India, May 29 -- For decades, the international order functioned on an assumption that now appears increasingly fragile: that political legitimacy, economic direction and strategic leadership would continue to flow primarily from the West. The institutions that emerged after World War II - from the Bretton Woods system to the United Nations Security Council - reflected this concentration of power. Even after the Cold War ended, the US and its European allies remained the principal architects of global discourse.

That era is not disappearing overnight. The West still possesses overwhelming military power, technological superiority, financial influence and institutional reach. Yet the assumption that the rest of the world will merely follo...