International Relations - Essay Example

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union that led to the end of the Cold War, there was a general perception that the world had turned into a unipolar one on the political front, with America being the sole country that had the power to influence decisions by arm-twisting other countries into agreeing with it. However, while America and the Soviet Union were busy in propaganda and other activities of the Cold War, several countries which had been devastated by the Second World War or had acquired freedom from their colonial oppressors, were in the process of rebuilding their state.

This has resulted in a situation where the world today has a number of important and powerful countries that have the military and economic might that enable them to be significant players in any process of decision-making in the world. The presence of various formations of countries such as SAARC, BRICS and others represent a shift from the political scene that was dominated by the NATO, which was dominated by the USA. In the recent past, the summits that these formations conduct have attracted considerable attention from the world media that has recognized the shifts that the world has undergone, from bipolarity to unipolarity to the present situation which is of a multipolar world.

This shift has also found expression in the increasing power that the G- 20 has acquired in determining the affairs of the world, as opposed to the earlier situation where the USA-dominated G-8 was more powerful in deciding on major issues that the international community was called on to look at. The growing power that has been exhibited by countries like China and India is also something that proves the multipolar nature of the world at this point of time. These two countries have both economic and military resources.

China’s military might has been seen as a threat to the might of the USA. With huge populations, both these countries have armies that are large in number and with the steady improvement in the research capabilities of both these countries, the quality of their military is also not in question. Concerted and far-sighted plans that the governments of these countries had laid down for themselves have been rewarded with the military might that they enjoy today. Apart from this, both these countries also possess rates of economic growth that are staggering.

China has maintained a rate of ten percent in its economic growth in the past decade, while India has been right behind them. In fact, China has overtaken Japan to become the second largest economy in the world. The social policies that these two countries have adopted are such that they would provide results only in the long run, since both of them have to deal with the difficulties of post-coloniality and damage to the local economy as a result of the Second World War. Another proof of the fact that we live in a multipolar world is the existence of the United Nations and its very structure, where the votes of a majority of the nations that are a part of it are required to push reforms through and take major decisions.

The members of the permanent Security Council have the power to veto proposals that are brought to the notice of the Security Council. This creates a situation wherein a certain amount of power is invested in the hands of different powers of the world, thereby ensuring mutipolarity. The clamor that various countries such as Germany, South