Rivalries among great powers aren’t just about military muscle — they’re contests over influence, values, and rules. As the U.S., China, the EU, and India pursue diverging strategies, global order is being reshaped across multiple domains.

This interactive course helps you decode how power is projected — and how world order is negotiated in a multipolar age.

Over two 90-minute sessions, we examine the evolving toolkit of statecraft across military, economic, technological, and ideational arenas. You’ll analyze how states compete, signal, and cooperate — and what this means for institutions, stability, and emerging powers.

What you’ll learn:

Session 1: Strategic Competition in Practice

– Military balancing and strategic signaling

– Economic statecraft, tech decoupling, and global value chains

Session 2: Institutions, Norms, and the Order Question

– Competing visions for international order

– Role of multilateral institutions, minilateralism, and regional frameworks

Why it matters:

Understanding great power dynamics is critical for grasping how global norms evolve, how crises escalate or stabilize, and how new leadership spaces open up in world politics.