A new shift is underway. The current geopolitical moment feels unsettling because the new order is just coming visible, but we have not yet named (like “post-cold war order” for example). Making sense of it is going to be very interesting and exciting for geopolitical enthusiasts..
The rules based international order no longer explains how power is exercised. Global institutions like the UN persist but no longer arbitrate major power behavior. Does anyone give credence to the UK and France being on the security council and not India or Brazil?! The WHO lost its credibility unable to corral China during the pandemic. Authority has eroded slowly over time and then ceased to constrain action. The shift was gradual but is now visible. Pandemic failure, supply chain shocks, and open conflict exposed institutional weakness.
Assets, speed, and leverage now matter more than norms and process. Power today rests on concrete dimensions. Capital speed, military resilience, innovation absorption, demographics, productivity, and policy continuity. Ukraine, Taiwan, Venezuela, Greenland - none of these issues are going through the UN!
Many conflicts are being re-framed from moral causes to material calculations. Ukraine, Venezuela, and Greenland illustrate this shift. Geography has returned as a strategic driver. Melting ice, shipping routes, buffers, and mineral access now shape state behavior.
Technology infrastructure is now geopolitical power. Data centers, energy supply, and data governance matter as much as armies.
Europe and the global south influence outcomes but do not set rules. Between these two groups Europe seems sclerotic and the Global South is on the rise but quite uncoordinated.
That leaves only two countries that can shape the global terrain this century. The United States and China operate at system defining scale. Others are reacting and finding their place on the global hierarchy of pecking order.
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