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Five major trends illustrate how the world is changing, and that the West must grapple with the reality that it can no longer impose its “leadership” on the world as it once did.

The post-Western, multipolar international order is coming to pass. As the world grapples with the implications of this shift in power, the foundations of a great reckoning are taking shape. This reckoning will challenge the long-held beliefs and structures that have sustained Western dominance of the world for the past few hundred years, exposing along the way the nature of the West’s perceived entitlement to lead the global pecking order. The end result will be a significant re-evaluation of international relations as we know it.

This great reckoning will be driven by five major trends, which are compelling Western nations to confron* This article is by Chandran Nair. It was first published in The National Interest on June 8, 2023.t and adapt to a future where power must be shared with the rest in a multipolar world. A failure to recognize, or attempting to strongly resist, these trends could pose significant risks not only to the West itself but also to global stability. Yet future conflicts can be avoided if this period of change is viewed as an opportunity to build a more equitable world, rather than as a crisis that threatens preferred and entrenched privileges.

* This article is by Chandran Nair. It was first published in The National Interest on June 8, 2023.
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This article provides a review of the recent book [1] Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucdydides’s Trap? by Graham Allison. The book discusses whether a situation with a rising power facing a ruling power will likely end up in war. In the book, Allison analyzed several such world situations, it argues that the answer is more likely, although not necessarily, and the book asked the important question, known as Thucydides’s trap, whether the current situation of China as a rising power and the U.S. as a ruling power will end up in war. That is the purpose of this article. The answer to the question of Thucdydides’s trap is not a simple and straight-forward answer, as discussed below.