New world order

As international powers jockey for regional supremacy, global security arrangements are not what they once were.

- Danyl McLauchlan

International relations commentators have taken to borrowing a metaphor from physical chemistry: the world is going through a “phase transition”. Just as the state of a glass of water can alter radically by freezing or boiling it, the international system is cracking and hissing as it shifts from a unipolar world governed by US military power and liberal internationalism towards a multipolar model. Norms are becoming dictated by regional hegemons, of whom the US and China are first among uneasy and rivalrous equals. Donald Trump is an accelerant of this process but the significant markers were Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the rapid scaling up of China's navy between 2014 and 2024, featuring the deployment of advanced aircraft carriers that established China as a peer naval competitor to the US in the Western Pacific.

The war between Israel and Iran is the latest manifestation of the phase transition. Since it was attacked on October 7, 2023, Israel has defeated Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran's proxy forces in Gaza and Lebanon, and the Iranian-backed Assad regime in Syria has collapsed. And Israel - like Russia - has demonstrated its willingness to inflict mass casualties on civilian populations. With its surprise attack and decapitation of Iran's military leadership - allegedly accomplished by building a drone factory near Tehran and co-ordinating the attacks via artificial intelligence — it is attempting to establish itself as the Middle East's regional superpower.

It is difficult to see how Tel Aviv can translate its military triumphs into diplomatic and economic influence, or lasting security, or even whether it can sustain a conflict against an oil-rich adversary with nine times its population. Though Israel will be buoyed that, as we go to press, Donald Trump has called for all 9.3 million residents of Tehran to evacuate.