The end of the unipolar illusion

Three decades after the end of the Cold War, the global order that emerged in its aftermath is visibly fraying. What was once proclaimed as a stable “rules-based international system” dominated by the United States and its Western allies now appears fragile, contested, and morally compromised. The unipolar moment that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union was widely interpreted as the final triumph of liberal capitalism. Yet history has rarely been so obedient to ideological declarations.

The ongoing confrontation involving Iran and the United States has brought this crisis into sharp relief. Recent events demonstrate that power in the twenty-first century is no longer defined solely by military supremacy, but by the capacity to disrupt the systems upon which global stability depends. Iran’s ability to threaten critical energy chokepoints has sent shockwaves through global markets, while sustained military pressure by the United States and its allies has failed to produce strategic clarity or durable control. What emerges is not the consolidation of a new hegemon, but the erosion of old certainties.

Across the world, new centres of economic and political power are reshaping the international landscape. The rise of Asia, the reassertion of autonomy by countries of the Global South, and growing dissatisfaction with Western-dominated institutions together signal a deeper historical demand: the restructuring of global power itself.

The architecture of Western hegemony

The modern international system is rooted in centuries of colonial expansion, during which European powers accumulated wealth through conquest, extraction, and subjugation. Colonialism did not merely redraw political boundaries—it structured the global economy to privilege the industrializing West while relegating much of the rest of the world to dependency.

Even after political independence, these hierarchies persisted. Scholars like Walter Rodney exposed how colonialism entrenched underdevelopment, while Samir Amin described a global system divided between a dominant “core” and a dependent “periphery.” The institutions established after the Second World War—the IMF and the World Bank—did little to fundamentally alter these dynamics. Instead, they institutionalized asymmetries through voting structures and policy frameworks that privileged Western interests.

The ideological dimension of this dominance was equally powerful. Liberal democracy and free-market capitalism were presented not as one model among many, but as universal norms. Critics such as Frantz Fanon........

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