Hello aspirants,
Today’s revision capsule of PSIR optional preparation covers Changing International Political Order. There are five 20-markers, twelve 15-markers, and five 10-markers from this topic in the last 12 years. Changing International Political Order Practice Questions
Changing International Political Order
1 From Bipolar Cold War to Post-Cold-War Flux
- Origins & phases. Orwell coins “Cold War”; George F. Kennan’s Long Telegram births containment; crises from Berlin (1948) to Cuban missiles illustrate bipolar “hot spots.”
- Détente & collapse. SALT-I, Ostpolitik and the Sino-Soviet split soften rivalry; but Afghanistan, star-wars spending and Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost & perestroika ignite systemic implosion. Gorbachev’s reforms unleash Baltic secession; 1989 revolutions topple Ceausescu and bring down the Berlin Wall, while a hollow Soviet consumer economy seals the Union’s dissolution in 1991.
- John Lewis Gaddis calls nuclear parity “mutually assured peace”.
2 Competing Visions of the New Order
| Model / Author(s) | Core Proposition | Counter-Critique |
| “End of History” – Francis Fukuyama | Liberal-capitalist democracy marks the “endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution.” | Jacques Derrida rues capitalism’s unseen misery |
| Three-Bloc Geo-economics – Walter Russell Mead, Jeffrey Garten, Edward Luttwak, Lester Thurow | Geopolitics yields to Pacific, NAFTA & EU trade blocs. | Joseph Nye says tech-driven global markets defy bloc autarky |
| Revitalised Balance of Power – Henry Kissinger, Richard Rosecrance | Multipolar quartet (US-China-Russia-EU) revives 19 C balancing. | Nye calls 19 C analogies “false”; Rosecrance fears US-Japan antagonism |
| “Clash of Civilisations” – Samuel P. Huntington | Future wars ride cultural fault-lines. | Sunni–Shia & ISIS vs al-Qaeda show intra-civilisational conflict |
| “Unipolar Moment” – Charles Krauthammer | US enjoys decades-long solo supremacy. | “Declinists” (e.g., Robert Pape) foresee economic over-reach |
| Cold War 2.0? – Stephen Walt, Alexei Arbatov | Warn against simplistic US-China/Russia bipolar label; complexity of “multi-alignment” today. Russia-Ukraine war (2022 – present) keeps the analogy alive but within a far more multipolar setting. | |
| Zones of Peace/Turmoil – Max Singer, Aaron Wildavsky, Robert D. Kaplan | OECD core stable; Global South faces anarchy |
3. U.S. Hegemony: Rise, Triumph & Strains
- Drivers of ascent. Ocean moats, late entry in both World Wars, Bretton-Woods dollar, NATO/ANZUS basing, “military-technical revolution” of Gulf War ’91.
- Triumphalism. Fukuyama’s “end,” neocons (Kristol/Kagan) equate globalisation with U.S. leadership.
- Challenges & 2025 response. War-fatigue post-9/11, 2008 financial crisis, China’s BRI surge, India’s quiet rise, pandemic credibility shock and a 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy that doubles down on “integrated deterrence” against the tightening China–Russia alignment.
4. Concepts: Power & Polarity
- Classical & Neo-realists. Hans Morgenthau (“struggle for power”); Kenneth Waltz (bipolar stability); Robert Gilpin (hegemonic war); John Mearsheimer (offensive dominance).
- Relational definitions. Robert Dahl – “A gets B to do what B would not do”; Joseph Nye & Robert Keohane link asymmetric interdependence to “soft-power” leverage.
- Great-power yardsticks. Paul Kennedy & Kenneth Waltz list five requisites; Martin Wight on “dominant power.”
- Polarity. Nuno Moneteiro’s traits of unipolarity; classic bipolar (Cold War) and fluid multipolarity today.
Emerging Centres & Strategic Projects (2025 figures)
| Power | Hard & Soft Assets | Initiatives / 2025 Note |
| China | ~17 % of world GDP; modernised PLA & tech edge | Belt-and-Road now features “BRI Green Investment Principles 2.0” (Oct 2023) + new debt-restructuring facility |
| Russia | Energy leverage; second-largest nukes | Crimea annexation, Near-abroad doctrine, Syria entry, ongoing Ukraine war |
| India | World’s 3rd-largest economy (IMF/World Bank FY 24/25); largest democracy | “Act East,” Quad, Asia–Africa Growth Corridor |
| European Union | ~15 % of world trade; regulatory “soft giant” | EU Strategic Compass 2025 Review pledges a 5 000-troop Rapid-Deployment Capacity by 2027 |
| BRICS + | 11 full members after 2024-25 enlargement (adds Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia) + Nigeria as “partner”; ≈36 % global GDP, >45 % population | NDB & CRA scale-up; China-centric asymmetry persists |
Co-operation Architectures & NATO
- Multilateral shift from Bretton Woods to WTO, SCO, BRICS – Miles Kahler and John Gerard Ruggie stress new regime complexity and non-state interface.
- NATO @ 75 → @ 32. Finland joined on 4 Apr 2023, Sweden on 7 Mar 2024, raising the alliance to 32 members. The July 2025 summit communiqué notes that all allies are projected to hit or exceed the 2 %-of-GDP defence benchmark, up from just three in 2014; Article 5 solidarity endures while Turkey’s S-400 tilt still tests cohesion.
The 1990-91 Gulf War – First Post-bipolar Test
Iraq’s debt-driven annexation of Kuwait meets US-led 28-nation coalition; Soviet concurrence signals UN-authorised collective security in new era.
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): History, Critique, Renewal
- Roots. Bandung ’55 Ten Principles; Belgrade ’61 (Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Nkrumah, Sukarno) formalise NAM.
- Achievements. Accelerated decolonisation, anti-apartheid, NIEO demand at Algiers ’73, nuclear-disarmament advocacy.
- Scholarly debates. Peter Willetts calls 1961 its brief zenith; Keethaponcalan insists NAM’s Bandung DNA; T. V. Paul frames NAM as “soft balancing”; Sally Morphet, Ran Kochan, Christopher Waters, Carsten Rauch trace ideological evolution.
- Contemporary relevance. Multipolar uncertainty, South-South equity, climate justice and digital divides rekindle Bandung spirit; diplomat N. Krishnan warns globalisation breeds new inequities. The Third South Summit (G-77 & NAM, Kampala – Jan 2024) adopted the “Kampala Outcome Document,” prioritising digital-divide financing, debt relief and climate-loss compensation.
Important points (2025 context)
- Order is provisional and contested. Unipolar, multipolar and civilisational frames coexist as NATO grows to 32, BRICS morphs into BRICS +, and non-aligned coalitions push equity.
- Power is relational & multi-dimensional. Hard, soft and regulatory tools overlap: India’s leap to #3 GDP rank, EU’s budding rapid-deployment force, China’s green-BRI finance.
- U.S. primacy is contested, not collapsed. 2025 “integrated deterrence” strategy shows adaptation under strain from China–Russia coordination.
- Rising powers craft counter-architectures. BRICS +, SCO and BRI Green 2.0 diversify rulemaking beyond the West.
- NAM’s soft-balancing and multilateral ethics retain value and relevance, bolstered by Kampala’s digital-debt-climate agenda for the Global South.
Scholars Index:
Alexei Arbatov | Nicolae Ceausescu | Robert Dahl | Jacques Derrida | Francis Fukuyama | John Lewis Gaddis | Jeffrey Garten | Robert Gilpin | Mikhail Gorbachev | Samuel P. Huntington | Robert Kagan | Miles Kahler | Robert D. Kaplan | S. Keethaponcalan | George F. Kennan | Henry Kissinger | William Kristol | Charles Krauthammer | Edward Luttwak | Walter Russell Mead | John Mearsheimer | N. Krishnan | Nuno P. Monteiro | Sally Morphet | Hans Morgenthau | Kwame Nkrumah | Jawaharlal Nehru | Gamal Abdel Nasser | Joseph Nye | George Orwell | Robert Pape | T. V. Paul | Carsten Rauch | Richard Rosecrance | John Gerard Ruggie | Max Singer | Sukarno | Lester Thurow | Josip Broz Tito | Stephen Walt | Kenneth Waltz | Christopher Waters | Martin Wight | Aaron Wildavsky | Peter Willetts
Practice Questions
Question 1 The expansionist tendencies of the current Russian regime indicate its intentions for the realisation of a Greater Russia on the lines of the Soviet era. Comment. [2024/10 m]
Question 2. Do you agree with the view that the USA uses NATO as a traditional tool of strategy to perpetuate its hegemony in the world? [2024/15 m]
Question 3. Critically examine the rise of People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a great power and its implications on Asian Political order. [2022/20m]
📌 Model answers available on the Telegram channel: https://t.me/psirbyamitpratap – keep notifications on.
See you tomorrow on Day 34. Keep practicing!
—Amit Pratap Singh & Team
A quick note on submissions of copies and mentorship
- 2025 Mains writers: Cohort 2 of ATS starts on 13 July. The above practice set will serve as your revision tool, just do not miss booking your mentorship sessions for personalised feedback especially for starting tests. Come with your evaluated test copies.
- 2026 Mains writers – Cohort 4 of PSIR O-AWFG & ATS starts on 24th July 2025. keep uploading through your usual dashboard. Act on the feedback and improve consistently.
- Alternate between mini-tests (O-AWFG) and full mocks (ATS) has been designed to tackle speed, content depth, and structured revision—line-by-line evaluation pinpoints your weaknesses and errors. Follow your PSIR O-AWFG & ATS schedule and use the model answers to enrich your content, as rankers recommended based on their own success.
