Did the US Declare the End of the Unipolar World Order?

Professor Glenn Diesen

Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave an interview with Megyn Kelly on 30 January 2025 which could signal the beginning of the end of America’s hegemonic security strategy. Rubio recognised that unipolarity, having one centre of power in the world, was a temporary phenomenon that has now passed:

“it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was not – that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet”.

Rubio suggested that the hegemonic position of the US resulted in a weakening of the Westphalian system based on sovereign states, and replaced it with a globalist system where the US claimed the role of a world policeman:

“And I think that was lost at the end of the Cold War, because we were the only power in the world, and so we assumed this responsibility of sort of becoming the global government in many cases, trying to solve every problem”.

Rubio is referring to the end of the unipolar world order that emerged after the Cold War, and the need for the US to adjust to multipolar realities.

What is multipolarity?

If unipolarity is over, what is the multipolar system that is returning? The modern world order since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 has been based on the principle of multipolarity and a balance of power to constrain expansionist and hegemonic ambitions of states. A multipolar distribution of power dictates what produces security and the purpose of diplomacy.

Security when there are many centres of power entails managing the security competition between states. Conflicts derive from security competition as the efforts by one state to enhance its own security by for example expanding its military power, will reduce the security of other states. “Indivisible security” is therefore the key principle in a multipolar system, which suggests that security cannot be divided – either it is security for all or there will be security for none. Any effort by a state to become dominant will therefore trigger great power conflicts as it compels other powers to collectively balance the aspiring hegemon.

Diplomacy in a multipolar system aims to enhance mutual understanding about competing security interests and reach a compromise that elevates the security of all states. It is imperative to put oneself in the opponent's shoes and recognise that if the opponent's security concerns are resolved, then that also enhances one’s own security.

Unipolarity

Unipolarity was celebrated after the Cold War as it was premised on some good intentions. The idea was that great powers would not engage in rivalry and security competition if the benign hegemon of the US could not be contested. US security strategy was based on global primacy, and it was expected that there was no possibility and need to compete with the benign hegemony of the US. Furthermore, US global primacy would also ensure that liberal democratic values would be elevated. Yet, unipolarity would depend on keeping down rising powers that would therefore have an interest to collectively balance the US. Liberal democratic values would be corrupted as they would be used to legitimise the sovereign inequality required to interfere in every corner of the world. Even Charles Krauthammer who coined and celebrated the term “unipolar moment”, recognised it was a temporary phenomenon that resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Security under the unipolar system did not entail managing the security competition. On the contrary, security was dependent on dominating to such an extent that no rivals could even aspire to challenge the US. In 2002, the US Security Strategy explicitly outlined that global dominance would “dissuade future military competition” and that the US therefore had to perpetuate “the unparalleled strength of the United States armed forces, and their forward presence”. The hegemonic strategy is why the West abandoned all agreements for an inclusive pan-European security architecture with Russia, and instead returned to bloc politics by expanding NATO toward Russian borders. It would threaten Russian security, but there would be no security competition as Russia would be too weak. The sentiment was that Russia would have to adjust to new realities or be confronted by NATO that had encircled it.

Diplomacy under unipolarity also came to an end. Diplomacy no longer meant to recognise mutual security concerns to find solutions for indivisible security. Rather, diplomacy was replaced with the language of ultimatums and threats as other states would have to accept unilateral concessions. In the past, Western politicians and media would discuss the security concerns of adversaries to mitigate security competition. After the Cold War, Western politicians and media largely stopped discussing the security concerns of adversaries, as there was no desire to “legitimise” the notion that Western hegemony as a “force for good” could be considered a threat. When the West placed its military forces on the borders of other countries, it was claimed to bring democracy, stability and peace. Furthermore, conflicts could not be resolved by diplomacy if they challenged the dominance of the West. For example, taking into account Russian security concerns about NATO’s incursion into Ukraine would represent a rejection of the hegemonic system. While NATO rejected diplomacy for three years as hundreds of thousands of men died on the front line, Rubio now suggests that diplomacy and negotiations must start as “We just have to be realistic about the fact that Ukraine has lost”.

A reason for optimism

In the late 1920s, Antonio Gramsci wrote about the troubling times as a period of interregnum. Gramsci wrote: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear”.

The great power conflicts in the world today are largely a result of the world being in a transition between unipolarity and multipolarity. The West attempts to defeat its rivals to restore the unipolarity of the 1990s, while the vast majority of the world seeks to complete the transition to multipolarity. As the US worries about unsustainable debt, the collective balancing by adversaries and the rising possibility of nuclear war – it appears that there is a growing willingness to retire the temporary project of unipolarity.

[Many thanks to Matthew Alford for the audio reading of this article.]