Global instability: The new normal

Climate change itself acts as a threat multiplier, intensifying resource conflicts over water in Central Asia, arable land in Africa, and fish stocks in the warming Arctic – Satyabrat Borah

Geopolitical conflict and global political instability have defined the early decades of the twenty-first century with an intensity not seen since the Cold War. The world is no longer shaped by a single bipolar rivalry or a unipolar moment of American dominance. Instead, it is caught in a web of overlapping crises, competing power centres, and accelerating technological change that together erode the foundations of the post-1945 international order. Great powers, middle powers, non-state actors, and transnational forces all pull in different directions, producing a landscape marked by proxy wars, economic coercion, frozen conflicts, and sudden eruptions of violence. Stability, once taken for granted in many regions, has become an exception rather than the rule.

The return of great-power competition lies at the heart of contemporary instability. The United States, though still the world’s leading military and economic power, faces a China that has grown confident, wealthy, and assertive. Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, its militarisation of the South China Sea, and its relentless pressure on Taiwan signal a clear challenge to the American-led order in Asia. Washington has responded with trade restrictions, technology sanctions, and a network of new security arrangements such as AUKUS and the Quad. The rivalry is no longer confined to economics or diplomacy; it increasingly carries the risk of direct military confrontation over Taiwan or disputed islands. Every large joint exercise, every new chip factory in Arizona or TSMC facility in Japan, and every freedom-of-navigation operation becomes a move on a chessboard where miscalculation could trigger catastrophe.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 marked the most dramatic rupture in European security since 1945. Moscow’s attempt to annex its neighbour and overturn the post-Cold War settlement revealed both the fragility of deterrence and the limits of Western unity. The war has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, and turned Ukraine into a laboratory for drone warfare, electronic jamming, and long-range strikes. Europe, long accustomed to American protection, has been forced to confront its own military weakness and energy dependence. NATO has enlarged and rearmed, yet the continent remains vulnerable to hybrid attacks, sabotage of undersea cables, and nuclear sabre-rattling from the Kremlin. The conflict has also globalised: North Korean troops reportedly fight alongside Russians, Iranian drones darken Ukrainian skies, and Western missiles now strike inside Russia. What began as a regional war has become a worldwide confrontation by proxy.

In the Middle East, old certainties have collapsed. The Abraham Accords briefly promised a new era of Arab-Israeli cooperation against Iran, but the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza shattered that illusion. The conflict spread to Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and the Red Sea, drawing in Iran-backed militias, American and British airstrikes, and Houthi missiles aimed at global shipping. Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah and its strikes deep inside Iran have brought the region closer to all-out war than at any point since 1973. Meanwhile, the Syrian regime clings to power only with Russian and Iranian help, while Turkey, Israel, and various jihadist factions carve out zones of influence. Oil routes remain vulnerable, and the risk of a direct Iran-Israel confrontation looms larger with each passing month.

Further south, the Sahel has become one of the world’s most unstable regions. A string of military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad has overturned fragile democracies and invited Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group and its successors. France, the former colonial power, has been expelled from much of its traditional sphere of influence. Jihadist insurgencies spread unchecked across vast territories, displacing millions and threatening coastal states like Benin and Togo. The withdrawal of Western counterterrorism forces has left a vacuum that neither local armies nor Russian contractors have been able to fill. Food insecurity, climate stress, and youth unemployment feed a cycle of violence that spills across borders and fuels migration toward Europe.

Asia beyond China also simmers. The Korean Peninsula remains a flashpoint, with Pyongyang testing ever more sophisticated missiles and issuing nuclear threats almost monthly. Myanmar’s civil war following the 2021 military coup has killed thousands and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Ethnic conflict in India’s Manipur state, tensions between Pakistan and India over Kashmir, and naval standoffs in the South China Sea all remind observers that Asia is far from the peaceful rising continent once imagined. Even Japan and South Korea, long pillars of regional stability, have begun unprecedented military buildups in response to threats from China, Russia, and North Korea.

Economic weapons have become central to geopolitical conflict. Sanctions, export controls, and financial exclusion are now routine tools of statecraft. The freezing of Russian central bank assets after the Ukraine invasion demonstrated the extraordinary power of dollar dominance, yet it also accelerated efforts by China, Russia, India, and others to create alternative payment systems and reduce reliance on Western finance. Technology itself is a battlefield. The race for supremacy in semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology carries national security implications as profound as the nuclear balance once did. Supply chains for critical minerals in Africa and Latin America have turned geologists and mining executives into strategic assets courted by Beijing and Washington alike.

Energy transitions add another layer of instability. The push toward renewables and the retreat from Russian gas have upended decades-old energy relationships in Europe. OPEC Plus, dominated by Saudi Arabia and Russia, wields renewed influence over global prices. Meanwhile, new producers in Guyana, Namibia, and the Eastern Mediterranean scramble to monetise discoveries at a time when long-term demand remains uncertain. Climate change itself acts as a threat multiplier, intensifying resource conflicts over water in Central Asia, arable land in Africa, and fish stocks in the warming Arctic.

Non-state actors exploit the chaos. Transnational criminal organizations traffic drugs, people, and weapons across weakened borders. Cyber criminals and state-sponsored hackers paralyse infrastructure and steal billions. Terrorist groups like Islamic State and al-Qaeda regroup in ungoverned spaces from Afghanistan to the Sahel. Private military companies operate with impunity on multiple continents. Information warfare has reached industrial scale, with disinformation campaigns, deepfakes, and bot armies capable of swaying elections and inciting violence far from their point of origin. The institutional framework meant to manage global order is creaking. The United Nations Security Council is paralysed by vetoes. The World Trade Organization struggles to resolve disputes in an era of open economic warfare. Nuclear non-proliferation regimes face existential challenges as Iran inches toward a bomb and North Korea expands its arsenal. Even regional organizations like ASEAN or the African Union often prove incapable of decisive action when great powers pressure their members in opposing directions.

Yet amid the turmoil, new patterns of alignment are emerging. A growing number of middle powers refuse to choose sides in the U.S.-China rivalry. India purchases Russian oil and weapons while deepening security ties with the United States. Turkey balances NATO membership with purchases of Russian air defences and mediation between Moscow and Kyiv. Brazil and South Africa host BRICS summits that challenge Western financial dominance while maintaining close economic ties with Europe and North America. The Global South increasingly asserts its agency, demanding reforms to institutions created when most of its members were colonies.

The return of history has been swift and unforgiving. Borders once thought settled are contested again. Spheres of influence, long dismissed as relics, are openly discussed in Beijing, Moscow, and even Washington. Military spending worldwide has surged to levels not seen since the Cold War. Conscription debates return to countries that abandoned it decades ago. Nuclear powers modernise arsenals and lower thresholds for use. The taboo against territorial conquest, perhaps the greatest achievement of the post-1945 order, has been broken in Europe and challenged in Asia.

The cumulative effect is a world that feels simultaneously interconnected and fragmented. A crisis in one region rapidly produces effects far away: a blockade in the Red Sea raises insurance rates in Rotterdam; a chip shortage triggered by tensions over Taiwan stalls car production in Germany; a coup in Niger disrupts uranium supplies to French nuclear plants. Global problems from pandemics to climate change demand cooperation, yet the political space for such cooperation shrinks with each passing year.

There are no easy paths back to stability. Deterrence requires military strength and political will that many democracies struggle to sustain. Diplomacy demands concessions that domestic audiences often reject. Economic interdependence, once hailed as a guarantee of peace, now appears as a source of vulnerability. Technological revolutions arrive faster than societies or governments can adapt. And beneath it all runs a demographic shift as ageing powers in Europe and East Asia confront youthful, restless populations in Africa and South Asia.

The current era of geopolitical conflict and global political instability is not necessarily a prelude to a third world war, but neither is it a temporary aberration. It reflects deeper forces: the rise of new powers unwilling to accept old rules, the diffusion of destructive technologies, the erosion of trust between nations, and the inability of existing institutions to accommodate change peacefully. The world has entered a period of prolonged rivalry and uncertainty where crises overlap and reinforce one another. Managing this era without catastrophe will require statecraft of exceptional clarity, restraint, and imagination, qualities in short supply at a time when domestic polarization and short-term thinking dominate politics almost everywhere. The margin for error has grown perilously thin, and history suggests that periods of flux rarely end without significant upheaval. The task for leaders and citizens alike is to prove that this time can be different. 

(The author can be reached at satyabratborah12@gmail.com.)