Novus Ordo Seclorum: Global Systems Buckle as AI Wars and Geopolitical Fragmentation Force a New Era
Systemic Failures in U.S. Governance and a Tech Race for Supremacy Accelerate the End of the Post-1945 Status Quo, Ushering in an Unstable, Multipolar Reality.
By Samuel Grant | Washington, D.C.
The hopeful language of the United States’ Great Seal—Novus Ordo Seclorum—is today shadowed by a sense of foreboding as the global architecture established after the cataclysms of World War II rapidly erodes. From paralyzed government in Washington to the rise of technologically autonomous competing power centers, the mid-2020s are proving to be the moment when the old international order, defined by American hegemony and multilateral institutions, finally collapses under the weight of political entropy and structural economic shifts.
U.S. Instability: A Retreat from Global Guarantee
The most significant accelerant of this global re-ordering is the visible decline in political cohesion within the traditional global guarantor: the United States. The extended government shutdown this year was not just a domestic policy failure; it projected an image of internal gridlock and unreliability to allies and adversaries alike. This was compounded by radical shifts in foreign policy, notably the effective dismantling of key USAID foreign-aid programs. This sharp retreat signals a fundamental change in the U.S.’s commitment to its decades-old role of underwriting global security and humanitarian stability through soft power.
Diplomats and policymakers across Asia and Europe now openly express concern that the U.S. is becoming an increasingly transactional partner, forcing middle powers to rapidly forge regional alliances and pursue strategic autonomy. This shift is creating a vacuum of leadership, directly fueling the trend toward a more fragmented, multipolar world.
The Zero-Sum Race for Technological Supremacy
The primary driver of the emerging new order is not military strength or resource control, but technological dominance. The race for Artificial Intelligence (AI) supremacy, pitting the U.S. against China, is increasingly viewed as a zero-sum contest for the 21st century’s most critical strategic asset.
Control over next-generation semiconductors, advanced computing hardware, and proprietary data models is now a matter of national security. The power that achieves a sustained, generalized lead in AI stands to gain unprecedented advantages in economic forecasting, advanced defense capabilities, mass surveillance, and technological leverage over rivals. This technological conflict is rewriting the rules of globalization, forcing nations to prioritize supply chain resilience and domestic chip fabrication over traditional economic efficiencies, thus fragmenting global trade networks.
The Collapse of Post-War Structures
Historians and geopolitical analysts frequently point to the pattern of systemic collapse, often citing the “80-year cycle” that marks the end of established world orders. The frameworks built at Bretton Woods and the UN Charter in 1945, designed to prevent a return to great-power conflict, are now buckling under the pressure of resurgent nationalisms and economic protectionism.
The evidence of this systemic decay is overwhelming: the return of aggressive trade protectionism, the shifting commitments to regional security pacts like NATO and the recalibrated stance on the war in Ukraine, and the rising assertiveness of non-Western blocs like BRICS+, which are actively developing alternative financial and diplomatic infrastructure to circumvent Western dominance.
The key uncertainty is the final shape of the new system—will it be a return to pure, hostile great-power competition, or a complex, dynamic multipolarity governed by overlapping, regional spheres of influence? What is certain is that the age of clear, predictable global rules is over. As one senior international relations expert at the Council on Foreign Relations summarized: “We are now in a period of systemic fragility. The institutions of the past were designed to manage a Cold War; they are structurally incapable of managing the decentralized chaos of the AI age.”
