How I see the World Today: Power, Globalization, and Shifting Order

When I look at the world today,

I don’t see a neat struggle between good and bad, or East and West. I see a system that is tired and outdated. Globalization, as it was designed and sold over the last few decades, has reached its limits. For many years now, I have been saying that Globalization does not work. I was mainly talking about the open border system where people from different ethnic groups, mainly from Eastern countries, flooded into European countries, people from different regions, ethnic origins, different religions, beliefs, and customs, and climates!
That, in my opinion, was and still is a melting pot waiting to boil over due to prejudice and hate. The evidence for that is what is happening in Germany and England.
Globalization connected markets and people, but it also concentrated power, created dependencies, and quietly decided who sets the rules and who follows them.
Much of today’s global tension grows out of that imbalance.

For a long time after the Cold War, the world revolved around one center of gravity: the United States and its allies. Globalization followed that logic. Trade, finance, institutions, and even political values were framed as universal, while in reality they reflected Western priorities. This brought growth and stability for many, but it also left deep scars-industries lost, societies polarized, and entire regions feeling that globalization happened to them, not with them.

This is why I see Donald Trump not as an anomaly, but as a signal. His rhetoric was crude and often decisive, but the message behind it resonated with millions in the U.S.: the sense that the US. had been carrying the costs of global leadership for decades, while others took advantage of the system. “ America First” was not just nationalism-it was a reaction to a globalization that no longer felt fair, even to its main architect. Ignoring that message would be a big mistake.

The war in Ukraine

has further exposed how fractured the so-called “world order” really is. From a European point of view, it is clearly an attack on sovereignty and international law. But when I look beyond Europe, I notice something uncomfortable: much of the world does not see the conflict in the same moral terms.

Many countries remember decades when international law was flexible, selectively applied, or simply ignored by powerful states. This does not justify aggression, but it explains the lack of global unity. Ukraine has become a fault line between Western expectations and global skepticism.

Even discussions that sound almost surreal, such as renewed interest in Greenland, fit this pattern. Greenland is not about buying land; it is about strategic positioning and future influence in the Arctic. The obvious reason for that is what is happening near the borders of a few European countries by the Russian Aggressor. The fact that such ideas are openly discussed again tells me that we have entered a new era of great power thinking. The belief that history had moved beyond territory and raw power was, in hindsight, an illusion.

In this context,

BRICS matters far more than many in the West like to admit. It is important to remember that BRICS was not created by the United States or Europe. It emerged from countries like Brazil, India, China, and South Africa, often labeled as “emerging” or “Eastern”, but in reality representing a majority of the world’s population. BRICS is not united by ideology or shared values; it is united by frustration, especially with Western dominance of finance, institutions, and the dollar-based system, all of which started long before Trump’s second term. So much for Globalization!?

I do not see BRICS

as a clean alternative or a moral counterweight. Its members have conflicting interests, different political systems, and their own power ambitions. But its growth sends a clear message: the unipolar world is fading, and that is why Trump is doing what he is doing. More countries want options. They want leverage. They want a say in how the global system works, not just instructions.
What concerns me most is not the decline of Western dominance but the decline of trust and cooperation. A multipolar world can be balanced and stable- but it can also be chaotic and confrontational. Global problems like climate change, migration, pandemics, and technological disruption cannot be solved through blocs and rivalries alone. If power is spreading, responsibility must spread with it.

To me, the real challenge is not choosing between the old Western order and the new Eastern one. It is rethinking globalization itself, so it becomes less arrogant, less hierarchical, and more honest about power. We are leaving an age of assumed leadership and entering one of negotiation. Whether that transition leads to cooperation or conflict will define the future far more than any single country, alliance, or leader.

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