The first quarter of the year is not even over, and yet it already looks as if 2025 will go down in history as one of the most transformative years in modern international relations and a landmark year in the demise of the global order that has prevailed since World War II.
The end of this order is being ushered in by the very powers that laid its foundations and have reaped most of its benefits through their domination of the global economy and its institutions. Meanwhile the features of the new order that will take its place are still unclear, as it will be shaped through the push-and-pull of the current and emergent powers.
The current international order is not unipolar, despite the US’ enormous economy, military might, and technological prowess. The euphoric surge of the US that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall has long since faded. Nor is it a bipolar world, where countries orbit around two superpowers, apart from those that insist on remaining unaligned, as was the case during the Cold War era with the rivalry between the US and the former USSR.
However, to describe today’s world as multipolar is more generous than the present balance of power warrants.
The world is searching for a new order, something which in fact began some time ago. Commentators from diverse backgrounds have long called for a more just, efficient, and representative international system. I recall a lecture by eminent Egyptian politician and economist Ismail Sabri Abdallah, the author of Towards a New World Economic Order (1977), outlining three historical phases in the relationship between more powerful and weaker nations since the Industrial Revolution, for example.
The first was the phase of colonialism, in which the stronger nations oppressed and plundered the resources of the weaker in exchange for enforcing the rule of law – the coloniser’s law – in order to maintain security, ward off the predations of rival colonial powers, and enable minimal subsistence for the colonised peoples.
Then followed the era of the national-liberation movements and the end of traditional colonialism after the two world wars. This phase was characterised by the dependency of the weak on one or other of the two hegemons that led the Western and Eastern blocs through trade and economic exchanges in exchange for protection, arms, financial assistance, and perhaps also some cultural exchanges and educational grants.
The third phase brought a shift to this mixture of exploitation, asymmetric trade and economic relations, and marginalisation when there was nothing left to exploit.
As politics is always the art of the possible, especially in harsh and challenging circumstances, some developing countries have mastered the rules of the global game, enabling them to attract investment, boost exports, and, above all, develop the skills necessary for development. Markets have opened up to their goods, and major corporations have expanded their operations in these countries. Former Third World countries have been able to manufacture products that rival those of the advanced economies in terms of quality while also remaining more affordable.
This has triggered the resurgence of ideas in the West that are reminiscent of the mercantilist creed that shaped world trade from the 16th to 18th centuries. The mercantilists believed that the way for countries to accumulate wealth was by restricting imports and expanding exports, even if this required waging war to secure new markets and raw materials. This would enable them to fill their coffers with gold, they said, then the main measure of wealth.
However, these policies proved destructive in the long term. While they yielded some short term gains, such as higher customs revenues, they drove up the prices of production inputs, raising the costs of production, which were passed on to consumers, and the lack of competition weakened quality. The very industries that were meant to be protected deteriorated and became increasingly unable to compete abroad, causing both the broader economy and society to suffer.
I was reminded of this history lesson by a paper written last year by US economist Stephen Miran titled “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System.” The paper has become very relevant, as its author was recently appointed as chair of the US Council of Economic Advisers, and it now serves as a go-to piece for proponents of MAGA policies.
They routinely refer to Miran’s paper when justifying US tariff hikes against friend and foe alike and when attempting to rationalise how the US can achieve two antithetical aims at the same time – namely maintaining the dollar’s dominance while simultaneously devaluing it against other major currencies to make US goods more competitive.
Against the backdrop of the disruption caused by current US policy shifts, I see an encouraging development at the intersection of regional and international dynamics that reflects an important practical approach to navigating global geopolitical turbulence through the rise of the world’s middle powers.
The Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who currently chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has elaborated on this trend in a discussion of how nations from the Global South can forge a path towards economic resilience and development despite the geopolitical storms, existential risks, and uncertainty surrounding the transformations in the global order.
These transformations have turned the benefits of global economic interdependence into a liability, given the risk of their sudden disappearance due to the weaponisation of trade and the uncertainty surrounding investments. ASEAN, which is comprised of ten countries with a total population of 700 million, is one of the most diverse and rapidly growing economic blocs in the world today – it is the fifth-largest economy in the world – and it aspires to help shape the new global order in a spirit of pragmatism with a clear sense of purpose.
ASEAN is expanding its partnerships with other groupings from the Global South in order to enhance its position and foster mutual gain. The upcoming summit between ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and China in May could mark a new phase in the art of the possible in a world undergoing profound change.
* This article also appears in Arabic in Wednesday’s edition of Asharq Al-Awsat.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 20 March, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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