Are we at a turning point in world history? Here's why one shouldn't bet on it

If that is true, what comes next? This uncertainty has fostered many forecasts of the future of global politics by policy pundits.

Consider the analysis of Hal Brands, a historian at Johns Hopkins University and the American Enterprise Institute. Brands is a well-known neoconservative with strong ties to the Republican Party’s security and foreign policy establishment. He has been called a “war intellectualizer/lover” for his hawkish positions on US power. Agree with him or not, his views carry weight.

In a recent article in Foreign Policy magazine, Brands identifies three possible scenarios for the coming era.

The most likely outcome, one that Brands argues has felt inevitable for the last several years with the rise of China, is of a world divided into two blocs led by Washington and Beijing. This bipolar world would resemble the Cold War of US-Soviet rivalry, in which an “array of swing states—from India to Saudi Arabia, Brazil to Indonesia—would align selectively with these blocs while maneuvering opportunistically between them.”

If recent US actions are indeed meant to hasten the creation of this new bipolar world order, I find it difficult to understand how the US would achieve this by alienating its existing allies (in Europe) and starting an unnecessary war with Iran.

If one pole of the new cold war is supposed to be a liberal democratic bloc, it is hard to imagine how threatening Canada and Greenland could consolidate it. In fact, the actions being taken now suggest a brazen ‘go it alone’ rather than ‘let’s do it together’ approach. They signal a desire for a unipolar world in defiance of its bipolar reality.

The second possibility suggested by Brands is an era not of two blocs but of several empires in which regional giants carve out domains of control. The US takes the Americas, China takes the far east and Russia expands into Europe.

Meanwhile, “India grabs for primacy in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Turkey stakes out a post-Ottoman domain at the intersection of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other contenders jostle for hegemony in the Red Sea complex that links the Persian Gulf and the Horn of Africa.”

Again, the logic of this escapes me. Why is this in the US interest? Why would a smaller area of control be desirable for a global hegemon? Why would so much money be spent and blood spilt to end up with less influence?

Brands’ third scenario is one of anarchy, in which the US “goes rogue” and becomes a “brutish, norm-busting superpower” that “engages in aggressive territorial expansion,” “appropriates, through force or coercion, vital resources from weaker powers” and “demands ever-greater tribute from dependencies.”

In consequence, every nation hustles alone to gain or survive (the concept of a ‘sovereign nation’ may itself become archaic). Europe and Japan rearm. The world reverts to a primal state last seen during periods like the “scramble for Africa” and other imperialistic nightmares.

Trade and innovations dwindle and ‘development’ becomes a forgotten dream as the world’s inhabitants lose income, health and knowledge and return to a Hobbesian “state of nature” with a “war of all against all.” How could anyone desire this?

All three scenarios assume that we are at a major turning point in history because the rules and institutions nurtured over the last 80 years can no longer maintain peace, stability and commerce. Since these institutions are failing—so the argument goes—their primary architect and beneficiary has taken a sledgehammer to destroy them.

One must assume that this architect has a vision of the future in which it benefits even more. Yet, none of the scenarios outlined above comes close to making the hegemon more powerful.

So, is this moment truly a turning point or merely an episode? Let’s consider a fourth scenario that Brands does not mention: This moment is an aberration; i.e., an outlier, not a turning point.

Leadership in the US will change with the election cycle. Democracies will reaffirm their faith in the global order that has kept them safe for decades. They might tweak the rules—like efficient organisms, they adapt—so that such an aberration does not easily recur.

Great power rivalry will resume regular service as the US and China try to build larger alliances through reciprocity and incentives rather than threats. Nations will continue to compete for technological and productivity gains as they figure out how to handle existential threats like AI, climate change, and the unprecedented concentration of power in individuals.

Finally, we must examine the very urge to imagine turning points. Granted, a turning point is more interesting than a straight line. Also, to many people, today’s global situation feels overwhelming, a radically unpleasant departure from the recent past. This feeling may have more power to influence the future than the actions that produce it. If sufficiently large numbers feel that things are not right, in a competitive democracy, they have the power to change course.

Turning-point talk may obsess pundits of security, but let us raise at least one cheer for the most boring of concepts: equilibrium.

The author is a professor of geography, environment and urban studies and director of global studies at Temple University.