Davos made it clear: the new global era of multiplexity is finally out of the shadows.
In his speech in Davos on the 20th of January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke of the liberal world order, one which has defined state behaviour (or at least the governance of it) since the end of WWII. "Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition." Whilst commentators have discussed it in recent years—discussion accelerated by an unconventional U.S. president—never has a head of state communicated this rupture with such candour in a public setting. What made it so powerful, so much so that it has echoed across the world, is that Carney has been part of leading liberal institutions for decades. He himself had dedicated his life's work to advancing it before entering politics, through international financing, holding top central bank roles, and serving as a UN special envoy on climate action.
It is a new world order that has been avoided in public discussion because it is frightening. Frightening for allies of great powers, which have aligned themselves for decades with the interests of the U.S. and their Western-led institutions in mind, trading pure self-interest foreign policy for protection and shared rewards. Except without great powers standing by them in these networks, why would smaller states continue to stand by them when they could invest interests elsewhere?
What made Carney's speech less frightening was the fact that we know the new 'multiplex' world order—one defined by complex multipolar systems of cooperation—has been developing with prosperity in the backdrop of this rupture. It is time to shed light on its benefits and wake up to the reality of the environment, to strengthen oneself outside of a now-outdated governance ideology.
And what will this reconfiguration look like? The real question now is: What will these shifts, expedited during this U.S. administration, mean for the future of the world order – one less friendly with any of the three great powers: Russia, China, and a growingly unfriendly and unpredictable U.S. to its past allies?
Well, nations have already been designing trade, geopolitical, and security relationships outside of the U.S., shifting power away from the U.S. and into the relationships of smaller, yet still powerful states, creating a new decentralised pattern of power that scatters across previously less powerful regions.
Whilst frightening for many for what the future may hold, we must remember that it is not the first time that global governance models have been reconfigured. Many of these liberal institutions, such as the United Nations, only date as far back as the Second World War. The introduction of industrial societies in the 19th century brought the idea of social security into being. Just as we have reconfigured governance before, we must now govern our new global reality in line with global interests.
Over the next decade, we will enter a period of reform, defined by new, diverse global governance agreements and a major risk reassessment. In many ways, while traditional international law is eroding, international law as a governing framework will also be incredibly essential, for we need it more now than ever in the past 80 years to restructure a complex reinvention of an increased number of international agreements. Such agreements must be complex because we face complex factors defining our new moment: AI, space, cyber, climate, finance, growing economies, multi-interested and strategically realigned nations, which are primarily self-interested.
Cooperation in the new environment of multiplexity will be fragmented and aligned with specific interests rather than unified global cooperation in the shadow of being aligned with specific great powers. Instead, governments will choose their own sides, leveraging the freedom of information, economics, and ideas tailored to their interests in each domain. In this sense, it will be a case of Realism (states acting with self-interest top of mind). We will come to know realism to characterise our globalised world of multiplexity, whereby instead of great power dominance, we will shift power away from single dominant states by reallocating agreements and alignments with countries where the most returns will actualise.
Western-centric international institutions are degrading in their reach. Instead, regional expertise, geoeconomics, tech governance, and sovereign wealth fund development will define the multipolar, realist nature of a globalised modern system in the wake of the death of legitimate, unified international collaboration.
Until countries feel comfortable ceding sovereignty—as was done post-WWII with institutions involving adversaries, which, with history as a reference, will take decades—regional and specialty agreements will dominate before eventually smoothing into a cohesive global cooperation network again. However, international experts must not let this stop the regulation of private actors in a globalised world where corporations have increasing power and influence across borders and in their information flows. Otherwise, we risk continued fracturing of opinions, interests, and state-decided economic outcomes.
Non-state governance, in this sense, must gain legitimacy and support from governments. If countries don't cede sovereignty to international institutions, they must either embrace cooperative regional governance models of private networks or strengthen their autonomy through self-interested regulation. Although developing comprehensive legislation is more likely with the cooperation and support of allies with similar interests, ungoverned spaces cannot remain as they are, or political fracturing will persist. Finding an alliance through shared interests in each concerned ungoverned space will therefore be the starting point.
These partnerships will take the form of multiple, overlapping, and competing orders. Not necessarily less governance, but less cohesion in global governance and more complex orders set with specific goals in mind.
Evidence of this shift is already emerging. Networks developing between states on issues such as space, tech, cyber, and economics include:
This week's EU-India trade deal, signed on January 27, 2026, is a Free Trade Agreement that represents 2 billion people and is the EU's largest-ever trade deal.
Keir Starmer's three-day state visit to China (January 28-31, 2026) for economic talks—the first visit by a UK prime minister to China in eight years.
A major clean energy pact was signed on January 26, 2026—the Hamburg Declaration — between the UK, Germany, Denmark, France, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Iceland, pledging 100 GW of joint offshore wind projects.
Middle powers like India, Indonesia, and Brazil are hedging by developing their own independent AI strategies.
The International Lunar Research Station, led by China and Russia and with 13 signatories from the Global South, represents a fundamental shift from the universalist model of international space cooperation exemplified by the International Space Station to a more competitive, bloc-based approach reflecting terrestrial geopolitical alignments.
The 2023 European Chips Act is set to invest €43 billion to double the EU's global semiconductor market share from 10% to 20% by 2030.
BRICS (an intergovernmental group formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, now expanded into BRICS+) is developing its own international payment system, pivoting away from U.S.-led systems.
This period—the 2020s—has and will continue to be defined by a restructuring of the global governance and order, again, that we haven't seen for decades. A restructuring that creates opportunity for smaller countries to accumulate greater power and influence through increased cooperation between previously sidelined networks and new networks needed for new modern problems. This dynamic is our present and our future.
References
Acharya, Amitav. The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West. New York: Basic Books, 2025.