Introduction

This article aims to analyze the post-Cold War decisive shift: geoeconomics has replaced geopolitics as the primary means of geostrategic power. After the Cold War, geopolitical ends have been achieved through economic power.
For developing countries and middle powers, particularly those located at strategic crossroads, this disorder in the international order is not viewed primarily as a threat but rather as a pathway to stability and enhanced sovereignty. Many of these states are also turning strategic assets - from critical minerals and richly endowed sovereign wealth funds to advantageous geography - into bargaining chips.
Energy politics, market access, infrastructure financing, investment diplomacy, trade routes, and technological collaboration have reconfigured alliances in the evolving world order, rather than rigid, ideology-based alliances. While conventional wars were fought over territory or ideology, modern rivalries are often rooted in control over economic resources, trade routes, and supply chains. It intensifies sanctions, proxy conflicts, trade wars, and strategic instability. Increasing competition of global powers through antagonistic economic policies will more likely lead to the prospect of outright decoupling and balkanization. Geoeconomics now acts as the principal architect of new blocs, shifting global politics from a battlefield of armies into a marketplace of strategic partnerships.

Economic interdependence as a weapon

The disorder in the shape of the old international order is slow but steady. If we see such disorder in a historical view, it is often followed by wars. In the new multipolar world order, economic interdependence has been used as a weapon. It is the era of neo-imperialism in which indirect colonialism works by geo-economic weapons and tools.
This international order doesn't hinge on free markets; it hinges on how nations react to weaponized interdependence. There is an emerging global pattern, a partial technological and industrial bifurcation, for strategic and security-sensitive technologies and standards, between a China-led Contingent (perhaps including Russia and nations in the Global South) and a partly hollowed out, international and de facto Western-led Contingent. States are using economic interdependence as a weapon for geostrategic power, national security, and economic revival.
The practice of 'geo-economic coercion' is common in international politics now: Turkey's control over the Bosporus Strait (location as a pipeline hub between the Middle East and Europe), and Iran is currently using the Strait of Hormuz as a weapon during the war imposed on it by the US and Israel.
In 2010, China ceased exporting rare earth elements REEs to Japan over a maritime dispute (a diplomatic strife). China boosts its economy through global shipping and infrastructure to gain geopolitical influence via BRI.
During 2024-2025, China used regulatory instruments like its "Unreliable Entity list " and export restrictions on Lithium (Li) - ion specifically targeting American industries while minimizing disruption to its own economy.
In 2025, new licensing for 7 REEs rare earth elements was used to put pressure on Western technologies, including F-35 (weaponizing supply chain & trade). In the recent dispute regarding Greenland, both China and the US are trying to control it because it will be a dangerous economic and defense weapon for the country that controls it. It has significance in the future due to its location (China can use it for war purposes or for an attack on the US defense), REEs, rare earth elements for the battery and chip industry.
The US uses its dominant Chip technology position as an economic weapon. The US needs Chinese raw materials to assemble the chips, and China needs the best technology of the USA for this industry. It creates a prisoner's dilemma of co- dependency. But with international vulnerabilities, nations are attempting to learn how to fight back. Now, nations focus on collective resilience. Allies consider an attack on one economy an attack on any economy. This standard allows for retaliatory actions against aggressors, making them realize that the costs of intervention outweigh the gains of coercion. As the saying goes: "What connects can just as easily coerce."

The Geo-economic World Order

In the world, the European Union EU is the single largest unified economic area. There is a shift in the role of the EU in the Global order from a neutral, market- oriented, 'normative' power toward a geo-economic player. Chinese State Capitalism presents one of the main drivers of both state and corporate repositioning in the Global political economy. A geo-economic perspective can be used to study the 'new cold war' between China and the US.
The rise of the BRICS countries is described as a developmental and geopolitical threat to the West, which could reign in a new phase of post-liberal global competition. Canada is also negotiating with China. A report was issued by the German Monopolies Commission, which described 'Chinese State Capitalism' as a challenge for the European market economy. The Non-Western Bloc, led by China and Russia, aims to reduce dependence on the US Bloc. Non-aligned powers like Turkey maintain strategic autonomy. Middle powers tend to firm their own coalitions (e.g., CPTPP Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans - Pacific Partnership) to protect rules - based trade, often acting as a bridge between two main poles.
In this evolving order, we see "power-based trade," characterized by US tariffs towards China, allies, G-7 countries, and zero-sum attitudes toward international relations. This geo-economic world order is eroding old alliances and fueling new conflicts. From Pakistan’s diplomacy and Venezuela’s oil policy to the strategic shifts in Germany, France, and Canada, it is clear that the multipolar world is now primarily governed by the laws of geoeconomics.