Power Transition, Cold War II and International Politics

The onset of multipolarity is accompanied by a number of cross-cutting trends. First, the consolidation of elements of modified bipolarity in the form of the Sino-American great power dyad. Second, the emergence of a range of ‘legacy’ great powers, including Germany, France, the UK and Japan, with Russia struggling to retain its status as a great power while fearing relegation to legacy status. Third, the revival of cold war entails the restoration of bloc politics, although in this case in an acutely asymmetrical form. The nascent political institutionalization of the political East is based on a very different institutional and normative basis than the more consolidated political West. Overall, the center of gravity of international politics is shifting from the Atlantic to the Pacific basin, reflecting a fundamental change in the global correlation of forces. The Ukraine war has accelerated the end of the era of the dominance of the political West.