THE FOUNDATIONS AND DECLINE OF THE UNIPOLAR MOMENT: A MACEDONIAN PERSPECTIVE

The reconfiguration of the global order exerts a significant impact on the security, stability, and political and economic realities of smaller states. Although smaller countries like the Republic of North Macedonia (RNM) lack the power to directly influence global processes and often face geopolitical realities, a window of opportunity remains for the state to take an active role in ensuring and defending national security and prosperity. The ability to discern core global trends is of critical importance for RNM in order to remain aligned with global developments in a way that safeguards its national security. The Macedonian academic community and political leadership should be aware that the current historical moment, marked by the vanishing of the so-called “unipolar moment” and the emergence of a “multipolar world” characterized by a new balance of power, constitutes an exceptional political and security challenge for all. RNM is not an exemption. Like other countries of Southeast Europe and the “Western Balkans”, RNM, as a deeply divided society, is struggling to navigate the complex terrain among preserving its multiethnic and multiconfessional cultural identity, ensuring interethnic and interreligious tolerance as an alternative to the “national security” concept, encouraging economic development as a “common ground” in fragmented society and adapting to global political and normative frameworks. This context demands an in-depth understanding of the fundamental dynamics of unipolarity, the underlying causes of the waning of the established unipolar order in international relations, and a clear grasp of the principles upon which the emerging global power equilibrium is being constructed.

Keywords: Macedonian political reality, “unipolar moment,” “multipolar world,” globalization, international organizations