Marked by the evolution of a multilateral order characterized by the United Nations, Bretton Woods institutions, and a broad suite of international organizations, it was believed that the optimism behind the cooperative frameworks would help reduce global conflicts, coordinate global public goods policies, and manage major transnational challenges. The UNSC, loaded with immense powers with its five permanent members (P5, though challenged on grounds of non-representativeness), was central to this design, providing an institutional locus for collective security deliberations. However, the changing geopolitical realities and economic power shifts have exposed the limitations of this architecture and forced some of the global actors to seek isolationism as a way of perpetuating their traditional dominance. On January 7, 2026, through Executive Order 14199, President Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from 66 international organizations (35 non-United Nations and 31 UN entities) identified as part of the Trump Administration’s review of wasteful, ineffective, and harmful international organizations (Marco, 2026).
The multilateral architecture of post-World War I and II differed significantly in means and objectives from what preceded it, as it incorporated international agencies, treaties, and conventions in the fields of international law, world peace, trade and economics, science and technology, and the laws of warfare. The transition from the League of Nations to the United Nations, together with the founding of Bretton Woods institutions, signified a progression from an idealistic yet ineffective framework to a more pragmatic structure that reconciled global cooperation with the dynamics of power politics. Post-WWI, multilateralism was rooted in liberal internationalism, advocating peace, cooperation, rule-based order, and democracy to prevent conflict. This idealistic notion had its inspiration in Immanuel Kant’s doctrine of perpetual peace. Norman Angel’s ‘The Great Illusion’ (1910) and President Woodrow Wilson’s ‘Fourteen Points’ were influential in promoting a pacifist worldview and a belief in the futility of war. Theoretical advancements mirrored similar transformations, as the post-WWII period adopted a more institutional and realist perspective on multilateralism while also incorporating ongoing liberal and constructivist views (Thakur, 2024, 557).
The organizations from which the US withdraws are focused on climate change, the environment, human rights, gender issues, and migration. The decision forms part of Trump’s jingoistic “America First” policy prioritizing US interests over global commitments. This US disengagement also marks its withdrawal as a chief architect and funder of the post-1945 institutional order. It marks the beginning of further decline of the multilateral order, rules-based global governance, and protection of the rights of the developing world and the Global South. It also implies how worried the US is about its displacement as a global superpower by China and the evolution of a new world order in which it would have to be satisfied as a less influential state. The withdrawal may also cause reduced funds and weakened leadership across the multilateral institutions, from the World Health Organization and the human rights and climate conventions to UNESCO.
Gina McCarthy, chair of the climate action coalition “America Is All In” (AIAI), has shown grave concern over the US pulling out of the UNFCCC, calling it “a short-sighted, embarrassing, and foolish decision.” It would mean forfeiting the “ability to influence trillions of dollars in investments, policies, and decisions that would have advanced our economy and protected us from costly disasters wreaking havoc on our country” (Walker, 2026). The current UNSC architecture is reflective of a mid-twentieth-century global order that no longer exists and doesn’t fit with the recent issues and problems. During the sixties the combined GDP share of the P5 countries was around 73%, which has now fallen to about 50%, showing the fall of the West and the rise of the East. The structural asymmetry of the UN and its organs, the fund contributions, and the role performances have a deep impact on the current dynamics that need to be re-examined and reshaped according to the prevalent situations.
The US disengagement, being one of the P5 UNSC members, may exacerbate the legitimacy crisis of existing global institutions and strengthen arguments for a reformed order or even an alternative model of global governance. China’s focus on the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the International Organisation for Mediation (IOMed) helps it evolve parallel governance frameworks, the laying out of which would be unfolding soon, impacting the emerging power hierarchies. The process of de-dollarization, ever since the Russo-Ukraine conflict, continues, and such initiatives show a trend toward fragmentation of the global governance landscape, which would facilitate alternative institutional architectures to come forward and compete for greater power status.
In a time when Russia, China, and India continue to assert their strategic autonomy through bilateral and regional arrangements and Russia and China escape multilateral channels while effecting state interventions, a trend toward multipolarity and competition rather than cooperation comes into view. The post-Cold War unipolar moment dominated by the United States has given way to a more complex distribution of power, with China’s economic ascent and India’s growing global influence particularly notable (Chikermane, 2025). India’s approach to these new dynamics exhibits an alternative model of dual engagement—emphasizing both multilateral participation and strategic autonomy. India has shown strong faith in the multilateral rules-based order with just distribution of power and institutional composition. India’s sustained engagement in climate, health, and development forums like the G20 shows how important it is for the world to have genuine international institutions that are more just in policy implementations and fund allocations.
While the US and China vie for dominance in the new order, the last month’s visit of President Putin to New Delhi points towards another axis in view—”the Indo-Russian Axis” that combines two formidable military and economic giants. Since too much reliance on China mitigates Russia’s global presence, it has been engaging India for serious investments in Russia. China’s BRI and financial networks, India’s commitment to an inclusive multilateral order, Russia’s flexing of power projecting itself as a reckoned state, and the US’s transactional approach all point toward a global order that is both fragmented and multilateral, pluralistic, and connected at the same time. A reformed UNSC could make an impact to check the further decline, and the sooner it happens, the better for the world.
Therefore, the US withdrawal, which may sound appropriate from the US perspective, marks a decline of the global institutions and spread of anarchy, the realist state feature coined by Hans J. Morgenthau. The restoration of multilateralism with a more representative UNSC and revitalized global institutions and financial networks is the need to survive the global peace, which, in fact, is at an all-time low in the twenty-first century.
