• Agenda
  • Initiatives
  • Reports
  • Events
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Leadership and Governance
    • Our Members and Partners
    • Communities
    • History
    • Klaus Schwab
    • Media
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • World Economic Forum USA
    • Privacy and Terms of Use
  • EN ES FR 日本語 中文
  • Login to TopLink

We use cookies to improve your experience on our website. By using our website you consent to all cookies in accordance with our updated Cookie Notice.

I accept
    Hamburger
  • World Economic Forum Logo
  • Agenda
  • Initiatives
  • Reports
  • Events
  • About
  • TopLink
  • Search Cancel

Report Home

  • Top 10 Trends of 2015
    • 1. Deepening income inequality
    • 2. Persistent jobless growth
    • 3. Lack of leadership
    • 4. Rising geostrategic competition
    • 5. Weakening of representative democracy
    • 6. Rising pollution in the developing world
    • 7. Increasing occurrence of severe weather events
    • 8. Intensifying nationalism
    • 9. Increasing water stress
    • 10. Growing importance of health in the economy
    • Immigration in focus: an overlooked trend?
  • Regional Challenges
    • Regional Challenges: Middle-East & North Africa
    • Regional Challenges: Europe
    • Regional Challenges: Asia
    • Regional Challenges: North America
    • Regional Challenges: Sub-Saharan Africa
    • Regional Challenges: Latin America
    • Tension points: Assessing the state of geopolitics
  • Global leadership and governance
    • A call to lead: the essential qualities for stronger leadership
    • Global Leadership Index
    • New governance architecture: strategies to change the way we lead
    • LGBT: moving towards equality
  • Future Agenda
    • Synthetic biology: Designing our existence?
    • Brain-computer interaction: Transforming our networked future?
    • Deep sea mining: The new resource frontier?
    • Emerging nuclear powers: A safe path to energy security?
    • The evolution of monetary policy: A new era for central banks?
    • Mapping the future: The future of education
    • Mapping the future: The future of work
    • Mapping the future: The future of the internet
  • About this report
    • Welcome
    • Introduction
    • Making the Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015
    • Acknowledgements
  • Browse by Topic
    • Africa
    • Asia-Pacific
    • Brain Research
    • Climate Change
    • Corruption
    • Decarbonizing Energy
    • Economics and Finance
    • Economies
    • Education
    • Emerging Technologies
    • Employment, Skills and Human Capital
    • Environment and Sustainability
    • Europe and Eurasia
    • Future of Government
    • Global Economic Imbalances
    • Global Financial System
    • Global Governance
    • Global Health and Healthcare
    • Global Issues
    • Human Rights
    • Industries
    • Internet Governance
    • Latin America
    • Middle East and North Africa
    • Migration
    • North America
    • Nuclear Security
    • Oceans
    • Science and Technology
    • Security and Governance
    • Society and Human Development
    • Water
  • Top 10 Infographics
  • Download as PDF
  • Download Chinese language version as PDF
Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015   4. Rising geostrategic competition
Home
Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015   4. Rising geostrategic competition
Home
Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015 Home
  • Report Home
  • Top 10 Trends of 2015
    • 1. Deepening income inequality
    • 2. Persistent jobless growth
    • 3. Lack of leadership
    • 4. Rising geostrategic competition
    • 5. Weakening of representative democracy
    • 6. Rising pollution in the developing world
    • 7. Increasing occurrence of severe weather events
    • 8. Intensifying nationalism
    • 9. Increasing water stress
    • 10. Growing importance of health in the economy
    • Immigration in focus: an overlooked trend?
  • Regional Challenges
    • Regional Challenges: Middle-East & North Africa
    • Regional Challenges: Europe
    • Regional Challenges: Asia
    • Regional Challenges: North America
    • Regional Challenges: Sub-Saharan Africa
    • Regional Challenges: Latin America
    • Tension points: Assessing the state of geopolitics
  • Global leadership and governance
    • A call to lead: the essential qualities for stronger leadership
    • Global Leadership Index
    • New governance architecture: strategies to change the way we lead
    • LGBT: moving towards equality
  • Future Agenda
    • Synthetic biology: Designing our existence?
    • Brain-computer interaction: Transforming our networked future?
    • Deep sea mining: The new resource frontier?
    • Emerging nuclear powers: A safe path to energy security?
    • The evolution of monetary policy: A new era for central banks?
    • Mapping the future: The future of education
    • Mapping the future: The future of work
    • Mapping the future: The future of the internet
  • About this report
    • Welcome
    • Introduction
    • Making the Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015
    • Acknowledgements
  • Browse by Topic
    • Africa
    • Asia-Pacific
    • Brain Research
    • Climate Change
    • Corruption
    • Decarbonizing Energy
    • Economics and Finance
    • Economies
    • Education
    • Emerging Technologies
    • Employment, Skills and Human Capital
    • Environment and Sustainability
    • Europe and Eurasia
    • Future of Government
    • Global Economic Imbalances
    • Global Financial System
    • Global Governance
    • Global Health and Healthcare
    • Global Issues
    • Human Rights
    • Industries
    • Internet Governance
    • Latin America
    • Middle East and North Africa
    • Migration
    • North America
    • Nuclear Security
    • Oceans
    • Science and Technology
    • Security and Governance
    • Society and Human Development
    • Water
  • Top 10 Infographics
  • Download as PDF
  • Download Chinese language version as PDF
Image Map

 Introduction | Trend 1 | Trend 2 | Trend 3 | Trend 4 | Trend 5 | Trend 6 | Trend 7 | Trend 8 | Trend 9 | Trend 10 | Immigration in focus

A woman adjusts a Chinese flag before the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing, China © REUTERS/Ng Han Guan/Pool

Share

Download PDF
  • Global Governance
  • Global Issues
  • Security and Governance

Author

 

Espen Barth Eide
Managing Director and Member of the Managing Board, World Economic Forum

Author

 

Espen Barth Eide
Managing Director and Member of the Managing Board, World Economic Forum


In the years following the Cold War, the prevailing view was that the world had moved towards a liberal, democratic consensus. The break-up of the Soviet bloc, the integration of Russia and China into the global economic system and a fresh wave of democratic transitions, from Latin America to Eastern Europe, led many to believe that superpower rivalries were finished. Globalization, the free market and the ‘interdependence’ of countries would make wars less likely, while a greater role was forecast for multilateral bodies like the United Nations in responding to issues that put everyone at risk. 

This did not relieve us of security concerns, but from the 1990s onward, the so-called new challenges were regarded as asymmetric. Rather than fearing strong, opposing states, we worried about state weakness, the breakup of countries, or the global reach of non-state, terrorist networks. 

quoteleft

Geopolitics – and realpolitik – is once again taking centre stage.

quoteright

Today, however, renewed competition between key actors is a concern. According to the Survey on the Global Agenda, both Asian and European respondents ranked the rise of geostrategic competition as the second most important global trend. While the old Cold War is not making a resurgence, recent developments have led to tectonic shifts in state interaction. Geopolitics – and realpolitik – is once again taking centre stage, with potential wide-ranging consequences for the global economy, politics, and society. 

What are the top 5 solutions to rising geostrategic competition?


Source: Survey on the Global Agenda 2014

Highlight

Tweet
Recent developments have led to tectonic shifts in state interaction

Highlight

Tweet
Recent developments have led to tectonic shifts in state interaction

Highlight

Tweet
In this fluid, amorphous world order, we must manage both asymmetric and symmetric challenges together

Highlight

Tweet
In this fluid, amorphous world order, we must manage both asymmetric and symmetric challenges together
The obvious illustration of these changes is the worsening tension between Russia and the West. The Obama Administration’s attempts to improve relations between America and Russia were already faltering when the collapse of the Ukrainian government and rise of separatist movements brought to the fore a clash of fundamentally opposing worldviews. The perspective of ‘Europe whole and free’ collides with a world of ‘zero-sum games and spheres of influence’. With the exchange of economic sanctions, and Russia attempting to lead a Eurasian Union as a counterweight to the European Union, the next decade could be marked by Russia complaining of ‘encirclement’ and attempting to revise developments that took place during the years when it was perceived as weak and vulnerable. At the same time, the West may be moving away from the economic interdependence with Russia that was once hailed as a guarantor of regional peace
and stability.  

A potentially more important development is taking place in Asia. A shift in the global political order is evident in the rise of China and its uncertain role on the world stage. According to a study by the Pew Research Center, almost half of respondents across all regions believe China has overtaken the US as the world’s leading superpower, or will eventually. 

Who is considered to be the world’s leading economic power?


Source: Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Project, 2014

A realpolitik dynamic between Japan and China – fuelled by a significant loss of trust, rising nationalism, weak institutions and maritime disputes – affects the world’s second and third largest economies, and threatens to directly involve the largest, the United States. The management of China’s rise, by its neighbours and by China itself, is of crucial importance in the coming decades.  

The Middle East has also taken a turn for the worse, with the breakdown of a state system hastily imposed by the victors of the First World War. Cross-border insurgent group Islamic State – which aims to establish a caliphate in parts of the region – threatens to render traditional peace mediation efforts irrelevant. The situation is exacerbated by regional powers exploiting the chaos – even fuelling it – in order to promote their own self-interest.

Which region will be most affected by rising geostrategic competition
in the next 12-18 months?


Source: Survey on the Global Agenda 2014

What we see today is a pattern of persistent, multidimensional competition and the simultaneous weakening of established relationships, a trend that trickles down and spills over into multiple sectors and issues. In this fluid, amorphous world order, we must manage both asymmetric and symmetric challenges together. The changing relationship between world powers has reduced the political energy available for tackling shared problems like climate change and global health, not to mention second-order crises. Chaos has festered. 

Yet in the face of potential globalization (and indeed de-globalization), rising nationalism and a deepening disbelief in multilateralism, the most important lesson from 2014 is that we cannot remain passive. We need more international cooperation, not less. Regional and global intergovernmental organizations will be put to greater tests; meanwhile institutions like the World Economic Forum must continue to create a confluence of private and public actors, civil society and academia to impress upon political leaders the importance of collective reflection. Far from improving conditions for its participants, the current pattern of geostrategic competition threatens to harm us all.

Will China eventually replace the USA as the world’s leading superpower?


Source: Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Project, 2014

Image Map

Related material

Back to Top
Subscribe for updates
A weekly update of what’s on the Global Agenda
Follow Us
About
Our Mission
Leadership and Governance
Our Members and Partners
The Fourth Industrial Revolution
Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Communities
History
Klaus Schwab
Our Impact
Media
Pictures
A Global Platform for Geostrategic Collaboration
Careers
Open Forum
Contact Us
Mapping Global Transformations
Code of Conduct
World Economic Forum LLC
Sustainability
World Economic Forum Privacy Policy
Media
News
Accreditation
Subscribe to our news
Members & Partners
Member login to TopLink
Strategic Partners' area
Partner Institutes' area
Global sites
Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Open Forum
Global Shapers
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
EN ES FR 日本語 中文
© 2021 World Economic Forum
Privacy Policy & Terms of Service