Russia

Is the world entering a multipolarity era?

For roughly three decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States stood as the world’s unchallenged superpower. Political scientist Charles Krauthammer famously described this era as the “Unipolar Moment”, a period in which no other nation could rival American military, economic, or diplomatic reach. Today, that moment appears to be ending.

A convergence of forces (e.g., the economic ascent of China, the expansion of the BRICS bloc, shifting US foreign policy, and the growing assertiveness of the Global South) is reshaping the international order at a pace that few anticipated.

The Architecture of American Dominance

To understand what is changing, it is necessary to understand what it once was.

After the Cold War, the United States accounted for roughly 25% of global GDP, operated the world’s most powerful military by a significant margin, and anchored a network of international institutions (think of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund) that largely reflected Western values and priorities. The US dollar became the world’s dominant reserve currency, giving Washington extraordinary leverage over the global financial system.

This period of unipolarity was not simply a matter of military might: it was a comprehensive structural dominance spanning economics, technology, culture, and governance.

The Rise of New Powers

That architecture is now under sustained pressure.

The most significant challenge comes from China, whose economy has grown from approximately $1.2 trillion in 2000 to over $18 trillion today, a rise from 4% to nearly 18% of global GDP. Simultaneously, the BRICS bloc (originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has expanded aggressively, and as of 2026 represents over 36% of global GDP measured in purchasing power parity (PPP), already surpassing the G7’s share of roughly 29.6%, according to IMF data.

This is not merely an economic story. The BRICS nations collectively account for approximately 40% of global trade, according to the Munich Security Report 2025, whose central theme was precisely “Multipolarization”. The report observed that an ongoing power shift toward a greater number of states vying for influence is clearly discernible, marking a decisive shift in the language of mainstream international security analysis. Beyond BRICS, middle powers including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India, Indonesia, and Brazil are increasingly acting as independent actors rather than automatic supporters of the Western-led order. At the 2025 Munich Security Conference, 30% of speakers represented the Global South, a figure that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

*Figure 1. Share of Global GDP (PPP): G7 vs BRICS+, 2000–2024*

Fracturing Alliances and US Foreign Policy

The second major driver of change is the United States itself.

The return of Donald Trump to the White House in January 2025 accelerated tensions already present within the Western alliance system.

Trump’s approach, characterized by tariff escalation, skepticism toward NATO burden-sharing, and unilateral diplomatic maneuvering, strained relations with traditional partners in Europe and Asia. Europe, long dependent on US security guarantees, responded by dramatically increasing defense spending, though analysts note it will remain reliant on American military infrastructure for years to come.

At the same time, a growing divergence is visible in how different parts of the world perceive the emerging order. Surveys conducted for the Munich Security Report 2025 found that majorities in G7 nations view the shift toward multipolarity with concern, fearing increased disorder and conflict. By contrast, large majorities in China (+50% net agreement), South Africa (+45%), India (+44%), and Brazil (+35%) believe a multipolar world would better address the needs of developing nations. The North-South divide has rarely been so sharply quantified.

*Figure 2. “A Multipolar World Would Be More Peaceful and Fair”, Net Agreement (%) by Country.*

The Dollar, The Military, And the Limits of Decline

The narrative of American decline is, however, contested by several analysts. Writing in Foreign Affairs in February 2026, analyst C. Raja Mohan argued that “the first year of Trump’s second term has punctured the narrative of American decline and the rise of multipolarity,” pointing to the US ability to intervene militarily, reshape trade rules, and push resolutions through the UN Security Council with limited effective resistance.

A key pillar of this argument is financial. The US dollar still accounts for approximately 57% of global foreign exchange reserves, according to IMF COFER data, down from a peak of nearly 73% in 2001, but still far ahead of any rival currency. The euro, its closest competitor, holds under 20%. Efforts by BRICS nations to launch an alternative reserve currency or payment system have so far failed to gain traction, with even the BRICS Development Bank continuing to operate primarily in US dollars. Beyond finance, the US continues to dominate the sectors most critical to 21st-century power: artificial intelligence, semiconductor technology, and advanced military systems. Russia, often cited as a pillar of a new multipolar order, has a GDP smaller than that of Italy and a narrow economic base heavily dependent on natural resource exports.

As the Munich Security Report 2025 concluded with notable precision: “Today’s international system shows elements of unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity, and nonpolarity. What you see depends on where you look.”

*Figure 3. US Dollar Share of Global Foreign Exchange Reserves, 1999–2023*

What Multipolarity Would Mean in Practice

Regardless of how the academic debate is resolved, the practical consequences of the current transition are already visible. Multilateral institutions are under strain: the WTO’s dispute resolution mechanism remains largely paralyzed, the UN Security Council is increasingly deadlocked, and global supply chains are fragmenting along geopolitical lines, a process known as “friend-shoring”, as nations prioritize strategic alignment over economic efficiency.

Some analysts see opportunity in this transition. Chatham House researcher Amitav Acharya has argued that a “multiplex” world order could emerge, one characterized by greater ideological diversity, more inclusive global institutions, and stronger regional governance. The inclusion of the African Union in the G20 in 2023 was cited as a potential sign of this more representative direction. The Munich Security Report 2025 cautioned, however, that without shared rules, multipolarization risks producing not a fairer world but a more conflictual one:

“Before our eyes, we are seeing the negative scenario of a more multipolar world materialize — a more conflictual world without shared rules and effective multilateral cooperation.”

Conclusion

The world of 2026 is no longer the world of 1995. While the United States retains unmatched military capability and continues to anchor the global financial system, its ability to set the terms of international order unilaterally has measurably diminished.

The rise of China and the BRICS bloc, combined with a more assertive Global South and an increasingly transactional US foreign policy, are producing a structural transition whose ultimate destination remains unclear. What is certain is that the rules, institutions, and alliances that defined the post-Cold War era are under revision and the outcome of that revision will shape the next several decades of global politics.

Sources

Munich Security Conference, Munich Security Report 2025 C. Raja Mohan, “The Multipolar Delusion,” Foreign Affairs, February 2026 ; Brandon J. Weichert, “The Unipolar Moment Is Over,” The National Interest, December 2025 (nationalinterest.org); Amitav Acharya, “The Decline of the West and the Rise of the Rest,” The World Today, Chatham House, December 2025 (chathamhouse.org); Centre for International Governance Innovation, “America’s Unipolar Moment Is Over” (cigionline.org); MD. Abir Mahmud Jakaria, “Global Power Shift: Is the United States Losing Dominance in the Emerging Multipolar World Order?” ResearchGate, February 2026 (researchgate.net); Indian Journal of Law and Legal Research, “The Rise of Multipolarity: Is the Unipolar World Order Officially Over?” February 2026 (ijllr.com); IMF, World Economic Outlook Database (imf.org); IMF, COFER Database — Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (imf.org); EY India Economic Watch, “Can BRICS Play a Key Role in Shaping Future Global Economic Policy?” 2024 (ey.com); BRICS Brazil Presidency, “BRICS GDP Outperforms Global Average”

Rebecca Fratello

Writer

…and the future of tax collection worldwide

Russia’s Federal Tax Service, by the hand of the agency’s executive Mikhail Mishustin, has revolutionized the tax administration and developed a technology that will presumably be the future of tax collection worldwide. It consists in a digital and real-time system, which allows Russian officials to receive the data regarding every registered transaction that occurred in the country within 90 seconds after it took place.

The phenomena of ageing population is pressuring governments around the globe, as it is substantially enlarging the expenses with healthcare, social care and pensions. Alongside, the major tech enterprises have been discovering the way of shifting profits around the world and avoiding corporate taxes. In order to tackle these issues and raise funds to face increasing expenses and decreasing revenues in the sector of direct taxes, the Russians have decided to bet in the collection of indirect taxes, mainly in VAT.

Value Added Tax, VAT, is a broad consumption-based tax assessed on the value added to goods and services. This tax is now present in more than 165 countries and represents approximately 20 per cent of all global tax revenues per year.

But, in two main areas, VAT is subject of fraud: firstly, some traders don´t pay the taxes they owe on their sales and go missing, leaving authorities without collecting what legally belongs to them; secondly, customers collude with sellers to buy goods and services without receipt, with the purpose of avoiding VAT being charged to the final consumer.

To overcome fraud, or at least its majority, and prevent tax evasion and corruption, Russia developed and establish cutting-edge technology. Every retailer had to buy a new cash register, linked securely to the Federal Tax Service’s data centers, and was obliged to register every single transaction. The technology, through the use of Artificial Intelligence, is able to find patterns and spot businesses’ suspicious activity, for example if companies are registering less sales than expected because they are making cash transactions off the record, and even monitor the tax officials and their collection rates to detect corruption. This system also enables the government to control the number of sales and the prices of goods and services and provides national statistics, being inflation one of the most important.

However, there is still the wish to extend the system to the informal economy. Individuals just have to sign up to a smartphone app and what they owe will automatically be deducted from their bank accounts. Tax officials are, of course, relying in the fact that most people want to be clean and don´t want to get in trouble with the government. Even though “The Russian way of taxes” has all the advantages mentioned above, it is actually more directed to shopkeepers than to oligarchs, as corruption is still quite present in Russia’s society. Yet, this policy helped raising revenues significantly and also helped cleaning the system.

The leader of the global tax consulting at EY, Chris Sanger, says: “The benefits of technology for tax authorities in indirect taxes may well overweight the problems it brings in the direct tax system”.

Like Russia, there were many other countries that adopted the real-time data in tax collection, with the intention of reducing tax evasion and corruption. Portugal was one of those countries, an early starter. The shopkeepers’ cash registers are connected to the tax authorities’ systems too, but Portugal added other incentives. If consumers add their personal tax number to the electronic receipt, they can get a 15 per cent deduction on the VAT paid from their annual income tax assessment as well as becoming eligible to win a monthly lottery, which price is usually a brand-new luxury car. Through this incentive strategy, consumers are more likely to pay VAT and so ensure that retailers do the same.

Although many consider this is the future of tax collection worldwide, others believe that this will never be possible to implement in more mature democracies, due to the principles of privacy and data protection. The public is quite skeptical to accepted immensely intrusive state technology. OECD is trying to draw core standards at least for its state-members, aiming at securing data and preventing it from being misused.

For reflection purposes, it is feasible to leave the question: Will people actually be worried about their privacy and their personal information or, in another way, are they worthy to claim these rights when they share their private lives with the big tech companies?