Global geopolitics is currently marked by extraordinary tensions and armed conflicts raising the threat of world war — above all, in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Taiwan. Since the early 2010s, the disposition of leading state powers has become steadily more reminiscent of the years prior to the great imperialist conflagration of 1914. Such a turn of events would have been very hard to imagine in the 1990s, when the ideology of neoliberal globalization held sway and the United States reigned as the sole superpower.

The United States doubtless remains the main — and most aggressive — player in the international arena, as is evidenced by its stance toward China. Crucially, none of its potential challengers come from the “old” imperialist powers but all have sprung from what used to be considered the Second or Third World — with China as the chief economic and Russia as the chief military contender. This reflects the profound transformation of the world economy in the last several decades.

The ratcheting of tensions is, moreover, taking place at a time of historic underperformance of the core of the world economy, most notably since the Great Crisis of 2007–9. Economic activity in the core areas is remarkably weak in terms of growth, investment, productivity, and so on, and there are no obvious signs of a fresh path forward. The period since the Great Crisis of 2007–9 is a historical interregnum in the classic sense of Antonio Gramsci, that is, of the old dying but the new not being born, except that in this context it signals the inability of core capitalist accumulation to forge a new path for itself both domestically and internationally.