Rio showed that the bloc isn’t in crisis – it’s in transition The idea of a multipolar world has long been used in two distinct contexts. One is when global hegemony is solid and unchallenged, as it was for the decade and a half following the Cold War. In that case, ‘multipolarity’  serves as little more than a slogan – a symbolic protest against US dominance, with no practical strategy behind it. The other is when that hegemony has fully collapsed, and international relations revert to their