A Multipolar Global Economy?

The World Bank has a new report out on the evolution of the global economy between now and 2025. It is titled “Global Development Horizons 2011 Multipolarity: The New Global Economy“. The main conclusion:

By 2025, six major emerging economies—Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Russia—will account for more than half of all global growth, and the international monetary system will likely no longer be dominated by a single currency, a new World Bank report says.

Here are my three cents:

1. What does this mean for the world?
More economic growth in emergent economies is good news all around for the world. Added welfare, better prospects for democracy, etc. At the same time, rapid economic shifts are harder to manage in security terms. Conflict-prone dyads, such as China and India, could feel added pressure.

2. What does this mean for the United States?
For the US, this means a shift from enjoying full-spectrum unipolarity – i.e., being the sole great economic and military power — to becoming one of several economic powers while maintaining its military power preponderance. This means that other countries will have the money to balance militarily against the United States if they so wish. Which puts pressure on the US to act in accommodating ways — or be prepared for intense competition from other economic poles also in the military realm.

3. What does this mean for President Obama?
Most of these transformations will materialize long after President Obama has retired to his Hyde Park presidential library. Nonetheless, it is important that he continues to lay the foundations for the continuation of US military power preponderance in a world in which the US is no longer the largest economy in the world — or, alternatively, to find a way of persuading the American people that the current global presence of US forces is not necessary to the security of the country. The latter seems unlikely, so the need to manage the shift towards economic multipolarity will mean that the US should work hard to persuade the rising economic poles that in no way will the US try to contain the continuation of their economic development, otherwise they would have strong incentives to militarize.