Publication

In November 2008, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) released Global Trends 2025 which argued that “By 2025 the international system will be a global multipolar one with gaps in national power continuing to narrow between developed and developing countries”. This conclusion represents a striking departure from the NIC’s conclusion four years earlier which stated that the US unipolarity was likely to remain a persistent condition of the international system. This report looks at the debate over American declinism and whether or not we are entering a multipolar, as opposed to unipolar world.