Constantin von Hoffmeister argues that Putin’s vision of equal states under international law is a fiction, since multipolarity is driven by Darwinian struggle and the rise of new regional hegemons.
Vladimir Putin raised his voice at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, painting a dream of parity. He insisted that multipolarity does not bring new dominants, that the tables of BRICS and the SCO host equals only, each state seated on level ground. He spoke of international law as the great balancer, declaring that Russia, China, India, and smaller states alike should share one footing, as if the wolf, the ox, and the hare could graze in peace under the same sky. He claimed multipolarity means shared rights, not new hegemons, and that no empire should emerge from the shifting world order.
Multipolarity is the theater where new beasts roar and claw their way into dominion. Putin speaks of equality, of states as children sitting at one table, sipping tea from the same chipped cups, while reality smashes crockery across the floor. Darwinian principles guide this world: the strongest climb, the weaker fall, and balance comes through teeth and talons. The birth of multipolarity does not abolish hierarchy; it creates it anew, replacing the frozen empire of one master with the rivalries of several. Regional spheres harden into armored shells, each charged with defending its own turf. A flock of predators cannot promise equality when blood and territory mark the real measure of power.
Multipolarity breathes only when hegemons rise. Without them, the concept remains an empty ritual, a ghostly word whispered in sterile chambers. The United States carved its zone long ago, Mexico and Canada chained to its orbit. Russia stretches over Eurasia, its claws scraping Central Asia and Eastern Europe. China towers across Asia, counting its factories as battalions. India grows restless, sharpening its demographic spear. Each hegemon claims what history, geography, and sheer survival dictate. This is not a mistake in the system; it is the system. Multipolarity means exactly the emergence of new overlords, each born from struggle, each imposing its own logic of strength.
Darwin smiles at this landscape. The law of survival animates diplomacy as much as jungles and savannahs. Empires and states evolve, clash, adapt, and expand. International law offers no shelter, only illusion. A small state may sign documents declaring parity with a colossus, yet rivers of steel and pipelines of gas dictate otherwise. Equal footing cannot exist when mass and force tilt every stage. The wolf and the lamb graze in the same pasture only until hunger reasserts the law of nature. Multipolarity honors this truth. It codifies natural inequality into a system of rival spheres, each held together by command, by discipline, by the will to dominate.
The complete opposite of Putin’s words shines through the fog. Multipolarity equals hegemony multiplied, not abolished. It is the fracturing of one throne into several, each ruler crowned by circumstance and defended by an arsenal. To pretend otherwise is to mimic Western liberal slogans, a chorus of empty fairness chanted to disguise expansion. In truth, multipolarity gives the world its new masters. This logic is unbreakable: only by birthing new dominants can the age of one empire end. Hegemons will rise, as they always do, because the Darwinian rhythm of history beats harder than any declaration of equality.
This article was originally published here.
Constantin von Hoffmeister's argument for a new Darwinian multipolarity, where regional hegemons rise and clash, rests on a fundamental misreading of modern history. This vision, while rhetorically powerful, is a relic of a world that began to disappear with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The true nature of global power did not fracture into rival spheres; rather, it consolidated into a new, unique form of dominance that the West, and particularly the United States, came to embody. The idea of a return to multiple, geographically bounded hegemons is a fiction, because the West already won the hegemonic struggle on terms far more advanced than mere territorial dominion.
The Industrial Revolution unleashed a force that fundamentally transcended the logic of regional empires. Power was no longer measured solely by the size of an army or the breadth of a kingdom's borders. Instead, it was defined by control over capital, technology, and global supply chains. The British Empire, and later the United States, did not seek to rule every territory directly but to integrate the world into a single, interconnected system from which they profited immensely. This system, built on free trade, financial institutions, and technological innovation, became the new battlefield. It is a system in which the West's cultural, economic, and institutional norms serve as the default setting for global interaction. To suggest that a new "regional hegemon" can simply emerge and compete on this field is to ignore the existing, deeply entrenched infrastructure of Western power.
Von Hoffmeister’s claim that multipolarity is driven by Darwinian struggle fails to account for the true nature of modern power. The "claws" he describes are not just military; they are the financial networks, the intellectual property laws, the global reserve currency, and the control over data and digital communication. Russia's "claws" in Central Asia are not a sign of a new, equal hegemon rising; they are the desperate grasp of a declining power attempting to maintain relevance through outdated, 19th-century methods. China, while a formidable economic force, is a case in point. Its so-called "rise" is less a modern ascent and more a reversion to a historical model of top-down, state-driven control. This pre-industrial form of governance, based on an absence of internal pluralism and a rigid, hierarchical system, is fundamentally ill-suited to navigate the fluid, decentralized world of global finance and innovation. Its power is brittle and will likely prove unsustainable in the long run against the adaptive, flexible, and decentralized nature of Western influence.
International law, far from being a "ghostly word," is the language of this Western-dominated order. It may not prevent all conflict, but it largely dictates the terms of engagement, the rules of trade, and the norms of diplomacy. This legal framework is not an illusion of parity but a reflection of the hegemonic reality. The world is not fracturing into rival, equal spheres but rather showing signs of a single, deeply integrated global system that, for now, remains fundamentally organized around Western principles. Putin's vision of an equal table is indeed a fiction, but not for the reasons Von Hoffmeister suggests. It is a fiction because the table is already set, and the rules of the feast have long been established by the West.