For much of the past century, the global order has oscillated between distinct poles of power. The ideological, technological and geopolitical rivalry between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War gave rise to bipolarity. The disintegration of the Soviet Union marked the dawn of a unipolar world, with the US standing unrivalled through the 1990s. The early 21st century witnessed the rise of multipolarity as emerging powers in Asia and Europe asserted their influence. The world is now entering a new era: nonpolarity.

In chemistry, when atoms in a molecule have similar or identical electronegativity (the ability to attract electrons), the molecule becomes nonpolar, meaning it carries no net positive or negative charge. In the international system, countries too have their own ‘electronegativity’, which refers to their ability to attract other states through wealth, military strength, technology, resources and leadership. As the power of major nations fluctuates, smaller states, much like electrons, shift their positions. They hedge, drift and recalibrate to seek stability amid uncertainty without fully aligning with any one side. Fluctuating power and shifting alliances give rise to a nonpolar world order.

The term ‘nonpolarity’ was first introduced by Richard Haass in an article in Foreign Affairs in 2008. He identified three key drivers behind the rise of nonpolarity: (i) the growing power of corporations and non-state actors that are generating wealth and influence comparable to that of nation-states; (ii) the weakening of America’s ability to maintain unchallenged global leadership owing to energy dependence, mounting fiscal deficits and military overstretch; and (iii) the diffusion of power across multiple regions due to the centrifugal effects of globalisation. To this list, one can add digital transformation and artificial intelligence, which have further blurred the contours of states’ dominance and reshaped the global balance of power.

In the Oxford Handbook on Grand Strategy (2021), Randall Schweller captures the essence of this transformation: “The random and indeterminate nature of the current nonpolar world suggests a condition of increasing entropy. Relative capability advantages in today’s system do not translate as easily as they once did into power and influence over others. Unlike past multipolar and bipolar systems, the current system exerts only weak, if any, systemic constraints on actors. Thus, polarity has become a largely meaningless concept.”

The world has experienced periods of nonpolarity in the past as well. After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Holy Roman Empire lay weakened, Spain’s global eminence was in decline, England was embroiled in civil strife and republican experiments, and the Dutch Republic lacked military dominance. Power was dispersed and there was no cohesive set of poles to anchor stability. Mercantile companies, such as the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company, possessed quasi-sovereign powers, including the authority to mint coins, wage wars, and sign treaties. Europe, thus, slipped into a nonpolar interlude.

Critics may dismiss nonpolarity as a semantic variation of multipolarity. But nonpolarity is poles apart from multipolarity. In a multipolar system, the poles are countable and distinct, allowing medium- and small-sized countries to choose from multiple options and align with the power that offers them the maximum security and advantage. In nonpolarity, however, states bear allegiance to different, and sometimes oppo­site, poles. This strategic promiscuity allows small and medium-sized states to seek security from one power, market access from another, and technology from a third. If there is a diffusion of power in multipolarity, there is a diffusion of allegiance in nonpolarity.

In chemistry, nonpolarity gives rise to a nonpolar covalent bond, where electrons are shared continuously between different atoms. Similarly, in a nonpolar global order, power and influence are diffused among diverse players, and countries, like electrons, remain associated with multiple (and sometimes opposite) poles of power. Instead of sitting at a single campfire, they warm their hands at several hearths.

As nonpolarity is inherently an unstable condition, only states that are economically agile, militarily secure and technologically independent can navigate the uncertainty. Self-reliance will be the best alliance. States will need to continuously adapt to the changing balance of power and recalibrate their strategies in response to the shifting alignments.

-DAWN (Pakistan)/ANN