Following the Cold War, the world was thrown into a vibrant dynamic of politics, diplomacy, international conflicts, and a constant power struggle. But this power struggle resulted in the U.S. emerging as the dominant force, a concept termed “unipolarity” in the study of political science. Unipolarity is the reason for U.S. dominance in international conflicts and heavy participation in trade. But unipolarity, with its single strong actor as a result of the U.S. emerging victorious over the Soviet Union, is fading; a new conglomerate of power is our reality now.
This reality is termed as “nonpolarity,” where the U.S. is no longer the top power it once was because there is a new distribution of power in the world. This distribution is prevalent in many aspects, from regional dominance to international organizations and political parties; clearly, the nation-state is no longer the prevailing organization with the ability to garner a monopoly on power. Power is now an intricately woven fabric, with each patch belonging to different organizations. There is regional power that refers to a country’s dominance in an area, such as Brazil in Latin America, the U.S. in North America, or India in South Asia. There is also the power that international organizations hold in the mechanics of diplomacy and international conflicts—these organizations, such as the U.N. or the World Health Organization, present themselves with altruism but still hold power. Political parties represent the distribution of power within a country; Republicans and Democrats hold the power to sway public opinion and shape the landscape of politics by the stances they adopt and campaign on.
This emergence of nonpolarity with many different actors was inevitable with the wave of bipolarity during the Cold War that yielded unipolarity. Unipolarity can easily be translated as being a monopoly on politics, trade, diplomacy, and international responses, and the prevailing dominance that the U.S. has held is slowly disintegrating. This disintegration has caused panic to ensue and some critics to argue that unipolarity is the best system to have; such a statement is often supported by the argument that unipolarity brings a more stable and peaceful system, but the reason it is regarded as stable is that the dominance of one actor will determine one outcome. This contrasts the existence of many actors that would lead to outcomes that have been mediated by numerous actors. Indeed, nonpolarity will mean U.S. sanctions will be less impactful, or that U.S.-favorable outcomes will not always occur, but this is something to look forward to: power should never be in the hands of one actor. The power struggle and different ideas, insights, and aims are the reasons for why the world will progress.