Brahma Chellaney is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. From his abstract for IPRA 2010:

"The changing global power equations are reflected in new realities. These include the eastward movement of power and influence, once concentrated in the West; the waning relevance of the international structures the United States helped establish after its World War II triumph; and Asia's economic rise. While the world is not yet multipolar, it is no longer unipolar, as it had been from the time of the Soviet Union's collapse to at least the end of the 1990s — a period in which America failed to fashion a new liberal world order under its direction.

"What we have today is a world still in transition. We still do not know what the new world order would look like. The impasse or lack of movement on key international issues, therefore, should not come as a surprise. In fact, the most pressing challenges today are international in nature and thus demand international responses and solutions. Yet the existing international institutions are proving inadequate to deal with such global challenges, in part because such institutions no longer reflect the prevailing power structure. Their representational deficit, and the ensuing impact on their capacity to play an effective, forward-looking role, have become glaring.

"Until the contours of a new world order become visible, the present and emerging global fault lines will continue to signal rising geopolitical risks. The tensions between internationalism and nationalism in an era of a supposed single 'global village', for instance, raise troubling questions. The political, economic and security divides are no less invidious.

"Strengthening multilateralism in such a setting demands improved global geopolitics so as to build cooperative political approaches. Better politics is as important as better economics. Strengthening multilateralism also calls for reform of international institutions and rules. A 21st-century world cannot stay saddled with 20th-century institutions. The challenges the world confronts actually are unique. The issues are new — ranging from accelerated global warming to uncontained international terrorism — and their reach is truly global."

World Affairs,