The world in the year 2025 remains in flux and as complex as in previous years of the twenty-first century. The Russian–Ukrainian war is protracted. Europeans are more worried about their vital security and economic interests than ever before, despite some of them having the so-called nuclear umbrella within the NATO alliance. Although aspiring for a Nobel Peace Prize, the US under Donald Trump threatened Canada, Greenland, Venezuela, Mexico, and Panama.
The US, along with Israel, pre-empted Iranian nuclear facilities, attempting to obliterate its nuclear weapons programme. Today, there is much greater geopolitical and geostrategic pressure on Iran. Iran is being undermined and isolated. Many argue that its sphere of influence has been minimised. The chances for the proposed revival of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) remain slim.
In South Asia, India has been aspiring to power projection, the escalation of dominance, and regional hegemony through its increasing conventional and nuclear forces. With dangerous strategic confidence and under the pretext of terrorism, it opted for preventive strikes against Pakistan—once in 2019 and again in May 2025—risking serious military escalation to a nuclear level. This undermined the broader spirit of South Asian strategic stability.
That being noted, Pakistan continues to produce effective countermeasures under the auspices of Full-Spectrum Deterrence, falling within the ambit of Credible Minimum Deterrence. It aims to maintain balance, reduce the acute security dilemma, minimise crisis instability, and keep its deterrent forces reliable, intact, and robust. Because of the fear of escalation to a nuclear level in South Asia, the US, in the perceived multipolar world, may continue to play a significant role in preventing such an eventuality from occurring.
The academic debate over a unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar world prevails in leading, credible, research-oriented outlets in 2025. Many argue that it is a multipolar world, but in this multipolar system, the US continues to lead in economic and material resources, followed by China. However, others argue that, by all accounts, the US and China are the two great powers in the perceived multipolar world, while others in the system still lag; therefore, they contend that the world may be considered bipolar.
The US continues to shake the foundations of its Asian and European allies for not doing enough, despite considering them among the pillars of its grand strategy. The US strategic relationship with its allies remains unpredictable. Many are now seriously considering their own security mechanisms rather than relying on US security guarantees. One can imagine a Hobbesian world of all against all, trying to survive in the complex system of international relations, where no one is for anyone else, given the anarchic nature of the global system.
The year 2025 has remained pessimistic. It has seen all nuclear-weapon states modernising their conventional and nuclear forces
Russia and the US are not on good terms, particularly when it comes to arms control agreements, following the departure from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, and the suspension of the New START Treaty in 2023 the last of the Mohicans when it comes to any hope for arms control and possible future nuclear disarmament. The weakening future of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), along with the continued existence of the longest-surviving non-proliferation treaty, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), with its loopholes and longstanding discrimination between the haves and the have-nots, remains deeply troubling.
The year 2025 has remained pessimistic. It has seen all nuclear-weapon states modernising their conventional and nuclear forces. Russia and the US continue to possess 90 per cent of the world’s total nuclear forces. Perhaps the US is spending far more on its deterrent forces than anyone else in the system. There is no evidence that nuclear disarmament is taking place anywhere in the world. Being threatened, others are aspiring to go nuclear as well.
Since China’s rise is widely perceived as a threat to US predominance in the competition among major powers, there is considerable pressure on China to reduce its deterrent forces. Many, including the Chinese White Paper 2025, argue that such an aspiration by the US may not be possible any time soon for two fundamental reasons: first, China may reach the level of the US; second, both the US and Russia should come down to the level of China when it comes to the number of nuclear weapons supported by delivery systems.
The year 2025 continues to witness elements of fear, security dilemmas, competing rivalries, severe military crises, dangerous confidence in the use of preventive and pre-emptive strikes, and the integration of lethal emerging technologies into conventional and nuclear forces among competing powers. The assertive and offensive policies of major powers are affecting the policies of smaller powers in other regions. That is the state of nature in which all actors in the system live, relentlessly seeking power to dominate others. At the same time, others form alliances and bandwagon to survive another day.
Although difficult, the pathways are simple: competing actors need to aspire to commonalities and accommodation, avoid warfighting strategies, cooperate despite living in an acute security dilemma, urge one another towards more constructive dialogue, and institutionalise robust and sustainable mechanisms for confidence-building measures, crisis management, and crisis resolution. Any failure to comply with such imperatives could make 2026 more volatile, offensive, and aggressive.