World order refers to the system of laws, establishments and distribution of power that regulate the exchanges between sovereign states and transnational actors.
Formal and informal mechanisms of stimulus and constraint it has to offer come together: the formal mechanisms ranging from treaties, multilateral organizations, and legal regimes; and its norms of constraints, diplomatic conduct, conflict resolution, and economic exchange.
Historically, successive iterations of world order—ranging from the Westphalian system of sovereign equality (1648) to the nineteenth-century Concert of Europe, the post-1945 liberal order under U.S. leadership, and the emerging multipolar environment—reflect shifts in the distribution of material capabilities and ideological paradigms.
In its simplest form, world order has two primary functions: the maintenance of stability through accepted norms such as non-interference and free trade; and an opportunity to cooperate together in the face of global challenges such as climate change and public health.
Whereas realist scholars emphasize great-power balance and security competition, the liberal theory insists on the importance of institutional governance, interdependence, and the rule of law. Constructivist approaches, in turn, emphasize that shared beliefs and identity-based practices inform the legal practices that states regard as just.
The complexity of today’s modern world order has never been challenged as much: new powers contest the established hierarchies and non-state actors are able to influence policy agendas, while technology begins to dissolve traditional boundary lines. From this it follows that the current order cannot be purely classified as being either unipolar or multipolar. It suggests instead a dynamic interplay of competing centers of influence.
The survival of any order largely depends on its ability to respond to crises, its capacity for integrating emerging actors, and the legitimacy conferred by widespread adherence to its norms. As changes in the global system take place, the comprehension of “world order” would have to equally stress power realities and the sets of normative commitments that permit cooperation among varied polities.
Territorial sovereignty developed into a custom through the Peace of Westphalia (1648), thus heralding the modern state system. Subsequently, European powers, mainly Britain, France, and the Netherlands, used naval supremacy and colonial expansion to build an order based on Eurocentric principles for the next two centuries.
During its nineteenth-century zenith, the British Empire was supporting the free trade and gold standard which stitched the globe together. After the Napoleonic upheaval, the Concert of Europe (1815-1914) tried to maintain the balance through a collective diplomacy mainly by Austria, Prussia, Russia, Britain, and France.
The experimentation into collective security as the foremost venture is the League of Nations after World War I, one very much crippled by rivalry of great powers. It was to be this very fratricide war that produced the US and USSR as superpowers. The Cold War (1947-1991) brought forth a bipolar order fashioned around NATO and the Warsaw Pact as contending security groupings.
After the collapse of the USSR, the US has now been the sole unipolar guarantor of a liberal international order, promoting organs such as the United Nations, IMF, and WTO. The relative decline of U.S. dominance, the rise of China, and European Union attempts at autonomous strategic capability all go ahead in forging a more pluralistic system in the early twenty-first century.
No single actor today monopolizes rule-making; rather, a tri-polar dynamic is emerging among the United States, China, and the EU, which will be responsible for shaping the norms on security, trade, and technology. Thus, this has been the history of the world order: constant repletion of power, legitimacy, and institutionalized arrangements under the strength and ambition of leading nations in a given period.
The fusion of hard and soft power in a uniquely integrated fashion is what gives America its unparalleled edge in the shaping of the global international system. Militarily, no other state comes close to America’s capacity for global force projection.
Though, U.S. defense spending exceeds $900 billion a year-the largest in the world-with a network of more than 750 bases distributed around the world, from Okinawa to Ramstein, enabling rapid deterrence and degradation across theaters, backed by the most modern systems such as the F-35 fighter or Zumwalt-class destroyers and the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, America’s nuclear triad and advanced missile defenses deepens its strategic advantage. By economic standards, the U.S. harbors the world-leading economy, which is expected to achieve a nominal GDP of more than $29 trillion by 2024.
The dollar’s status as the chief reserve currency, backing some 60 percent of central bank holdings, gives Washington an unmatched level of leverage in financial diplomacy. With heavy voting shares in the IMF and World Bank, America steers allocations of credit, crisis response financing, and development agendas. Its influence acts on the United Nations, where significant contributions by the United States to regular and peacekeeping budgets underwrite key operations and give it significant veto power and agenda-setting ability in the Security Council.
A third pillar of American dominance rests on technological innovation. Silicon Valley companies i.e., Apple, Google and Microsoft lead the way in artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and biotechnology, frequently in collaboration with agencies of federal government such as DARPA and NIH. Semiconductor research bodies such as the Semiconductor Research Corporation ensure that America leads the world in securing vital supply chains for civilian and defense applications.
In the health field, U.S. institutions pioneered mRNA vaccine platforms during COVID-19 to deliver 900 billions of doses around the world as relief package, showcasing American ingenuity in fast-tracking emergency health-related situations. In addition, American soft power enhances its stewardship of the world.
The highly regarded institutions attract talent that generates innovation and diplomatic outreach on behalf of the U.S. Hollywood, popular culture, and digital media are conduits for the propagation of democratic ideals that contest the normative basis of international discourse. Through USAID and a host of different foundations, development assistance favors governance models that align with U.S. foreign-policy aims.
The institutional architecture also locks U.S. leadership into place. Such architectures range from the collective-defense guarantees of NATO to the bilateral defense treaties of East Asia. Such arrangements provide for common strategies and actions by allies, curating the security architecture, as it were, by America.
Economic alliances-the USMCA to the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework-require that trade and investment flows reinforce American standards in labor, environment, or intellectual property. That multitude of energies defines American dominance within systems of world order: defense capabilities unrivaled; economic primacy bolstered by monetary centrality; technological leadership regarding critical industries; and a far-reaching lineup of alliances and institutions. Taken together, these features suggest a global balance across which American policy preferences can still exert deciding influence.
China is a rapidly rising challenger to the USA-led liberal international order. This challenge is driven by China’s burgeoning military, economic, technological, and geopolitical interests. The motivation behind China’s challenge is deeply rooted in her historical objective of restoring her position in world affairs, her economic ambition, and her strategic vision to reshape the international institutions to come in better accordance with her interests.
With respect to military strength, China’s rise has included the avowedly serious modernization of defense capabilities. This modernization has been underway for the last two decades, with China now possessing one of the world’s largest standing militaries and benefits from an exponential growth in its defense budget. By 2024, military spending in China was set to be the second-largest in the world after the USA, with estimates of nearly $300 billion each year.
The military advances that China is making include the development of advanced aerial and naval platforms like the J-20 stealth fighter, the Type 055 destroyer, and a nuclear arsenal that is becoming increasingly capable. In addition, China’s growing influence in cyber warfare and space capabilities complicate the traditional understanding of military capability.
Economic power is, therefore, another factor behind China’s challenge to the USA-led order. China is the world’s biggest exporter and second-largest economy having a GDP of more than $18 trillion in 2024. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by China in 2013, is an economic diplomacy tool that connects countries across Asia, Africa, and Europe through infrastructure investments, thereby creating dependencies along geopolitical lines.
China is changing the rules of the game in economic engagement by funding and developing projects that fly in the face of traditional Western institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, both of which have been predominantly under U.S. control until now.
Furthermore, it wields a politically aggressive trade dominance approach in which China’s ‘Made in China 2025’ initiative is greatly determined by high-tech-focused sectors like artificial intelligence, telecommunications, robotics, and renewable energy. The speed race between China and the U.S. hit a new speed, with China now coming first in the scholarships derived from the economic mega investment innovation, such as the 5G network, which is spearheaded by the company Huawei. China has developed large-scale biotechnologies, quantum computing, and green technologies that have gradually transformed global markets and put into jeopardy American technological hegemony.
Such military and economic strategies are being perpetuated by strength in the multilateral institutions. Indeed, China’s increasing role in global organisations like the United Nations, WTO, and even regional bodies such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has granted it a much higher level of diplomatic leverage in the affairs of the world. Its push to reform these organisations is in accordance with China’s desire to establish rules that best reflect the interest of itself and the emerging economies rather than the liberal ones espoused by the West.
China has used its increasingly strong position to push against the perception that it would hold the country under the Western influence in WTO agreement negotiations instead and has often preferred contesting the U.S. position in universal trade and investment promises. The strengthening of a strategic partnership between China and other rising powers, such as Russia, is also an attempt to counter the U.S.-dominated world order.
China’s military alliances and economic cooperation with countries such as Russia, Iran, and Pakistan are changing the geopolitics of all the important areas, especially those in Eurasia and the Middle East. These alliances and China’s aggressiveness in various territorial disputes, especially in the South China Sea, show its readiness to counter U.S. hegemonic power across the globe.
With regards to medicine, China’s rapid development and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines in particular the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines have demonstrated its growing ability to set the agenda in global health. China so far has been conducting medical diplomacy through the provision of vaccines and humanitarian assistance, which in itself posits an alternative prototype to the Western-dominated model while increasing China’s global soft power.
Having experienced the withdrawal from major multilateral treaties by the Trump administration as well as the “America First” rhetoric, the European Union was spurred into pursuing strategic autonomy in order to reassert its claim as an equal pole along with Washington and Beijing. Now finding itself defied by an aggressive U.S. exit from the Paris Climate Accord, the Iran nuclear deal, and shared security burdens within NATO, Brussels backs a tripolar arrangement in which the EU, the U.S., and China would jointly steer global governance.
On security policy, with PESCO and the European Defence Fund, the EU is now starting to go further in setting a joint kind of security over and above the traditional NATO dependency. In 2023, member states’ military expenditure reached a cumulative total of nearly €300 billion and the funding projects including the Franco-German Main Ground Combat System, the Eurodrone, and next-generation naval vessels.
EU has announced the €800 billion project readiness. These projects serve to strengthen European deterrence and show the capacity for independent deployment of interoperable forces, free from U.S. command. The EU acts as the largest single market globally, with a GDP of over €16 trillion, using its regulatory ability to set the standard for global trade.
By concluding negotiations with Japan, signing agreements with Mercosur, and eyeing accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, Brussels is diversifying its partners and reducing reliance on any one superpower. The EU-China investment agreement shows its willingness to negotiate with Beijing on its own terms, still preserving European standards about labor, environmental and digital rights. Being technologically advanced improves the status of EU, as part of the Horizon Europe program involves allocating tens of billions to breakthroughs in topics such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and green hydrogen.
The Europe Chips Act strives to restore the domestic semiconductor capacity and thus reduce vulnerability to supply-chain shocks by its €43 billion package. At the same time, sovereignty data projects such as GAIA-X provide a counter model to U.S. hyper-scalers and Chinese platforms, thus providing European norms into digital infrastructures.
European pharmaceutical innovators, as exemplified by BioNTech’s mRNA platform, have played an important part in global COVID-19 responses by providing vaccines worldwide and enhancing the EU’s soft-power credentials. In combination with the formation of a European Health Union, these advances prove that Brussels could render solutions to transnational challenges at least at par with Washington and Beijing.
The EU has forged into an independent third pole of a reconfigured world order, being a balance against the primacy of the US and the rise of China and at the same time a distinctly different European model of multilateralism and regulatory leadership. It is integrating defense with economic diversification, technological sovereignty, and medical diplomacy.
The shifting apple cart of international power is fast turning toward a former unipolarity now happily collapsed into the tri-polar constellation of power between the United States, China, and the European Union. Each power influences the other: America employs military supremacy in dishing out influence to third world nations; and, subsequently, China utilizes economic expansion as its base for transacting terms with third countries; meanwhile the EU relies on regulatory and diplomatic strength to deliver influence.
This tripartite constellation will reformulate international relations into new frameworks which bring unilateralism into balance with cooperatively multipolar governance. The existence of competition and interdependence will ensure that future stability rests on how these three formulate their norms, interests, and responsibilities with one another. The structure thus changes what leadership means in a world that is pluralizing itself increasingly and contesting increasingly in strategic ways.
Author: Rana Danish Nisar – Independent international analyst of security, defense, military, contemporary warfare and digital-international relations.
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights).