolarity is inherently more dangerous for the United States than bipolarity. Using a range of economic, military and demographic metrics, the world is moving toward an “unbalanced multipolarity”: the U.S. and China remain pre-eminent but a number of capable middle powers (Japan, Germany, India, U.K., France, Turkey, etc.) are increasingly influential. Contrary to the common fear that multipolarity raises the risk of great-power war, the evidence indicates multipolarity likely raises lower‑level conflicts while reducing the probability of catastrophic great‑power war in the nuclear age. Therefore U.S. strategy should stop trying to re-run a Cold‑War bipolar playbook and instead embrace multipolarity by encouraging allied burden‑sharing, promoting economic openness and maintaining flexible, issue‑based partnerships.

Arguments against Multipolarity

Despite frequent claims, today’s world is not multipolar but bipolar, dominated by the United States and China. Other countries often labeled “rising” or “middle powers” (India, Japan, Germany, Russia, Brazil, etc.) lack the combined economic, military, and diplomatic strength to constitute additional global poles. Calls for multipolarity often reflect normative hopes, avoidance of acknowledging a U.S.–China rivalry, or deliberate geopolitical messaging by states like China and Russia. Misreading the number of poles matters because it shapes strategy, alliances, business planning, and diplomatic signaling; policy should therefore be built on the bipolar reality while preparing for a distant possibility of true multipolarity. Key points:

• Polarity = number of great powers; a multipolar system requires at least three states with comparable global power—today only the U.S. and China qualify.
• Other contenders (India, Japan, Russia, EU, Brazil, etc.) fall short on key measures (GDP, defense spending, global leverage, coherent foreign policy).
• Arguments for multipolarity often express normative preferences for a fairer order, intellectual reluctance to accept U.S.–China rivalry, or are used as geopolitical rhetoric by states seeking influence.
• Mischaracterizing the system’s polarity can produce bad policy, misguide businesses, and send confusing diplomatic signals; strategies should assume bipolarity while monitoring long-term shifts.

Great powers shape global politics and that the current international system is bipolar, dominated by the United States and China. Using a measurable methodology (GDP, GDP×GDP per capita, military spending) calibrated to historical cases, China already exceeds historical thresholds for being a great-power competitor (and is stronger than the Soviet Union was economically), even if it does not match U.S. military spending or necessarily become a “superpower” identical to the United States. Bipolar rivalry drives global tension, forces smaller states to choose sides, and explains shifts in regions such as Latin America and East Asia. Middle powers are more influential than before but do not clear the great-power threshold.

Summary: Our View

We think the world is headed to more of a bipolar world order between the US and China. This will be different from the previous Cold War bipolar world order since there are extensive trade relationships between the US (plus the West) and China. In our view, these trade relationships will contrain actions by either party compared to the former Cold War period where trade was seperate between the two blocs. To summarize then:

• Great powers heavily influence war, international order, and interventions; the number of great powers (polarity) matters for conflict dynamics.
• The use of a quantitative method to identify great powers using GDP and a composite (GDP × GDP per capita); median historical great powers have about 27% of the leading state’s GDP.
• China exceeds historical great-power thresholds economically and on composite measures (outstripping the Soviet Union), though it spends much less on the military than the USSR did relative to the U.S.
• China does not need to equal or surpass the U.S. to be a dangerous rival—historical rivals were often much weaker than the leader yet still shaped global security (the USSR example).
• Middle powers have grown in influence (their share of GDP and military spending has risen), but only the U.S. and China currently clear the study’s great-power thresholds.
• Bipolar competition forces regional “backyard” struggles (e.g., Latin America, East Asia), pressuring smaller states to choose sides and intensifying global rivalry.

In fact in an article in 2015, Yan Xuetong one of the most famous Chinese scholars of international relations and politics, thought the system would move towards a bipolar world order involving China and the United States. A former President of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in China, Dean of International Relations at Tsinghua University and as one of the leading scholar in developing the Chinese School of International Relations, Xuetong’s views are summarized below. They are not too far off the mark from our view on the current and future world order. Thus, we marvel at how Professor Yan Xuetong’s views 10 years ago are pretty much on the mark.

• A true “Chinese century” needs China to be a unipolar hegemon; current trends point instead to bipolarity (U.S. vs. China).
• China’s comprehensive national strength has accelerated despite slower GDP growth because political power, targeted military upgrades, and foreign-policy activism amplified its overall power.
• Imbalances remain: China’s global influence is strongest economically; its soft power and military projection lag behind the U.S., and its strategic partnerships are generally lower in quality than American alliances.
• Regional alignment is moving toward bipolar patterns in East Asia and the Asia–Pacific (China–Russia vs. U.S.–Japan in security; competing trade architectures).
• This bipolarization differs from the Cold War: it centers on power and normative competition, economic and technological rivalry, and will shift the world’s center of gravity toward East Asia and toward more pluralist international norms and regional institutions.