Loss of US heg leads to global instability, revisionist war eminent.

This might herald the emergence of a new system, no longer dominated by one power but multipolar, and certainly very different from the one established after World War II. For, as Princeton’s John Ikenberry has noted a few years ago, “there is no liberal internationalism without American and western hegemony — and that age is ending.” With the decline of the United States and the parallel rise of China, countries have the option to “seek alternative patrons rather than remain dependent on Western largess and support.”

The end result might very well be a bifurcated world order, on the heels of a period of instability and turmoil, or what Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini have called a “G-Zero” world, one without clear leadership and global cooperation. Bifurcation means the coexistence of competing systems that follow fundamentally different rules. This can already be observed in the realm of economic governance.

Olga Petricevic and David Teece have recently warned of a “noticeable defiance of the principles of classical economic liberalism and the rule-of-law” by Russia and China. The Chinese “alternative model of governance,” they note, “is deploying coordinated protectionist trade and investment policies and government intervention aimed at accessing and acquiring foreign intellectual property, thereby influencing the global economic and innovation system.” Its success is likely to inspire imitation and attempts to jump on the bandwagon, resulting not only in bifurcation but in polarization reminiscent of the Cold War period.