For a mathematician, 2025 might stand out for being a “perfect square”: 45 multiplied by 45, a rare symmetry. Its significance goes far beyond numerical elegance — it marks the year the postwar global order expired and a new one was about to be born.
Eighty years ago, as the world emerged from World War II, the victorious Western allies designed a system intended to prevent another catastrophic conflict. The result was a global order based on three intertwined promises: geopolitical stability anchored by US leadership, industrial progress that would steadily raise living standards and globalization that would spread prosperity through trade and integration.
That postwar order delivered real achievements. In the West, a burgeoning middle class enjoyed political freedom and economic prosperity. Globally, hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty. For a time, the direction of history seemed clear, and, particularly after the end of the Cold War, even inevitable.
With hindsight, we can see that the postwar order carried the seeds of its demise. Authority was concentrated within Western-led institutions that claimed to speak for the world. US hegemony often led to overreach and hubris: A generation of wars in the Middle East proved costly and confidence in the US model’s superiority obscured the reality of domestic decay.
Globalization entrenched a lopsided bargain. Low-cost manufacturing in poor countries allowed consumers in rich countries to buy abundantly, but at a global environmental cost. As firms in the US and Europe moved their production overseas, local communities lost jobs and vitality. At the same time, financialization made it easier to accumulate wealth simply through speculation and stock-price inflation, enriching the richest without delivering any social value.
The 2008 financial crisis was an early warning. US policymakers stabilized the system but did not repair it. Inequality rose and politics grew angrier. By the time US President Donald Trump was re-elected, his political rise was no longer an aberration. It was the bill coming due.
The accumulated stress became impossible to ignore last year, particularly in the former ruling powers. Transatlantic alliances once thought permanent were ruptured. Trade wars and protectionist industrial policy signaled the end of frictionless trade. Populism in democracies revealed a deeper loss of trust in elite institutions and immigrants became an easy scapegoat.
Add the worsening impact of climate change and it is little wonder that Western leaders and thinkers have been feeling overwhelmed by the “polycrisis.”
The term rightly describes the tangle of global dangers. It fails to diagnose their root causes, validating fear but obscuring responsibility. It frames Western shocks as global threats, while overlooking the agency of the rest of the world, the global majority.
Rather than simply naming the death of the old, we must ask what might replace it. After all, while profound disruption carries acute risks, it provides a rare opening for deep transformation. That is why we should view this moment not as a polycrisis, but as a “polytunity” — a generational opening for global transformation from the margins.
Some contours of the new world order — three in particular — are already visible. Geopolitically, it would be characterized by multipolarity, with the US and China as the two largest powers but neither as a single hegemon. Such a diffusion of power need not lead to chaos if non-dominant countries take more responsibility for delivering global public goods and find creative means to collaborate.
Artificial intelligence (AI) could transform how humans live and work. Depending on how it is regulated and used, AI could lead to a greater concentration of power and wealth, but it could lower barriers to knowledge and productivity — for example, through translation, tutoring and rapid problem-solving — especially for communities long excluded from elite networks.
Lastly, globalization would not disappear, but its form would change. Long, fragile supply chains optimized purely for efficiency are giving way to shorter, more resilient ones. Today’s developing countries can no longer count on exporting to rich markets to generate growth; instead, they must cooperate with their neighbors and dismantle regional barriers to trade.
Whether the world seizes the polytunity or succumbs to the polycrisis depends fundamentally on mindset. Even as Western political and economic dominance wanes, Western narratives of disruption as despair continue to dominate. Nowhere is a mindset shift more urgent than among the global majority, which has more potential for agency today than it ever did before.
Such a mindset must be adaptive, inclusive and moral. To be adaptive is to discover and enable possibilities, not just control risks. To be inclusive is to eschew one-size-fits-all models in favor of bespoke solutions that harness indigenous knowledge and capabilities. And to be moral is to question how asymmetrical power has shaped dominant ideas and voices, while amplifying those that have historically been marginalized.
An earlier “perfect square” year was 1600, heralding the Age of Enlightenment that would transform Europe and, eventually, the world. The Enlightenment championed reason and freedom, but it also justified empire and domination — not only of the West over the rest, but of humans over nature. We have a chance to do better: to build a more plural, more equal and more ecologically grounded world order.
The future that emerges after 2025 depends crucially on the worldview we choose. Lamenting the polycrisis reinforces paralysis, whereas embracing the polytunity encourages change.
Yuen Yuen Ang is Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, where she directs the Polytunity Project and the Multipolar World & US-China Roundtables..
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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