Weekly Briefing: Geopolitical Inertia in Our World Order
Why nothing really important changes that much.
It’s been a busy week across the globe. A lot happened – everywhere.
But amidst the breaking news, it’s worth reminding that certain fundamental truths about the international system remain largely unchanged in 2025 – and likely will remain so for many decades to come. This is not a complete rebuke of the popular ‘shifting world order’ speak, it’s a cautionary note that some important things rarely shift – at all really.
Look at the ring of flashpoints that wrap around the Eurasian supercontinent today. From Russian soldiers collecting near the Finnish border to Ukraine, down to Gaza, across to Yemen, Iran, India-Pakistan, South China Sea, Taiwan, all the way up to the Korean peninsula and even the disputed Kuril Islands – these flashpoints are no bugs – but rather features of a kind of geopolitical inertia deeply embedded within the world order.
The First World War and the shifts in global power since provide a reference point for today’s global order and the distribution of power within it. Europe’s fragile alliance system fractured in 1914 under the weight of militarism and imperialism. And with so much power concentrated between London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin Istanbul and Moscow, it took two world wars to dissipate that power and re-order European security architecture within the new American-led system. The Second World War dealt the final blow to Britain’s global power status, and hegemony was transferred from London to Washington like a baton – ironically without a bullet fired between them.
That transfer of power (formalised in 1945 but a shift that had been steadily underway since the very early 1900s) marked the moment Europe itself (well, everything between Portugal and the Berlin wall), slipped into the new American-led order. For the first time, relocating the global power centre to a continent far away from any past (or future) aggressor.
Not much has changed since.
Yes, the rise of China has dominated the past two decades. Yes, there are meaningful arguments that situate Beijing, New Delhi, Brussels, and even Moscow within a multipolar system. Yes, Trump has upended how America engages with the world – but – and it’s a big but – those flashpoints I mentioned earlier – from Ukraine to the Kuril Islands, present not a breakdown of the American-led world order, but a steady continuation and even deepening of that exact system.
Three fundamental truths help explain how and why: geography, demographics and balance of power policy.
Geography tells us that the North American continent – in particular the US, retains one of the most arable, navigable, plots of land on the planet. The US has two (long-standing) and friendly neighbours, neither of which would ever present a military threat, and both of which provide key resources from wood to willing hands to keep America – well America. Then there’s the ocean. Two of them. One, the biggest of them all separates perhaps the only meaningful threat to the US militarily. Across the Atlantic? Well, it’s friendly Europe. Geography matters in world politics because it’s the most permanent feature.
Demographics make (and break) great powers. Right now, one of the largest demographic declines in modern history is affecting the US the least. In fact, all great powers, China, Japan, South Korea, even Russia and much of Europe (except for perhaps France) are affected by drastically declining birth rates - a meta trend that is often overlooked when calculating raw power dynamics across countries and generations.
Balance of power policy tells us that not only is the US fundamentally immune from the worst of the squabbles that are taking place across Europe and Asia, but it is also actively involved in shaping the outcomes of those conflicts at a very high level. Balance of power policy is when there is an equilibrium or neutralised state of power between two or more states in the international system. What complicates things, is that states are only interested in a balance of power skewed in their favour. Great powers balance all the time.
From 1914 onwards, the US, as the emerging global superpower, oscillated between participant and spectator in global affairs. But one key element has remained constant – when push came to shove, American interests, wherever they existed, were actively protected to the maximum. In a world where great powers aim to either preserve or improve their relative position of power, balancing others from a position of strength isn’t just a smart strategy, it’s instinctive.
Where and how great powers – in particular, the US, choose to intervene (or not) matters greatly. Choose is the keyword here – because not every nation gets to choose when and how they interact with others in this anarchic world order. Tools are available – alliances, hedging, neutrality, but as Thucydides said: the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.
The US’ geography remains permanent, its demographics intact, and its relative power unmatched. Its ability to shape – from afar – the flashpoints surrounding the Eurasian supercontinent is an enduring feature of today’s global geopolitical inertia that is unlikely to change.