The Age of Nonpolarity
What Will Follow U.S. Dominance
Article Summary and Author Biography
In the twenty-first century, power will be diffuse rather than concentrated, and the influence of nonstate actors will increase. But the United States can still manage the transition and make the world a safer place.
RICHARD N. HAASS is President of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Reading List
An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on American primacy.
The principal characteristic of twenty-first-century international relations is turning out to be nonpolarity: a world dominated not by one or two or even several states but rather by dozens of actors possessing and exercising various kinds of power. This represents a tectonic shift from the past.
The twentieth century started out distinctly multipolar. But after almost 50 years, two world wars, and many smaller conflicts, a bipolar system emerged. Then, with the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, bipolarity gave way to unipolarity -- an international system dominated by one power, in this case the United States. But today power is diffuse, and the onset of nonpolarity raises a number of important questions. How does nonpolarity differ from other forms of international order? How and why did it materialize? What are its likely consequences? And how should the United States respond?
NEWER WORLD ORDER
In contrast to multipolarity -- which involves several distinct poles or concentrations of power -- a nonpolar international system is characterized by numerous centers with meaningful power.
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