The idea that the world is becoming multipolar has acquired the status of conventional wisdom. It is repeated by governments, international organizations, business leaders, and much of the academic and policy community. The argument appears straightforward. American primacy is declining. China has risen. India is growing. Russia has returned as a major military power. BRICS is expanding. Middle powers such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Indonesia increasingly refuse to align with either Washington or Beijing. The unipolar moment is over; therefore, we are told, the world must be multipolar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first proposition is correct. The second does not follow from it. The end of unipolarity does not necessarily produce multipolarity. It can produce bipolarity. In fact, this is what has been happening during the past quarter-century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two transformations have occurred simultaneously. China has rapidly converged with the US across the principal dimensions of national capability. At the same time, the US and China have increasingly separated themselves from the states beneath them. The first process destroyed unipolarity. The second prevented the emergence of multipolarity. The result is not merely a bipolar international system. The more important point is that the international system is becoming more bipolar, not less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The logic is simple. The gap between the US and China has narrowed. The gap between the US and China on the one hand and the rest on the other has increased. What we are witnessing is not the multiplication of poles but the formation of a second pole and the increasing concentration of comprehensive power at the summit of the international system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much of the confusion begins with a loose use of the concepts of power and polarity. In the realist tradition, power ultimately rests on the capabilities and resources controlled by states, and a pole is distinguished not by excellence in a single category but by the possession of comprehensive power. For contemporary purposes, this requires a broader definition. A twenty-first-century pole must possess what I would call full-spectrum, full-stack power<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Full-spectrum power refers to breadth: substantial capabilities across the economic, industrial, technological, financial, military, nuclear, demographic, maritime, and network dimensions of power. Full-stack power refers to depth: the capacity to connect the different layers through which resources are transformed into usable power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The stack begins with underlying resources<\/em>: population, territory, geography, natural resources, and energy. These provide the material foundations of potential power. Above them lies latent power<\/em>: wealth, industrial capacity, technological sophistication, and human capital. Latent power is converted into manifest capabilities<\/em>: conventional and nuclear military forces, maritime capability, financial power, and positions of centrality within international trade, industrial production, logistics, communications, and other networks. Finally comes strategic conversion:<\/em> the political and institutional capacity to mobilize these resources, combine them, and translate them into strategic effects. Political and institutional capacity operates throughout the chain, determining how efficiently resources and latent power become actual power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is in tune with the traditional realist conception of power and polarity but updates it for the twenty-first century. Financial networks can now be weaponized. Industrial supply chains can generate coercive leverage. Maritime logistics determine access to markets and resources. Technological ecosystems increasingly shape both economic productivity and military effectiveness. These have become important components of national power and must therefore be incorporated into any contemporary assessment of polarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A state does not need to rank first in every category. Neither the US nor China does. Nor does full-stack power imply autarky. The US, for example, generates part of its power through a network of alliances and technologically advanced partners. But a pole must possess substantial capabilities across the full spectrum and sufficient depth through the stack to transform resources into strategic effects at a systemic scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This immediately separates poles from merely important powers. Russia possesses enormous nuclear and important military capabilities. Japan and South Korea possess advanced industrial and technological capabilities. India possesses continental-scale nuclear weapons, a huge population, and rapidly growing economic resources. Britain and France possess nuclear weapons and advanced technology. European countries collectively command enormous economic and technological resources. They all possess important parts of the spectrum or stack. Only two states presently possess something approaching the whole: the US and China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n