The Great Realignment: How a Photo Signaled the Dawn of a New Era

History may well remember a single photograph from the SCO summit as the moment the great global realignment of the 21st century became undeniable. The image of the leaders of India, China, and Russia united has been described by one US analyst as the dawn of a “new world order” and a “historically big deal.”
Commentator Van Jones voiced the concerns of many in Washington, stating that the photo should “send a chill down the spine of every American.” He interpreted the bonhomie between Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin as the formal arrival of a multipolar world, marking the end of the post-Cold War era of American supremacy.
This realignment has been supercharged by the US administration’s disruptive trade policies. The tariffs have created a common cause, pushing these three giants closer together and accelerating the formation of a powerful Eurasian bloc. Their summit was a declaration that they will no longer adhere to a US-centric world system.
Jones warned that the US has been strategically outflanked, finding itself “in a box.” The country is now on the “bad side of the triangle,” he argued, a complete inversion of its historically dominant position. The stark reality is a world where America faces a united front of powerful nations.