... détente between Moscow and Washington. Still, the predominant view is that the West (or, to be more exact, the United States) will not abandon its claims to global hegemony in the foreseeable future. Therefore, it will not accept a “cooperative” bipolarity or multipolarity, not to mention a truly democratic and inclusive polycentric world. The overall perception in Moscow is that unless there a fundamental change in the American foreign policy establishment, any U.S. leader will try to get back to the U.S....
... between China and the United States. Actually, what the United States is pursuing is to prevent the emergence of bipolarity, and prevent China from rising to a power equal to the United States. In other words, the United States will be happy neither with multipolarity nor with bipolarity. Thus what the United States is insisting on is the unipolarity.
In this regard, the current bilateral relations between China and the United States is significantly different from that between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United ...
... rapid transformation.
***
Undoubtedly, all four scenarios are ‘ideal types’. Many other options are possible as well. But it is important to recognise that the anarchy scenario can follow any of the three other alternatives — liberal order, new multipolarity, or new bipolarity. These scenarios are not mutually exclusive and can appear in succession. For example, an attempt to revive the liberal order and failure of a new liberal project could set in motion a transition to a new multipolarity and on to bipolarity ...
... bipolarity of the 20
th
century. In any case, the possible bipolarity that could result from the impending U.S.–China confrontation is more realistic than going back to the multipolarity of the 19
th
century. Nevertheless, attempts to combine elements of multipolarity and bipolarity in a single structure is a doomed enterprise. These two approaches to global politics are too different in their basic paradigms. Multipolarity and bipolarity are two radically different worldviews.
Classical multipolarity cannot have any rigid ...
