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Ed Johnson

The West’s Last Chance

How to Build a New Global Order Before It’s Too Late
Alexander Stubb | December 2, 2025

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The world has changed more in the past four years than in the
previous 30. Our news feeds brim with strife and tragedy. Russia
bombards Ukraine, the Middle East seethes, and wars rage in
Africa. As conflicts are on the rise, democracies, it seems, are in
demise. The post–Cold War era is over. Despite the hopes that
followed the fall of the Berlin Wall, the globe did not unite in
embracing democracy and market capitalism. Indeed, the forces
that were supposed to bring the world together—trade, energy,
technology, and information—are now pulling it apart.
We live in a new world of disorder. The liberal, rules-based order
that arose after the end of World War II is now dying. Multilateral
cooperation is giving way to multipolar competition. Opportunistic
transactions seem to matter more than defending international
rules. Great-power competition is back, as the rivalry between
China and the United States sets the frame of geopolitics. But it is
not the only force shaping global order. Emerging middle powers,
including Brazil, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South
Africa, and Turkey, have become game-changers. Together, they
have the economic means and geopolitical heft to tilt the global
order toward stability or greater turmoil. They also have a reason to
demand change: the post–World War II multilateral system did not
adapt to adequately reflect their position in the world and afford
them the role that they deserve. A triangular contest among what I
call the global West, the global East, and the global South is taking
shape. In choosing either to strengthen the multilateral system or
seek multipolarity, the global South will decide whether geopolitics
in the next era leans toward cooperation, fragmentation, or
domination.
The next five to ten years will likely determine the world order for
decades to come. Once an order settles in, it tends to stick for a
while. After World War I, a new order lasted two decades. The next
order, after World War II, lasted for four decades. Now, 30 years
after the end of the Cold War
War, something new is again emerging.
This is the last chance for Western countries to convince the rest of
the world that they are capable of dialogue rather than monologue,
consistency rather than double standards, and cooperation rather
than domination. If countries eschew cooperation for competition,
a world of even greater conflict looms.
Every state has agency, even small ones such as mine, Finland
Finland. The
key is to try to maximize influence and, with the tools available,
push for solutions. For me, this means doing everything I can to
preserve the liberal world order, even if that system is not in vogue
right now. International institutions and norms provide the
framework for global cooperation. They need to be updated and
reformed to better reflect the growing economic and political power
of the global South and the global East. Western leaders have long
talked about the urgency of fixing multilateral institutions such as
the United Nations. Now, we must get it done, starting with
rebalancing the power within the UN and other international
bodies such as the World Trade Organization, the International
Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. Without such changes, the
multilateral system as it exists will crumble. That system is not
perfect; it has inherent flaws and can never exactly reflect the world
around it. But the alternatives are much worse: spheres of
influence, chaos, and disorder.
HISTORY DID NOT END
I started studying political science and international relations at
Furman University in the United States in 1989. The Berlin Wall
fell that autumn. Soon after, Germany reunified, central and
eastern Europe escaped the shackles of communism, and what had
been a bipolar world—pitting a communist and authoritarian
Soviet Union against a capitalist and democratic United States—
became a unipolar one. The United States was now the undisputed
superpower. The liberal international order had won.
I was elated at the time. It seemed to me, and to so many others
then, that we stood at the threshold of a brighter age. The political
scientist Francis Fukuyama called that moment “the end of history,”
and I wasn’t the only one to believe that the triumph of liberalism
was certain. Most nation-states would invariably pivot toward
democracy, market capitalism, and freedom. Globalization would
lead to economic interdependence. Old divisions would melt, and
the world would become one. Even at the end of the decade, as I
finished my Ph.D. in European integration at the London School of
Economics, this future still seemed imminent.
But that future never arrived. The unipolar moment proved short-
lived. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the West turned its
back on the basic values that it claimed to uphold. Its commitment
to international law was questioned. U.S.-led interventions in
Afghanistan and Iraq failed. The global financial crash of 2008
delivered a severe reputational blow to the West’s economic model,
rooted in global markets. The United States no longer drove global
politics alone. China emerged as a superpower through its
skyrocketing manufacturing, exports, and economic growth, and its
rivalry with the United States has since come to dominate
geopolitics. The last decade has also seen the further erosion of
multilateral institutions, growing suspicion and friction regarding
free trade, and intensifying competition over technology.
Russia’s full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine in February 2022
dealt another body blow to the old order. It was one of the most
blatant violations of the rules-based system since the end of World
War II and certainly the worst Europe had seen. That the culprit
was a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which was
set up to preserve peace, was all the more damning. States that
were supposed to uphold the system brought it crashing down.
MULTILATERALISM OR MULTIPOLARITY
The international order, however, has not disappeared. Amid the
wreckage, it is shifting from multilateralism to multipolarity.
Multilateralism is a system of global cooperation that rests on
international institutions and common rules. Its key principles
apply equally to all countries, irrespective of size. Multipolarity, by
contrast, is an oligopoly of power. The structure of a multipolar
world rests on several, often competing poles. Dealmaking and
agreements among a limited number of players form the structure
of such an order, invariably weakening common rules and
institutions. Multipolarity can lead to ad hoc and opportunistic
behavior and a fluid array of alliances based on states’ real-time
self-interest. A multipolar world risks leaving small and medium-
sized countries out—bigger powers make deals over their heads.
Whereas multilateralism leads to order, multipolarity tends toward
disorder and conflict.
There is a growing tension between those who promote
multilateralism and an order based on the rule of law and those who
speak the language of multipolarity and transactionalism. Small
states and middle powers, as well as regional organizations such as
the African Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the
EU, and the South American bloc Mercosur, promote
multilateralism. China, for its part, promotes multipolarity with
shades of multilateralism; it ostensibly endorses multilateral
groupings such as BRICS—the non-Western coalition whose
original members were Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South
Africa—and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that actually
want to give rise to a more multipolar order. The United States has
shifted its emphasis from multilateralism toward transactionalism
but still has commitments to regional institutions such as NATO
NATO.
Many states, both big and small, are pursuing what can be
described as a multivectoral foreign policy. In essence, their aim is
to diversify their relations with multiple actors rather than aligning
with any one bloc.
A transactional or multivectoral foreign policy is dominated by
interests. Small states, for instance, often balance between great
powers: they can align with China in some areas and side with the
United States in others, all while trying to avoid being dominated
by any one actor. Interests drive the practical choices of states, and
this is entirely legitimate. But such an approach need not eschew
values, which should underpin everything a state does. Even a
transactional foreign policy should rest on a core of fundamental
values. They include the sovereignty and territorial integrity of
states, the prohibition of the use of force, and the respect for human
rights and fundamental freedoms. Countries have, overwhelmingly,
a clear interest in upholding these values and ensuring that
violators face real consequences.
Many countries are rejecting multilateralism in favor of more ad
hoc arrangements and deals. The United States, for instance, is
focused on bilateral trade and business agreements. China uses the
Belt and Road Initiative, its vast global infrastructure investment
program, to facilitate both bilateral diplomacy and economic
transactions. The EU is forging bilateral free trade agreements that
risk falling short of World Trade Organization rules. This,
paradoxically, is happening when the world needs multilateralism
more than ever to solve common challenges, such as climate
change, development shortfalls, and the regulation of advanced
technologies. Without a strong multilateral system, all diplomacy
becomes transactional. A multilateral world makes the common
good a self-interest. A multipolar world runs simply on self-
interest.
FINLAND’S “VALUES-BASED REALISM”
Foreign policy is often based on three pillars: values, interests, and
power. These three elements are key when the balance and
dynamics of world order are changing. I come from a relatively
small country with a population of close to six million people.
Although we have one of the largest defense forces in Europe, our
diplomacy is premised on values and interests. Power, both the hard
and the soft kind, is mostly a luxury of the bigger players. They can
project military and economic power, forcing smaller players to
align with their goals. But small countries can find power in
cooperating with others. Alliances, groupings, and smart diplomacy
are what give a smaller player influence well beyond the size of its
military and economy. Often, those alliances are based on shared
values, such as a commitment to human rights and the rule of law.
As a small country bordering an imperial power, Finland has
learned that sometimes a state must set aside some values to
protect others, or simply to survive. Statehood is based on the
principles of independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.
After World War II, Finland retained its independence, unlike our
Baltic friends that were absorbed by the Soviet Union. But we lost
ten percent of our territory to the Soviet Union, including the areas
where my father and grandparents were born. And, crucially, we
had to give up some sovereignty. Finland was unable to join
international institutions we felt we naturally belonged to, notably
the EU and NATO.
During the Cold War, Finnish foreign policy was defined by
“pragmatic realism.” To keep the Soviet Union from attacking us
again, as it had in 1939, we had to compromise our Western values.
This era in Finnish history, which has lent the term
“Finlandization” to international relations, is not one we can be
particularly proud of, but we managed to keep our independence.
That experience has made us wary of any possibility of its
repetition. When some suggest that Finlandization might be a
solution for ending the war in Ukraine, I vehemently disagree. Such
a peace would come at too great a cost, what would effectively be
the surrender of sovereignty and territory.

We live in a new world of disorder.

After the end of the Cold War, Finland, like so many other
countries, embraced the idea that the values of the global West
would become the norm—what I call “values-based idealism.” This
allowed Finland to join the European Union in 1995. At the same
time, Finland made a serious mistake: it decided, voluntarily, to
stay out of NATO. (For the record, I have been an avid advocate of
Finnish NATO membership for 30 years.) Some Finns harbored an
idealistic belief that Russia would eventually become a liberal
democracy, so joining NATO was unnecessary. Others feared that
Russia would react badly to Finland joining the alliance. Yet others
thought that Finland contributed to maintaining a balance—and
therefore peace—in the Baltic Sea region by staying out of the
alliance. All these reasons turned out to be wrong, and Finland has
adjusted accordingly; it joined NATO after Russia’s full-scale
attack on Ukraine.
That was a decision that followed from both Finland’s values and
its interests. Finland has embraced what I have called “values-based
realism”: committing to a set of universal values based on freedom,
fundamental rights, and international rules while still respecting
the realities of the world’s diversity of cultures and histories. The
global West must stay true to its values but understand that the
world’s problems will not be solved only through collaboration with
like-minded countries.
Values-based realism might sound like a contradiction of terms, but
it is not. Two influential theories of the post–Cold War era seemed
to pit universal values against a more realist assessment of political
fault lines. Fukuyama’s end of history thesis saw the triumph of
capitalism over communism as heralding a world that would
become ever more liberal and market-oriented. The political
scientist Samuel Huntington’s vision of a “clash of civilizations”
predicted that the fault lines of geopolitics would move from
ideological differences to cultural ones. In truth, states can draw
from both understandings in negotiating today’s shifting order. In
crafting foreign policy, governments of the global West can
maintain their faith in democracy and markets without insisting
they are universally applicable; in other places, different models
may prevail. And even within the global West, the pursuit of
security and the defense of sovereignty will occasionally make it
impossible to strictly adhere to liberal ideals.
Countries should strive for a cooperative world order of values-
based realism, respecting both the rule of law and cultural and
political differences. For Finland, that means reaching out to the
countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America to better understand
their positions on Russia’s war in Ukraine and other ongoing
conflicts. It also means holding pragmatic discussions on an equal
footing on important global issues, such as those to do with
technology sharing, raw materials, and climate change.
THE TRIANGLE OF POWER
Three broad regions now make up the global balance of power: the
global West, the global East, and the global South. The global West
comprises roughly 50 countries and has traditionally been led by
the United States. Its members include primarily democratic,
market-oriented states in Europe and North America and their far-
flung allies Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. These
countries have typically aimed to uphold a rules-based multilateral
order, even if they disagree on how best to preserve, reform, or
reinvent it.
The global East consists of roughly 25 states led by China. It
includes a network of aligned states—notably Iran, North Korea,
and Russia—that seek to revise or supplant the existing rules-based
international order. These countries are bound by a common
interest, namely, the desire to reduce the power of the global West.
The global South, comprising many of the world’s developing and
middle-income states from Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and
Southeast Asia (and the majority of the world’s population) spans
roughly 125 states. Many of them suffered under Western
colonialism and then again as theaters for the proxy wars of the
Cold War era. The global South includes many middle powers or
“swing states,” notably Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico,
Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa. Demographic trends,
economic development, and the extraction and export of natural
resources drive the ascendance of these states.
The global West and the global East are fighting for the hearts and
minds of the global South. The reason is simple: they understand
that the global South will decide the direction of the new world
order. As the West and the East pull in different directions, the
South has the swing vote.
The global West cannot simply attract the global South by extolling
the virtues of freedom and democracy; it also needs to fund
development projects, make investments in economic growth, and,
most important, give the South a seat at the table and share power.
The global East would be equally mistaken to think that its
spending on big infrastructure projects and direct investment buys
it full influence in the global South. Love cannot be easily bought.
As Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has noted,
India and other countries in the global South are not simply sitting
on the fence but rather standing on their own ground.

In other words, what both Western and Eastern leaders will need is
values-based realism. Foreign policy is never binary. A policymaker
has to make daily choices that involve both values and interests.
Will you buy weapons from a country that is violating international
law? Will you fund a dictatorship that is fighting terrorism? Will
you give aid to a country that considers homosexuality a crime? Do
you trade with a country that allows the death penalty? Some
values are nonnegotiable. These include upholding fundamental
and human rights, protecting minorities, preserving democracy, and
respecting the rule of law. These values anchor what the global
West should stand for, especially in its appeals to the global South.
At the same time, the global West has to understand that not
everyone shares these values.
The aim of values-based realism is to find a balance between values
and interests in a way that prioritizes principles but recognizes the
limits of a state’s power when the interests of peace, stability, and
security are at stake. A rules-based world order underpinned by a
set of well-functioning international institutions that enshrine
fundamental values remains the best way to prevent competition
leading to collision. But as these institutions have lost their salience,
countries must embrace a harder sense of realism. Leaders must
acknowledge the differences among countries: the realities of
geography, history, culture, religion, and different stages in
economic development. If they want others to better address issues
such as citizens’ rights, environmental practices, and good
governance, they should lead by example and offer support—not
lectures.
Values-based realism begins with dignified behavior, with respect
for the views of others and an understanding of differences. It
means collaboration based on partnerships of equals rather than
some historical perception of what relations among the global West,
East, and South should look like. The way for states to look forward
rather than backward is to focus on important common projects
such as infrastructure, trade, and climate change mitigation and
adaptation.
Many obstacles lie before any attempt by the world’s three spheres
to build a global order that at once respects differences and allows
states to set their national interests in a broader framework of
cooperative international relations. The costs of failure, however,
are immense: the first half of the twentieth century was warning
enough.
Uncertainty is a part of international relations, and never more so
than during the transition of one era into another. The key is to
understand why the change is happening and how to react to it. If
the global West reverts to its old ways of direct or indirect
dominance or outright arrogance, it will lose the battle. If it realizes
that the global South will be a key part of the next world order, it
just might be able to forge both values-based and interest-based
partnerships that can tackle the main challenges of the globe.
Values-based realism will give the West enough room to navigate
this new age of international relations.
WORLDS TO COME
A set of postwar institutions helped steer the world through its
most rapid era of development and sustained an extraordinary
period of relative peace. Today, they are at risk of collapsing. But
they must survive, because a world based on competition without
cooperation will lead to conflict. To survive, however, they must
change, because too many states lack agency in the existing system
and, in the absence of change, will divest themselves from it. These
states can’t be blamed for doing so; the new world order will not
wait.
At least three scenarios could emerge in the decade ahead. In the
first one, the current disorder would simply persist. There would
still be elements of the old order left, but respect for international
rules and institutions would be à la carte and mostly based on
interests—not innate values. The capacity to solve major challenges
would remain limited, but the world at least would not devolve into
greater chaos. Ending conflicts, however, would become especially
difficult because most peace deals would be transactional and lack
the authority that comes with the imprimatur of the United
Nations.
Things could be worse: in a second scenario, the foundations of the
liberal international order—its rules and institutions—would
continue to erode, and the existing order would collapse. The world
would move closer to chaos without a clear nexus of power and
with states unable to solve acute crises, such as famines, pandemics,
or conflicts. Strongmen, warlords, and nonstate actors would fill
power vacuums left behind by receding international organizations.
Local conflicts would risk triggering wider wars. Stability and
predictability would be the exception, not the norm, in a dog-eat-
dog world. Peace mediation would be close to impossible.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. In a third scenario, a new
symmetry of power among the global West, East, and South would
produce a rebalanced world order in which countries could deal
with the most pressing global challenges through cooperation and
dialogue among equals. That balance would contain competition
and nudge the world toward greater cooperation on climate,
security, and technology issues—critical challenges that no country
can solve alone. In this scenario, the principles of the UN Charter
would prevail, leading to just and lasting agreements. But for that
to happen, international institutions must be reformed.

The unipolar moment proved short-lived.

Reform begins at the top, namely, in the United Nations. Reform is
always a long and complicated process, but there are at least three
possible changes that would automatically strengthen the UN and
give agency to those states that feel that they don’t have enough
power in New York, Geneva, Vienna, or Nairobi.
First, all major continents need to be represented in the UN
Security Council, at all times. It is simply unacceptable that there is
no permanent representation from Africa and Latin America in the
Security Council and that China alone represents Asia. The
number of permanent members should be increased by at least five:
two from Africa, two from Asia, and one from Latin America.
Second, no single state should have veto power in the Security
Council. The veto was necessary in the aftermath of World War II,
but in today’s world it has incapacitated the Security Council. The
UN agencies in Geneva work well precisely because no single
member can prevent them from doing so.
Third, if a permanent or rotating member of the Security Council
violates the UN Charter, its membership in the UN should be
suspended. This would mean that the body would have suspended
Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Such a suspension
decision could be taken in the General Assembly. There should be
no room for double standards in the United Nations.

Global trade and financial institutions also need to be updated. The

World Trade Organization, which has been crippled for years by
the paralysis of its dispute settlement mechanism, is still essential.
Despite an increase in free trade agreements outside the WTO’s
purview, over 70 percent of global trade is still conducted under the
WTO’s “most favored nation” principle. The point of the
multilateral trading system is to ensure the fair and equitable
treatment of all its members. Tariffs and other infringements of
WTO rules end up hurting everyone. The current reform process
must lead to greater transparency, especially with respect to
subsidies, and flexibility in the WTO decision-making processes.
And these reforms must be enacted swiftly; the system will lose
credibility if the WTO remains mired in its current impasse.
Reform is hard, and some of these proposals may sound unrealistic.
But so did those made in San Francisco when the United Nations
was founded over 80 years ago. Whether the 193 members of the
United Nations embrace these changes will depend on whether
they focus their foreign policy on values, interests, or power.
Sharing power on the basis of values and interests was the
foundation of the creation of the liberal world order after World
War II. It is time to revise the system that has served us so well for
almost a century.
The wildcard for the global West in all of this will be whether the
United States wants to preserve the multilateral world order it has
been so instrumental in building and from which it has benefited so
greatly. That may not be an easy path, given Washington’s
withdrawal from key institutions and agreements, such as the
World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement, and
its newly mercantilist approach to cross-border trade. The UN
system has helped preserve peace between the great powers,
enabling the United States to emerge as the leading geopolitical
power. In many UN institutions, it has taken the leading role and
been able to drive its policy goals very effectively. Global free trade
has helped the United States establish itself as the leading
economic power in the world while also bringing low-cost products
to American consumers. Alliances such as NATO have given the
United States military and political advantages outside its own
region. It remains the task of the rest of the West to convince the
Trump administration of the value of both the postwar institutions
and the United States’ active role in them.
The wildcard for the global East will be how China plays its hand
on the world stage. It could take more steps to fill the power
vacuums left by the United States in areas such as free trade,
climate change cooperation, and development. It could try to shape
the international institutions it now has a much stronger foothold
in. It might seek to further project power in its own region. And it
might abandon its long-held hide-your-strength and bide-your-
time strategy and decide that the time has come for more
aggressive actions in, for instance, the South China Sea and the
Taiwan Strait.
YALTA OR HELSINKI?
An international order, such as that forged by the Roman Empire,
can sometimes survive for centuries. Most of the time, however, it
lasts for just a few decades. Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine
marks the beginning of yet another change in the world order. For
young people today, it is their 1918, 1945, or 1989 moment. The
world can take a wrong turn at these junctures, as happened after
World War I, when the League of Nations was unable to contain
great-power competition, resulting in another bloody world war.
Countries can also get it more or less right, as happened after
World War II with the establishment of the United Nations. That
postwar order did, after all, preserve peace between the two
superpowers of the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United
States. To be sure, that relative stability came at a high cost for
those states that were forced into submission or suffered during
proxy conflicts. And even as the end of World War II laid the
groundwork for an order that survived for decades, it also planted
the seeds of the current imbalance.
In 1945, the war’s winners met in Yalta, in Crimea. There, U.S.
President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin crafted a postwar order
based on spheres of influence. The UN Security Council would
emerge as the stage where the superpowers could address their
differences, but it offered little space for others. At Yalta, the big
states made a deal over the small ones. That historical wrong must
now be made right.

Without a strong multilateral system,

diplomacy becomes transactional.
The 1975 convening of the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe offers a stark contrast to Yalta. Thirty-two
European countries, plus Canada, the Soviet Union, and the United
States, met in Helsinki to create a European security structure
based on rules and norms applicable to all. They agreed to
fundamental principles governing states’ behavior toward their
citizens and one another. It was a remarkable feat of multilateralism
at a time of major tensions, and it became instrumental in
precipitating the end of the Cold War.
Yalta was multipolar in its outcomes, and Helsinki was multilateral.
Now the world faces a choice, and I believe Helsinki offers the right
way forward. The choices we all make in the next decade will define
the world order for the twenty-first century.
Small states such as mine are not bystanders in the story. The new
order will be determined by decisions taken by political leaders in
both big and small states, whether democrats, autocrats, or
something in between. And here a particular responsibility falls on
the global West, as the architect of the passing order and still,
economically and militarily, the most powerful global coalition. The
way we carry that mantle matters. This is our last chance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

ALEXANDER STUBB is President of Finland and the author of the forthcoming book The
Triangle of Power: Rebalancing the New World Order.

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