The year 2025 is shaking the pillars of the post-war order with unprecedented speed; multipolarization is not merely a redistribution of power but a test of the global capacity for cooperation without sliding into chaos. This op-ed analyzes the erosion of the liberal order, the challenges of multipolarity, and its consequences for global governance.
In 2025, the world is witnessing an unprecedented acceleration of geopolitical shifts that are rattling the pillars of the post-World War II global order. The liberal international order—based on democracy, free trade, human rights, and multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and NATO—no longer appears as a dominant model but rather as an eroded and unstable one. This order, which peaked after the collapse of the Soviet Union and was sustained by American hegemony, now stands on the brink of an abyss; not solely under external pressure, but due to internal fractures and the emergence of rising powers driving the world toward “multipolarization.”
Multipolarization is not just a shift in weights; if common frameworks do not emerge, it leads to “multipolar disorder.” The central question is how, despite multiple power poles—from the United States and China to Russia, India, and the European Union—the necessary cooperation to address common challenges (climate, pandemics, nuclear arms control) can be established without the world slipping into the abyss of chaos. The roadmap appears to be as follows: first, the erosion of the liberal order; second, the strengthening of non-Western poles and the competition of visions; third, the puzzle of disorder in economics and security; fourth, the ideological dimension and a path forward.
First, one must return to the roots. The liberal international order—what G. John Ikenberry called “the most stable and resilient international order in modern history”—emerged from the experience of World War II: a network of laws, institutions, and alliances to prevent a repeat of the catastrophe. The United States, as the principal architect, expanded this order relying on its military, economic, and ideological power, making it a tool for promoting Western values. But signs of weakness appeared from the early 2010s. The 2008 financial crisis exacerbated inequality within Western democracies and spurred a wave of populism: from Brexit to the election of Donald Trump. Trump’s return in January 2025, with “America First” and retaliatory tariffs against allies and rivals, was the final blow to confidence in multilateralism. As Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, once stated plainly: “The West as we knew it, no longer exists.” These developments have led to a weakening of the liberal order’s normative legitimacy, a U.S. retreat from leadership, and the opening of space for other powers to act.
The next step is to describe a scene where non-Western powers play a more prominent role. China, through the Belt and Road Initiative and expanding economic access in the Global South, has institutionalized its influence via BRICS-Plus—which in 2024 welcomed Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE, turning it into a symbol of the new power alignment—and it is now said that over 40 percent of global trade falls within this framework. Russia, through the war in Ukraine and its de facto alliances, has challenged the West’s “rules-based” order and redefined its spheres of influence. India and Brazil, as middle powers, practice “non-alignment” pragmatically: India utilizes “multilateralism” to safeguard its strategic autonomy, and Brazil mediates in crises like Myanmar and Haiti without joining the Western system. As outlined in a Chatham House article from March 2025, the main issue is the “competition of visions about the international order”: rising powers are generally not anti-Western, but seek an “order that is non-Western but not anti-Western,” one that prioritizes sovereignty and economic utility over abstract liberal principles; hence, many Global South governments, disillusioned with Western “hypocrisy,” are drawn towards coalitions like BRICS.
However, multipolarity—though it may seem fairer and more “democratic” to some—brings with it the puzzle of disorder. In economics, the primary consequence is “fragmentation,” and the United States itself under Trump’s leadership has fanned these flames: intensified trade wars with China in 2025 have disrupted international trade and prompted Global South governments to adopt “risk hedging” strategies; namely, issue-based coalitions and fluid alignments—as patterns shown by Indonesia in Southeast Asia and South Africa in the African Union demonstrate. Meanwhile, Asia accounts for 57 percent of global GDP growth and manages over half of world trade; “Eastern globalization” is consolidating, and the dominance of the dollar is eroding.
In the security realm, the puzzle is more complex. Multipolarity might distribute nuclear deterrence among several actors and reduce the risk of war among great powers, but it simultaneously intensifies regional tensions: from Taiwan and the South China Sea to Gaza and Sudan. The September 2025 report from the Valdai International Discussion Club, titled “The Doctrine of Chaos: How to Stop Worrying and Love Disorder,” pragmatically frames this reality: a multipolar system means the “absence of a system” and is not fundamentally a “single system”; it more closely resembles the eighteenth century, where war was used to reshape the status quo, not to destroy rivals. According to the same analysis, in the post-Cold War era, the lack of revolutionary ambitions among great powers—due to the imperatives of domestic stability and economic interdependence—could create relative stability, but through a distinct diplomacy: from patron-client arrangements (like U.S. alliances) to ideological or economic solidarities (such as OPEC+). Nevertheless, the clash of opposing ideologies—liberalism versus authoritarianism—compresses the space for power distribution and opens the path toward chaos.
The ideological dimension cannot be ignored. The West beats the drum for democracy and human rights; simultaneously, many Global South governments look toward alternatives like China’s “consultative democracy,” which prioritizes economic growth. A Chatham House report from September 2025 speaks of the “rise and rise of the rest”: the distribution of power among the United States (technology and military), China (trade and development), and the European Union (trade regulation and addressing environmental challenges); a multiple condition without a single hegemon and with more prominent roles for regional powers. This diversity can facilitate short-term cooperation on shared interests like climate—as highlighted at the Baku 2024 climate summit—but in the absence of institutional change, the “lack of global leadership” persists, because great powers utilize “negative power” (the right to veto) more than “positive power.” A realistic path for the West is to strike a balance between the components of its own liberal order and the capacity to accept a degree of disorder in order to become more inclusive, not more isolated.
The common counter-argument is that multipolarity, because it restrains unipolarity, is inherently fairer and more stable. The response within this framework is as follows: a fairer *apparent* distribution of power, if not linked to common rules, dispute resolution mechanisms, and the ability to produce “international public goods,” slides into “multipolar disorder”; a place where the veto overrides the collective will to act.
The conclusion is clear: the weakening of the liberal order and the rise of multipolar disorder have driven the world of 2025 toward a kind of “revolution without revolutionaries”—a gradual transformation that, in the absence of adaptive models and flexible frameworks, increases the likelihood of instability. To untie this knot, great powers must practice pragmatic diplomacy and form temporary coalitions, reform institutions like the United Nations toward “inclusiveness,” and focus on epicenters of global threat so that disorder, instead of sliding into chaos, transforms into effective multilateralism and partnership. Such an approach not only strengthens stability but also builds a fairer world; a world where the Global South has a central role and the West can escape its current isolation. Without it, the world remains in a “limbo of polarity”; with it, multipolarity can realize the dream of a genuine global democracy.
