Once the world’s undisputed economic and industrial power, the United States is now facing the potential of multiple equally capable rivals, leaving a glaring “economic blindspot” in their national security planning, begging the question, where does that leave Australia?

For much of history, the geopolitical environment has been the story of multipolarity, whether it was the intense rivalry between Rome and Carthage, the British Empire and Napoleon’s France, and even through to the Cold War competition between the United States and Soviet Union.

By far, the most central characteristic of this history is the utter dominance of a small number of nations, empires or kingdoms over others, which created what is often described as a lopsided approach to the geopolitical concept of polarity, making the world a tricky environment in which to operate, particularly for middle and emerging powers.

Today’s world is no different, despite the post-Second World War dominance of the global leavers of power, institutions and commons by the United States, the post-war world has always maintained an element of multipolarity.

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, in particular, establish the world as a “multipolar” environment in spite of the widely-held belief that the United States was the global hegemon, particularly following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, which required considered and measured diplomacy by all parties involved, particularly the global hegemon.

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