A Multifarious, Multifaceted Approach to the Multipolar World: a Necessity

Abstract

If we compare today’s world with the World(s) from 1914, 1929 or 1939, some similarities occur: multiple powerful actors on the global and regional levels with conflicting interests, economic difficulties of a large number of economies, and the inability of “the international community” to put a stop on the world’s most intense conflicts or rivalries. The Great Recession, which hit the developed, especially European economies the hardest, has shifted more economic power into the direction of emerging economies, thereby accelerating an inevitable economic and political change. Various states have managed to accelerate the change in the distribution of economic wealth. These states, grouped mainly in the BRICS, and in the Next Eleven (N11) have shown, contrary to the Western, “culturally superior” geopolitical thought, that they are neither backward nor incompetent, thereby challenging the developed states. After the paradigm of American Empire, which ended in the worst economic crisis in 70 years, it is time for a new paradigm. Since it would be an illusion to think that multipolarity would be shaped by all the parties concerned, it has to be shaped by those most important. However, the current relations between most powerful states are all but cooperative. The pragmatic relations and the common goals of the BRICS states should not be overestimated. The relations between the USA and the EU, which show a high level of homogeneity because of the Ukrainian crisis, may not in the future be so close. A clear difference would exist between the arranged and the accepted multi-polarity, and a multi-polarity in which one side is not inclined but compelled to accept multipolarity, concurrently limiting its achievements. An approach to the present and the future multipolarity and multipolar world that would be multifarious and multifaceted is therefore a necessity.