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       Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s (EU) top diplomat, declared in April this year that “the international order is undergoing changes of a magnitude not seen since 1945.”

       According to the American professor of International Relations Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, the international order is going through a period of appreciable change, marked by the decline of the post-World War II order and the rise of new power dynamics.

       The post-1945 order, also referred to as the ‘liberal international order’, which was founded on the principles of democracy, free markets and multilateralism, is facing increasing challenges. This order has begun to be disputed by some rising powers, such as China, that are seeking to reshape the global landscape.

       The challengers point out the manner in which the powers advocating the principles of the liberal world order have continuously acted in ways that contradict what they claim they stand for. The rising powers are seeking a more multi-polar world order.

       So, apart from China, who else is a rising power? Most Western scholars and commentators, perturbed by the way the rising powers have started to reshape the global order, are getting quite a few things wrong — mostly due to the baggage that they still carry of the eroding order. They see China, Brazil, India, South Africa, Indonesia, Turkey and Mexico as the rising powers.

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       Yet, after the ‘100-hour war’ between Pakistan and India in May this year, quite a few Western analysts have tweaked their lists of rising powers. The war was ‘won’ by Pakistan after it downed multiple Indian fighter jets and left the Indian armed forces and government looking shocked and embarrassed. Recently, the American journalist and author Joshua Kurlantzick wrote that India was quickly losing its hegemony in South Asia. According to Kurlantzick, “The tide on the Subcontinent has shifted dramatically against India.”

       While Western nations and institutions still cling to a fading post-WWII framework, even as the ground beneath them shifts, countries such as China and Pakistan are stepping into new roles following the rise of multi-polar realism and the crumbling of the illusions of Western democracy

       China has become the dominant power in the region and it has bolstered Pakistan’s military capabilities so that it can become China’s main bidder in the region. This partnership is deepening its relations with other South Asian countries, making India feel isolated. This feeling intensified when, during and after the 100-hour war, US President Donald Trump refused to support India’s position (that ‘Pakistan is a terrorist state’), as did the EU countries.

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       India failed to provide any evidence of what it was claiming. The black eye that it received in the war further diminished the reputation that it had built for itself (that of being a South Asian hegemon). The US has been nurturing India to counter China’s influence in South Asia. But after India stumbled during the 100-hour war, many think-tanks in the US started to go back to the drawing board.

       Suddenly, to them, Pakistan has now become one of the most important players in South Asia — a country that, till just a few years ago, was being understood by them as a failing state. Such are the unpredictabilities of the emerging new global order.

       Indeed, Western think-tanks and governments did see what was coming (vis-à-vis the new global order). But instead of working towards finding a relevant place for Western powers in the new arrangement, they spent most of their energies in trying to stall the change. The thinking was/is that to reverse the effects of the emerging order, China’s economic growth and influence needed to be stopped. But after almost a decade of trying, they failed. China only seems to be getting stronger internally and externally, mainly through its economic muscle.

       In 2021, writing for the Harvard Business Review, Rana Mitter and Elsbeth Johnson put forward an interesting thesis. They wrote that the West was trying to understand China from the lens of the liberal world order. The liberal world order posited that free trade and economic growth naturally led to democracy. One of the strongest examples of this is post-War Japan. Therefore, the Western powers saw the need of exporting the principles of this order to other countries as well for a ‘stable’, multilateral world.

       In the 1990s and early 2000s, Western powers believed that China’s economic growth would see the country adopt democracy and the principles of the liberal model. But when this did not happen, they began to employ more aggressive tactics to make it happen. It still didn’t.

       According to Mitter and Johnson, “China’s rapid economic growth has come in the context of stable authoritarian rule, suggesting that democracy and growth are not inevitably mutually dependent.” What’s more, a 2020 survey by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government revealed that 95 percent of Chinese citizens were satisfied with the Beijing government.

       Another thing that is being missed are the changing definitions of democracy. The post-1945 concept of democracy that was actively propagated by the West now stands exposed to the elements. And the irony is, this is happening more in established democracies that were the champions of the liberal world order.

       So, speaking for or idealising that model of democracy in the emerging global order has started to sound rather naive and even somewhat delusional. Aspiring new powers have gone ahead and developed their own models. Pakistan’s current ‘hybrid system’ is an example that was further strengthened by the country’s recent humbling of India and due to the gradual revival of the country’s economy.

       Then there are certain constraints that Western analysts impose on themselves that are retarding their understanding of the transformations transpiring in international politics. The following is a simple example. In December 2024, the website of Radio Free Europe (RFE) — a stark remnant of the liberal world order — asked ten of its most prominent journalists and analysts to predict what 2025 was likely to bring.

       They discussed Ukraine, Russia, Iran, Europe, US, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Caucasus and even Belarus. But there was not a single mention of Israel, Gaza or Palestine. Over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since late 2023. Gaza has become a major flashpoint that is likely to rearrange the Middle East in various ways.

       It is entirely possible that RFE consciously avoided mentioning this flashpoint, because an ‘analysis’ in this regard may have upset the EU’s position vis-à-vis Israel. It is a position that has made numerous defenders of the liberal world order seem contradictory and even confused, if not entirely in denial.

       This is, at least, one reason why the EU has started to look like a toothless tiger in the new emerging order.

       Published in Dawn, EOS, July 20th, 2025