Executive Summary

The “unipolar moment” of American primacy was, by definition, transient. As the illusion of permanent global hegemony shatters, the international system is shedding its temporary unipolar skin and returning to its natural historical baseline: a more congested, highly competitive multi-actor architecture. Today’s order is settling into a sophisticated binary core anchored by two superpowers—the United States and China—overlaid with robust multi-actor regional agency. Together, Washington and Beijing command nearly half of global GDP and over half of worldwide research and development and military spending. Yet several increasingly powerful countries, through aggressive multi-alignment and strategic maneuvering, are now able to leverage US-China friction to maximize their autonomy and assert some degree of localized dominance. What’s more, unlike the mid-20th-century Cold War, hyper-dense interdependencies bind the United States and China together, creating a shared financial life-support system that deters total war and prevents complete decoupling. Meanwhile, as traditional universal institutions like the UN face paralysis, global governance is migrating toward agile mini-lateral coalitions and high-velocity nonstate actors, from tech conglomerates to frontier AI laboratories. To thrive in this crowded, multi-orbital ecosystem, the United States must adapt, pivoting toward low-cost asymmetric military scaling, calibrating economic statecraft, forging pragmatic partnerships with middle powers, and leading agile mini-lateral technology pacts.

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Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

A BINARY CENTER WITH MULTI-ACTOR AGENCY

THE NEW PHYSICS OF MILITARY MASS AND THE DIGITAL STACK

THE COMPLEX REALITIES OF ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE

MINILATERALISM AND THE EVOLUTION OF GOVERNANCE

AMERICAN STRATEGY IN A CROWDED SYSTEM

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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About the Author

DAVID SANTORO is the President and CEO of the Pacific Forum. He specializes in strategic and security issues with a regional focus on both Asia and Europe. Dr Santoro’s current interests focus on great-power dynamics, US alliances, and deterrence, particularly the role of China in an era of nuclear multipolarity. In 2021, Lynne Rienner published his volume on U.S.-China Nuclear Relations – The Impact of Strategic Triangles. Dr Santoro also leads several of the Forum’s track-1.5 and track-2 strategic dialogues. Before joining Pacific Forum, Santoro worked on similar issues in France, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In the spring of 2010, Dr Santoro was also a visiting fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and, in 2010-2011, he was a Stanton nuclear security fellow at the Institute for International Strategic Studies in London.

AKHIL RAMESH is the Chief Research and Development Officer at Pacific Forum, where he leads the organization’s research, development, and fundraising portfolio, with a focus on building new projects and partnerships at the intersection of supply chains, critical technologies, and Indo-Pacific security. His work focuses on the increasing intersection of economic, trade, technology, and national security policymaking, with particular emphasis on supply chain resilience, critical minerals, and emerging technology ecosystems. In this capacity, he develops and manages novel research initiatives, cross-regional partnerships, and donor engagement strategies to support the growth of Pacific Forum’s programmatic portfolio. He holds an M.S. with a concentration in global macroeconomics from New York University and a certificate in business and geopolitics from HEC Paris. Most recently, he worked with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Prior to that, based in New York City, he served as Project Coordinator and led the mapping project on China’s Belt and Road Initiative at the EastWest Institute. His research and commentary have been featured in outlets including CNN, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Nikkei Asia, The Japan Times, and the South China Morning Post, among others.

Media: Combined image from Reuters/Evan Vucci and Narendra Modi