Source: World Affairs Council

As the world becoming increasingly multipolar, alternative centers of global power are arising. Carnegie’s David Rothkopf moderated a panel at the World Affairs Council to discuss the United States’ role in a new world order and examine the institutions and rules that will govern the changing international system.

Rothkopf noted that the world is rapidly becoming a multipolar system, with the center of intellectual and economic gravity shifting from the Atlantic to the Pacific. International institutions and rules in this new system have become either dysfunctional or ineffective, he said. Changes in how the global system is governed are already underway, such as in the shift in power from the G-7 to the G-20 and the rise of alternative centers of geopolitical gravity in Asia.

The panel examined other potential changes in the balance of global and their ramifications for U.S. foreign policy. Rothkopf argued that the world is in a period of substantial change, where old formulas and approaches may no longer apply. The United States will need to improve its diplomatic capabilities to contend with these new realities.