America's global shift: End of hegemony and rise of multipolar world

The world order is shifting from unipolarity to multipolarity. It's very clear now that we are looking at a paradigm shift in the US’s relationship with the world.

The interview that the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had with Megyn Kelly on January 30, 2025 signalled the beginning of the end of America’s hegemonic security strategy. 

This hegemonic position was attained after the Cold War, the US outlined a security strategy based on global primacy in which security for itself and the world depends on perpetual US dominance. 

This would also ensure that liberal democratic values would be elevated. Yet, unipolarity would depend on keeping down rising powers that would have an interest to collectively balance the US. The US exhausted its resources to maintain a global empire. 

Then it had assumed the responsibility of a world policeman by weakening the sovereign states and replaced it with a semblance of becoming the global government largely trying to solve every problem across the globe.

Unfortunately, times have changed. We have reached back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet”. Thus, the need for the US to adjust to multipolar realities, these adjustments have been made to begin with President Trump freezing US foreign aid apparatuses like USAID, the tariffs slapped on Mexico, Canada and China.

With this, the US is effectively saying "our hegemony over the world is over, every country on its own, we're now just like any other great power, not the 'indispensable nation'." US primacy was going to end sooner or later, and now it is basically choosing to end it on its own terms. The tariffs on her trading pattern, viewed under this angle, make sense, as it redefines the concept of trading patterns- they don't want to trade with - or maybe rather can't afford being in a vassal position anymore, but rather relationships that evolve based on current interests.

You can either view it as loss of dominance, but it does not look like the end of the American primacy - or as avoiding further loss. It can also be viewed as a controlled withdrawal from sovereign commitments in order to focus resources on core national interests rather than being forced into an even messier retreat at a global stage.

Whatever that fact is, it is the end of a hegemony era and, while the Trump administration may look like confusion to many viewers, they’re probably much more focused to the changing multipolar realities of the world and their own country's problems than their predecessors. 

Admitting the existence of a multipolar world and preferring to operate within it rather than trying to maintain an increasingly costly global hegemony couldn't be delayed much further. It looks chaotic but it is in all likelihood better than maintaining the fiction of American primacy until it eventually collapses under its own weight.

Obviously, this is not to say that the US won't continue to disrupt the global affairs, and in fact it may be more aggressive than before. Because when it previously was trying to maintain some semblance of self-proclaimed "rules-based order", it now doesn't even have to pretend it is under any hindrance, not even the constraint of playing nice with allies. It's the end of the US global dominance, but definitely not the end of the US as a major disruptive force in world affairs.

Ultimately, this seismic shift may mark one of the most significant shifts in international relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union. And those most unprepared for it, as is already painfully felt, are America's vassals like Uganda and other countries at large caught completely unprepared by the realisation that the patron they've relied on for decades is now treating them as just allies to negotiate with.

Rodgers-Manishimwe , [email protected]