It seems that everyone has already realized that our world enters a period of fundamental changes and the formation of a new world order. Today, the question of how the modern world will develop is one of the most vital problems of international relations. Therefore, I want to once again prudently refer to the books by J. John Ikenberry and Acharya Amitav on the American World Order (AWO)?Footnote ¹ Both books represent a lucid, intelligent, and thought-provoking analysis of tectonic transformations in the world as well as a subtle foresight of certain trends.

The former book by G. John Ikenberry is an attempt to improve and reconstruct the AWO, to take it out of the crisis, a merciless critique of its malaise.

The latter book by Acharya Amitav is rather the denial of the existing AWO, the search for a model, which should replace the US hegemony. While Ikenberry is sure that the Liberal Leviathan can be somewhat trimmed, improved, and remodeled, Acharya Amitav is more categorical in his vision of AWO and is acting within a framework of another paradigm. He truly believes that instead of a unipolar world a new world order will come, namely a new era of rising regional powers.

The current acceleration of tensions in the world carves our political space. Among the most risky developments are new outbreaks of violence in the ‘color revolutions’ and their unpredictable consequences, the threat to the civilized world from the fanatical fundamentalist groups of the ISIL that support dreams of a caliphate, a unified Islamic ummah, such as the Abbasid empire, sporadic attempts to revive Nazi slogans, the crisis of traditional family values, for example, in the form of recognition of homosexual marriages, the threat of the spread of Ebola virus and so on.

According to G. John Ikenberry, the inner logic of the AWO remains intact though it needs some treatment. He suggests an optimistic alternative for the changing world order, admitting that Washington will have to renegotiate time-honored agreements, perhaps on less favorable terms, but that it can still be at the center of the unipolar system: ‘If America is smart and plays its foreign policy “cards” right, twenty years from now, it can still be at the center of a one-world system defined in terms of open markets, democratic community, cooperative security, and rule-based order. This future can be contrasted with less-desirable alternatives familiar from history: great-power-balancing orders, regional blocs, or bipolar rivalries . . . the United Nations must work to re-create the basic governance institutions of the system – investing in alliances, partnerships, multilateral institutions, special relationships, great-power concerts, cooperative pacts, and democratic security communities.’Footnote ²

In contrast, Acharya Amitav maintains in The End of American World Order that the ‘unipolar moment’ is over: ‘The American World Order is coming to an end whether or not America itself is declining.’Footnote ³ However, what actually emanates afterward? Rather than a bipolar, multipolar, or G-zero world order, the evolving paradigm seems to be neither bipolar nor multipolar. As an alternative, we are steadily moving towards a ‘multiplex world order’.

The key difference between multipolarity and multiplex order, according to Archaya Amitav, is that the latter is noticeable by outstanding interdependence. He compares the emergent system to a multiplex movie theatre, ‘offering a choice of plots (ideas), directors (power), and action (leadership) under one roof’. As a final point, Acharya reflects on the policies that the US, emerging powers and regional actors must pursue to endorse stability ‘in this decentred but interdependent, multiplex world’.Footnote ⁴ His allegory of the multiplex cinema is challenging. In any case, how is the content of one movie in a large theater related to another?

What will be the future of the world order? Will it be a multiplex cinema? Or concert-like powers of the Holy Alliance created in Europe in 1815? Or will it turn, according to Parag Khanna, into ‘new Middle Ages’?

Against the background of the genocide in Ukraine and the strengthening of confrontation with the West, we are witnessing a looming danger of new world war. But as a matter of fact, the ‘semi-soft war’ is already under way. Now this war is waged with the help of ‘smart power’. It is waged not so much for territories, but for control over resources. A pragmatic goal is to push out, to expel Russia from the West into the category of underdeveloped countries. This ideological struggle reminds of a game without rules or, at least, according to constantly changing rules.

The crisis of the Western world hegemony, the center of which is the Anglo-Saxon political culture, recently was disclosed in form of a confrontation with the Islamic civilization and the Russian world. I am focusing here at the problem of Russia, in the first place, because its fate is far from being indifferent to me as a Russian researcher. Second, the view that this country may turn into an eventual bidder of global leadership in the future, or a co-leader in union with China is rather popular in Russia. There is also a ‘nightmare scenario’ of a rocking confrontation with Russia that could lead to a new world war (for example, in the event of unauthorized launch of missiles amidst an exacerbation of tensions).

Some US scholars and observers openly express their concern with the growing confrontation over Russia. In the article ‘How not to ignite a new Cold War’, a well-known political scientist Robert Legvold (Legvold, 2014: 74–84) states that, on the one hand, one should avoid calling today's confrontation between Russia and the United States ‘a new Cold War’. On the other hand, he stresses that this term is quite suitable for the current position established between the two countries. The correspondent of The Atlantic magazine T. Tayler calls to abandon the derogatory epithets relating to Russia.Footnote ⁵ In his turn, S. Cohen calls to abandon the demonizing Vladimir Putin in surrealist manner.Footnote ⁶

It becomes apparent that the post-Yalta system, which was initiated by the Allied powers’ leaders in February 1945, is almost completely destroyed. The 9/11 attack at the Twin Towers launched the process of destruction of the old regime. Then the ‘color revolutions’ were ignited; quasi-independent republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia appeared on the map in the wake of the Georgian–Russian conflict. The process was further gravely exacerbated by the Kosovo secession. And, finally, this process was logically crowned by the Russian annexation of Crimea. Arbitrary interpretations of international law have been used so often that we can assume that it has ceased to exist.

We know that in the Cold War I period, international law was applied very selectively. The USA used the ‘contras’ in Nicaragua, attacked Grenada, etc. But the Soviet Union put up with it because the events took place far away, in another hemisphere. When Moscow deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba, actually in the ‘soft underbelly of the United States’, President J.F. Kennedy was so much snubbed, that the Soviet leader N. Khrushchev understood the reasons for this outrage and ordered removal of the missiles having tacitly acknowledged the existence of the American sphere of interest.

When, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO started its expansion eastward, it was regarded in Moscow as a growing threat to Russia's interests. Yet Moscow responded without hysteria, understanding the logic of a new era of rules and thus demonstrating its loyalty to the West. Upheaval in Ukraine has further aggravated the situation and created a clear security threat. The situation was viewed in Moscow as the West challenging Russia's vital interests, pushing the world towards a new Cold War. In the framework of this logic, cynical plans to deploy military bases in Ukraine, literally on the border with Russia, pose an existential threat to the security of the Russian state. Annexation of the Crimea was not so much a ‘restoration of historical justice’ but a lightning-quick response to a real threat to Russia's vital interests. Russian citizens cannot even think of Sevastopol turning into an US naval base. In the minds of Russians, Washington intended to cook barbecue not in Russia's ‘backyard’, but actually in its living room. Such actions are absolutely incompatible with the Russian security matrix.

In Russia, the beginning of a new post-Crimean period of international relations, which can be dated 18 March 2014, the day of the referendum in the Crimea, was marked by the growth of patriotism, re-emergence of a call for the Russian world revival, actually – in extreme forms – the revitalization of Russian messianism.

The original mistake of the West, especially of the United States, was the disrespectful stance it took in regard of Moscow, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The West stubbornly believed that Moscow had lost the Cold War I. Russia, however, prefers to think that the West and the Russians together defeated the communist regime. This interpretation gave birth to the illusion that both sides in the Cold War One will work hand in hand. But Washington preferred to treat Russia as a looser in the Cold War or as a junior partner at the best.

Professor of the Binghamton University, New York, James Petras, admits that ‘Russia was enticed to support US and NATO wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya in exchange for the promise of deeper integration into Western markets. The US and EU accepted Russian co-operation, including military supply routes and bases, for their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. The NATO powers secured Russian support for sanctions against Iran. They exploited Russia's naïve support of a ‘no-fly zone’ over Libya. The US financed so-called “color revolutions” in Georgia and the Ukraine overt, a dress rehearsal for the putsch in 2014. Each violent seizure of power allowed NATO to impose anti-Russian rulers eager and willing to serve as vassal states to Germany and the US. in Georgia and the Ukraine overt, a dress rehearsal for the putsch in 2014. Each violent seizure of power allowed NATO to impose on anti-Russian rulers eager and willing to serve as vassal states to Germany and the US’.Footnote ⁷ This caused a chain reaction for over 20 years, making Russia declare the priority of national interests and insight that the US wants to bring back Russia to the vassalage status of the 1990s.

The result of this was the hatred that erupted between the peoples of Ukraine and the Russian population of South-East of Ukraine, which began to gain powerful momentum and resulted in thousands of innocent victims of the fratricidal conflict. No dispute, Ukrainian people should freely choose their own dream. However, actually, a freedom of frustration apparently prevails.

Let us get back to the American World Order. A chain of events (restoration ‘order’ in Iraq, the bombing of Serbia, then the Syrian and Ukrainian crises) shows that the US cannot reasonably cope with the world leader role. Under the influence of an irresistible desire to snub Russia for its support of the South-East of Ukraine and unwillingness to follow the lead of the West, Washington got into an ambiguous trap, classic ‘double bind’, Catch-22. Imposing sanctions against Russia, the United States is openly pushing Moscow southward and eastward.

‘One can recall that the Russian ultra-nationalists, who have strengthened their status as a result of ‘a quarrel with the West’, believe that ‘Russia should advocate a kind of geopolitical Reconquista in Eurasia, the new development of the former Soviet republics’, through Iran to the Indian Ocean, an addition of the North–South axis to traditional Russian East–West axis; in general, positioning itself as an independent geopolitical and geo-economic actor with a strong vector of geopolitical expansion southwards.’Footnote ⁸ According to the most odious of Russian nationalist theorists Alexander Dugin, ‘it is a vector of continental and then global expansion, carried out on behalf of Heartland . . . and a ‘spatial sense’ of Russian history’. Footnote ⁹ Naturally, this message should be interpreted in the context of the famous formula of Mackinder that who controls the Heartland, commands the World Island, and who rules the World Island commands the world Footnote ¹⁰ [Mackinder 1942: 99].

In classical geopolitics, under the World Island it is meant primarily the territory of continental giants – Russia and China. It's no secret that Western sanctions imposed by Washington's insistence, pushed Moscow into the arms Beijing and could have a significant influence on the shaping of the balance of power, which might be not favorable for the West. We are witnessing China's actual ‘coming-out party’ as a superpower.

Of course, Russia and China are just doomed to cooperate, at least by the fact that they have a common border of some 4,300 km. Naturally, the proximity of Moscow and Beijing, as is well known from history, always had some limits. However, an anti-Russian policy of Washington and the growing competition with China for control over the New World Order can lead to a situation where a new rapprochement could emerge between Moscow and Beijing, as well as a military alliance. One should not forget about the biggest natural resources of Siberia and the Far East, which are increasingly needed in China and can be a powerful tool for the further growth of China's economic influence in the world.

No less eloquent is another problem with ambiguous connotations, that is the use of fluctuations in oil prices for marked political purposes. The sharp decline in oil prices could have unpredictable consequences. China is in need of cheap oil, while Russia needs them to be high. Playing with oil prices reminds of a double-edged weapon. In an effort to punish Russia, the US stimulation of the oil prices drop, the US helps China to increase its economic power, which may lead to a colossal strengthening of the Asian giant. Is it in harmony with the US interests?

Let me reflect a bit about the ‘political zoology’. Perhaps the political zoo in this world can be divided into two quite articulated groups of countries, ‘tigers’ and ‘whales’. The former group usually contains medium- or small-scale countries with high economic efficiency and powerful infrastructure. ‘Tigers’ are able to rapidly jump upward, roll over, and fall on all four paws. The Asian ‘tigers’ were born in 1960s as a result of a desperate struggle for economic primacy; they were South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. By accumulating forces, these ‘rising stars’ over the shortest period of time made fantastic progress in industry and science. The example was so contagious that it did not take long for new ‘tigers’ to emerge, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia among them.

The ‘whales’ appeared about the same time. They initially had an enviable potential, such as huge populations, rich natural resources, and vast territories. At the time, the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) unanimously declared that the future belonged to them. With some reservations, among them there are potentially new world leaders (China, India, possibly, Russia).

‘Whales’ are usually large and unwieldy, at the beginning they are notable for their very poor infrastructure. They need time to make a U-turn. But even moving forward at a low speed, colossal mass gains colossal momentum. In this sense, such a ‘whale’ as China is becoming a leader, the engine of economic development.

This is not to exclude that a similar fate awaits Russia in the future. According to President Putin's latest Address to the Council of Federation (December 2014), the West notices that Russia has become too strong and independent. Moreover, some Russian conspiracy theorists declare that, in accordance with a certain secret Anaconda Plan, the US tries to encircle Russia by a rim of unfriendly or unstable states. I am far from conspiracy hobbies, but the actions of the United States unwittingly stick to this pattern of imposing its hegemony.

No doubt, according to the Ikenberry book, the USA still claims to enjoy world hegemony. But history is cyclical, and each cycle comes to an end, sooner or later. Hegemons go through periods of prosperity and periods of decline. A superpower status cannot be kept permanently, it is temporary. This applies to the modern ‘European empire’, the EU. Each extension of the empire ends with their being strangled by ‘barbarians’. It was the barbarians' intrusion from outskirts that slaughtered the Roman Empire.

According to Parag Hanna, Director of the Global Governance Initiative in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, ‘Charlemagne's efforts to resurrect the Roman Empire have been succeeded, over a millennium later, by the multipronged armadas of Brussels Eurocrats steadily colonizing Europe's periphery, in the Baltics, the Balkans, and, eventually, Anatolia and the Caucasus. The Eurocrats' book is not the Bible but rather the acquis communautaire: the 31 chapters of the Lex Europea, which is rebuilding EU member states from the inside out.’Footnote ¹¹

Ideology, values and institutions tend to get old with time. Modernity gave way to postmodernity at the end of the century. US and EU political scientists realize that politicians act in the paradigm of modernity. Modernity is characterized by meta-narratives, claiming that the general history flows in one direction. In this logic, Francis Fukuyama put forward the thesis about the End of history. Post-modernity was the result of a debate about a break from ‘modernism/modernity’ from the late 1970s to c. 2000. The locus of control is the idea of the collapse of the authority of ‘meta-narratives’ and hence a ‘crises of legitimacy’ of knowledge. Within this post-modernist logic, there is no end of history. Post-modernity manifests that the attempts to create a single version of the history have no sense. This is undoubtedly a crisis of legitimacy of meta-narrative. In fact, we are witnessing the collision of modernity and postmodernity principles. Politicians stick to old patterns, they are reluctant to wave good-bye to the past. Hence the growth in aggressiveness of some modern political actors, which faced the crisis of the meta-narrative of bourgeois society predicted by Jean-Francois Lyotard. According to Lyotard, the meta-narrative is a special type of discourse that emerged in the modern era, and applies to a special status in relation to other discourses, seeking to establish itself not only as true, but as a fair, universal system of concepts, symbols, metaphors aimed at shaping the unique world view.

This desire to cling to the past we see in the current degradation of the political elite in the United States, which is involved in narcissism and the endless repetition of a mantra: we are strong, we rule the world. The crisis of the American World Order can be explained by the fact that politicians are no longer guided by the advanced political science, they prefer to rely upon the opinion of the so-called ‘spin doctors’. Political circles in the USA often share absurd position of its officials, for example, the statement by the Minister of Defense that Russia came to the borders of NATO, the statement by the representative of the State Department J. Psaki that Russian ships rush to the shores of Belarus and many other applications of anecdotal evidence that make to suggest that there are no more qualified experts on Russia in the United States.

Modern world media often oddly influence policy and shape parallel virtual realities. Any event can be constructed in the information space without any connection with reality. Democratic regimes absurdly legalize totalitarian practices, such as the total control of special services, under the pretext of opposing international terrorism. Meanwhile, more and more of the alternative practices gain credibility, such as the Confucian economic model. New centers of power emerge in various regions, such as China and India.

If we look at the problem in a philosophical context, we see that the world infinitely and excessively believed in the Hegelian Absolute Idea. In fact, there is no absolute Absolut. Each paradigm is relative in terms of scientific merit; its effect may increase or decrease.

The world is becoming more multiplex and multi-vectored, as it turns out, it is not linear. The world society consists of ad hoc alliances shifting constantly their configuration (‘there are no friends, there are only temporary allies’). We see that the development is multi-paradigmatic and that there are uncountable versions of the world, and it is the path to a healthier world system. Any attempt to monopolize knowledge leads to destruction.

In this sense, the two insightful concepts of this ‘complex, complex, complex world’ – as they are presented at Ikenberry's modernity paradigm and in Amitav's postmodern paradigm – clearly show that our globolocal non-linear world is developing simultaneously within different paradigms – as a Realpolitik and a postmodern multiplex movie theatre.