“For a long time, the world’s problem was that someone sought to dominate it, and we had to stop that. Now it is the exact opposite. No one seeks to dominate the world, and not even to take on the job of running it.”

Barry Gordon Buzan, Emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom, assessed the current world this way. He is an international relations scholar who established the theory of regional security complexes and is regarded as a leading figure of the Copenhagen School, which expanded security studies into non-military domains.

Professor Buzan believes the age of the superpower has ended. Neither the United States nor China wishes to run the world, and as a result the international community is being reorganized in a fragmented, decentered direction. The institutions and trust that sustained the Western world order have also collapsed, and he sees the confrontation between Russia and the Western countries, which he had defined as a second Cold War, as having entered a new phase since last year. He advised that it is necessary to seek new forms of cooperation to respond to a dual crisis era marked by the dismantling of the existing world order and the climate emergency.

The Kyunghyang Shinmun conducted an interview with Professor Buzan at his home in London on the 14th of last month (local time). The following is a Q&A.

- Why do you see 2025 as the starting point of a ‘third Cold War’.

“The biggest change that occurred in 2025 was the dissolution of the West. The trust and institutions that had bound the West together and made it a single strategic actor in earlier Cold Wars disappeared. In particular, Trump moved quickly, as soon as his second term began, to bring down the entire liberal framework that had been U.S. foreign policy. This move was astonishingly effective and executed with a depth and scope beyond expectations. The world economy fractured, and all the institutions, multilateralism, and even the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies that the United States had built were attacked economically. Because the contours and the geopolitical structure of the Cold War changed, I thought it was worth characterizing this shift.”

- Do you think fissures have opened in the U.S.-centered alliance system.

“What we are witnessing now is a transition bordering on frenzy. Some countries, including Japan and those in Europe, as well as others, found meaning, reassurance, and stability in being allies of the United States, but that belief has now vanished. This is not merely about cracks within alliances, but about the disintegration of alliances. It is about states becoming militarily self-reliant. That is why many countries are engaging in substantial military buildups.”

- It sounds as if U.S. influence is diminishing.

“It already has. Trump understands power only as material power, not as the power of friendship and trust. That is tantamount to discarding half of the power the United States possessed. Structurally speaking, the Western-style world order had long been moving toward its end. The year 2025 was when the friendship and trust of the Atlantic community collapsed and that order definitively ended.”

- Will there be a superpower other than the United States.

“It now seems that the very concept of a superpower has become impossible. To be a superpower, one needs at least around 40% of global gross domestic product (GDP). But as modernity has spread across many states, including China and India, no single country can command 40% of world GDP. Going forward there will be multiple great powers. The United States and China will remain the largest nations for some time, but they will not be superpowers. Moreover, a superpower requires an active will to compete to dominate the world, and neither the United States nor China wants that role.”

- Then what goals is China pursuing, and are they achievable.

“The only honest answer is that no one knows. But we can speculate about possibilities. I think China clearly wants a form of regional suzerainty, and it may indeed become that. It would not be an empire as such, but rather a form more akin to the traditional tributary system, in which its regional superiority is acknowledged. A second objective is to weaken the liberal world order. This is because China viewed liberal values such as human rights and democracy as undermining the legitimacy of the Chinese government. That objective appears almost accomplished. Trump is already dismantling liberalism much more effectively than China is.”

- The global pace of military buildup is accelerating. How far will it go.

“The buildup will likely continue for quite a long time. The structural momentum is considerable. I am not sure how it looks in South Korea and Japan, but in Europe there is a pronounced feeling of abandonment. Among both the general public and political elites, there is a consensus that rearmament is necessary. I also see a significant likelihood of nuclear proliferation. Debates are already underway in several countries. Some, including South Korea and Japan, possess forms of latent nuclear capability. Another question is whether to view artificial intelligence (AI) as part of the arms race, and the answer is relatively clear. Looking at the debate between AI firms and the military in the United States, the military says, ‘AI is central to military power, so AI development should proceed as rapidly as possible.’”

- Can the weaponization of AI be regulated.

“I see regulation as impossible. There are many actors seeking to drive AI development. They have different interests, but all are investing substantial resources in AI and want to move quickly with as few constraints as possible. Of course there will be people who want to impose constraints on such development. But they will continually face the question, ‘If we constrain development while the other side does not, will we not end up losing.’ In an environment like the present, where relations are not friendly and there is no trust, it is hard to imagine this problem being overcome.”

- We are also seeing specific resources and routes being weaponized. How will the global economic order change.

“We now face a situation in which extreme liberalism that put the world market above all else is collapsing, and there is a massive backlash against it. Economic nationalism is back at the wheel. This does not mean that all states have no interest in trade. China still cares about trade, and so does Russia, which needs to sell oil. For trade to exist, appropriate rules and structures are necessary. The institutions we have were all created for and by the Western world order. Some of them can survive in modified form, some will have to be replaced, and new kinds of bodies will need to be created. This is an opportunity for the Global South, including BRICS. They can participate in building new institutional and legal architectures. But at least for now, and perhaps for decades, economic nationalism is likely to hold the initiative. The backlash against neoliberal globalization is strong, and it is justified.”

- As competition between states intensifies, calls for cooperation, including on the climate crisis, are fading.

“The great transitionthe end of the Western world order and the formation of a new oneis occurring precisely at the moment when the climate crisis is approaching its peak. This is an enormous misfortune for humanity. These two phenomena were not causally connected, but they have in fact become connected. Exactly when we should be mustering the strongest possible collective effort to solve the climate crisis, the institutions for global governance are weakened. The chances that institutions will be rebuilt quickly are small. I see this as a dual crisis and a very unhappy conjunction.”

- How can a new international cooperation architecture be built.

“The most interesting argument I have encountered is that middle powersand even small stateshave the greatest stake in maintaining cooperation, especially in areas such as trade. They cannot be self-sufficient, nor do they wish to be. Among these countries there is a spreading idea of forming a ‘coalition of the willing’ for institutions. This, it is argued, is the way to rebuild the world’s institutional structure from the bottom up. If the United States does not wish to participate, it can remain outside until it feels inclined to join. Of course, it would be better if the United States participated.”