Stasis and Change: Russia and the Emergence of an Anti-Hegemonic World Order

This chapter argues that after a quarter century of stasis, the pattern of world order is changing and the inter-cold war period of the cold peace is giving way not to a thaw, but to the re-entrenchment of bipolar confrontation between the expansive liberal international order and the resistance of a group of states including Russia. Like the First Cold War, the second is also about the conflicting views of world order as the U.S.-led liberal international order is challenged by the emergence of a putative anti-hegemonic alignment between Russia, China and their allies in the emerging alternative architecture of world affairs – especially the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). The clash between Russia and the West, in this sense, is only an early version – and ultimately perhaps not the most significant – of the challenges against the long-term stasis in international affairs. Although the sinews of a post-Western world are emerging, it remains to be seen whether bodies like SCO and BRICS will be able to sustain the multilateralism of the last seven decades in the absence of the hegemon that had provided the security and support for such multilaterialism to thrive.