Multipolarity, Multilateralism, and Strategic Competition

This paper explores the clash between political and economic transnationalisation, multipolarity, and the return of traditional inter-state competition. In response, the coming global order will be the result of the interplay between both structural and domestic factors, namely the realignment of U.S., European, and Chinese grand strategies on the one hand, and the trend towards anti-internationalist and inward-looking politics and non-cohesive civil-military relations on the other. The paper argues that these contradictory pressures of transnationalisation and renationalisation will undermine current multilateral institutions and in the short-to-medium term lead to a hybrid and dysfunctional global order where strategic opportunism is more prevalent.