ASTANA – Smaller states will need flexible, issue-based partnerships to preserve their room for maneuver as the U.S.-led international order gives way to a more fragmented system shaped by power rivalry, German political analyst and writer Marc Saxer said at the launch of his new book in Astana on Aug.
31 titled “Geopolitical Conflict in the Wolf World: Great Power Competition and the Illiberal Revolt against the Liberal Order.” The presentation of the book took place in Astana on Aug. 31. Photo credit: FES Saxer coordinates the Asia-Pacific work of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and previously led its offices in India and Thailand.
In the book published in June, Saxer examines how countries can navigate what he describes as an increasingly dangerous and asymmetrical multipolar world. The term “wolf world,” which he derived from the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, describes an international system in which institutions are weakening, power increasingly determines outcomes and “the strong prey on the weak,” Saxer said.
“What is the wolf world? The wolf world basically tries to describe the world that is emerging after the collapse of Pax Americana, after the end of the unipolar moment, with the erosion of American hegemony and the erosion and maybe collapse of the world order,” said Saxer.
In 2025, the world saw 65 state-based conflicts across 35 countries, the highest since 1946, according to the Peace Research Institute Oslo. “We have to understand what the new chessboard really is. How can we navigate as foreign policy makers?” he added, describing this as an “existential question.” However, Saxer noted the book seeks to move beyond just diagnosing the breakdown of the existing order.
Its central questions are about how countries can navigate the emerging system, preserve prosperity and prevent geopolitical competition from producing sustained global instability. Saxer identified Europe, the Middle East and East Asia as the three principal theaters of contemporary geopolitical competition.
In each, U.S. influence is being challenged by a regional power: Russia in Europe, Iran in the Middle East and China in East Asia. “Even though these theaters are intimately interconnected, there are also trade-offs. There is a zero-sum game. If you are invested in one of them as a great power, you will find it challenging to actually prevail in another,” said Saxer.
He stressed that the U.S. is facing growing military, fiscal and domestic political constraints, prompting a debate in Washington over whether it should concentrate its resources closer to home or continue expanding. China, meanwhile, views U.S. alliances and military deployments in Asia as a form of strategic encirclement, he said.
Beijing’s efforts to expand westward through the Belt and Road Initiative and strengthen its position in the South China Sea can therefore be understood partly as an attempt to protect supply chains and reduce its exposure to maritime chokepoints particularly along the Strait of Malacca, which Saxer describes as the “Strait of Hormuz of Asia.”