When OpenAI's leadership approached the Trump administration in late October 2025 with an ambitious request to expand Chips Act tax credits beyond semiconductor fabrication to cover AI data centers,...
The traditional bipolar and unipolar frameworks that defined the Cold War and post-Cold War eras are giving way to a more complex multipolar system where countries like India, Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia wield disproportionate influence relative to their raw power capabilities. These nations, commanding significant regional influence while maintaining global aspirations, are exploiting the strategic space created by great power competition to maximize their autonomy and advance national interests. Their success challenges conventional wisdom about international hierarchy and suggests that the future global order may be shaped as much by middle power diplomacy as by superpower rivalry.
The concept of the Global South emerged from the Non-Aligned Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, when newly independent nations sought to chart courses independent of Cold War superpowers. The 1955 Bandung Conference, bringing together 29 African and Asian nations, established principles of sovereignty, non-interference, and South-South cooperation that continue to influence contemporary Global South politics.