Three Multipolarities
Why does nobody ever ask: Who benefits from the terrain of struggle?
A while back, an Un-Diplomatic reader posted an interesting comment on my three-part review essay addressing how we should think about the character of the Communist Party of China. The comment read, in part:
There is an argument about how the presence of China as a power could open space for something interesting in a third country…Right now, however, that space just seems occupied by countries playing for better terms of trade, or internal security training, or concessionary loan terms (your last podcast)…as a Hope for a Better World, that's meager rations.
💯. If you’re interested in multipolarity and why I think it matters, you can read this, this, or this (probably the most important piece).
A lot of people on the right and the left make the mistake of thinking of multipolarity as either a strategy (it’s not) or as a form of political order (it’s not). I’m writing something now about the role of multipolarity in MAGA thought, and what follows below sets up that forthcoming piece by unpacking three configurations of political order—some of which are actually emergent right now—that can co-exist within a multipolar distribution of power.
The driving question distinguishing these forms of order is who benefits most from—and is able to take advantage of—the multipolar distribution of power?