| ID | 125012 |
| Title Proper | Globalization and the world leadership problem |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Simonia, N ; Torkunov, A |
| Publication | 2013. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | THE BIPOLAR SYSTEM of international relations tumbled down unexpectedly leaving behind at least two consequential factors which for a long time remained ignored and/or deliberately pushed aside by many international players. First, the world no longer needed any state with a status of superpower, a product of ideological confrontation of two systems (two camps, in the Cold War parlance). Second, the trend toward a multipolar world (which had appeared and had been developing for some time behind the screen of bipolarity) became obvious. Still gaining strength (the process will take more than one decade to be completed) it ran into a wall of skepticism. For a long time, skeptics of all hues refused to recognize the obvious and piled one argument on another in an effort to disprove what they called the concept of multipolarity. Truth be said, this is not a concept - this is reality which explains why the American idea of unipolarity picked up by its supporters in other countries (Russia among them) promptly went out of fashion. Revived bipolarity came into vogue together with the global crisis and expectations that China's rapidly growing economy which responded to the world crisis by a slight drop of GDP (from 10% to 7.58%) and its rapidly mounting military might will make it one of the poles instead of the Soviet Union. There is a lot of talk about a "new type of capitalism" that challenges the Western capitalist countries and that outstrips them one after another. Having pushed Japan from its second place in world economy China is pushing forward toward America's first place. The larger part of expert community, including experts of the UN and other international organizations, is convinced that this is merely a matter of time. This is another myth with no serious or solid scientific foundation: superficial and formal comparison of statistics (GDP or even per capita GDP) which implies that the world is uniform cannot be taken for the starting point. |
| `In' analytical Note | International Affairs (Moscow) Vol. 59, No.3; 2013: p.8-18 |
| Journal Source | International Affairs (Moscow) Vol. 59, No.3; 2013: p.8-18 |
| Key Words | Bipolar System ; International Relations ; Superpower ; Multipolar World ; Russia ; America ; China ; Growing Economy ; Capitalism ; Japan |