What will replace the US-led unipolar order? In a recent essay in these pages, Daniel Bessner argues that as US hegemony wanes, a new multipolar order will emerge, shaped by great powers vying to build their own spheres of influence. As the United States, China, Russia, India, and the European Union project their might in regions of strategic interest, the rest of the world will be forced to pick sides. He predicts the ascendance of several “spheres of influence of various geographic scales.” He writes:
The United States looks set to dominate the Western Hemisphere and the Middle East; China to dominate East and Southeast Asia; India to dominate South Asia as it battles China for influence in its near abroad; Russia to dominate its own near abroad; and the European Union, led by France and Germany, to dominate Western and Central Europe. For their part, the middle powers [such as the United Kingdom, Japan, and Iran] will probably align with one of the superpowers.
A sphere of influence entails two basic features. A dominant external power generally constrains the foreign-policy autonomy and certain domestic decision-making of weaker states inside a given region while also preventing rival powers from exercising comparable influence. Spheres of influence are more intrusive for the weaker states than ordinary alliances but less stringent than colonial rule. Eastern Europe during the Cold War is an instructive example: Moscow did not formally annex Poland or Hungary, but it did expansively influence what their governments could do at home and abroad while keeping Washington from cultivating meaningful countervailing ties.
With this definition in mind, three faulty premises become apparent in the spheres of influence narrative.
