Iran's Place in Global Developments, According to Akhoondi / America Remains a Major Economic Power, but No Longer Absolute
Akhoondi said: America remains a major economic power, but it is no longer absolute. That is, it has gradually lost the unrivaled dominance it had, especially in the 1990s. Of course, the issue is not just about numbers. A very important point that I believe deserves attention is the change in America's behavior.
According to the report of Ambassador Arjan Abbas Akhundi, the former Minister of Roads and Urban Development, in the specialized meeting of the Baran Foundation, expressed some points about global developments and Iran's position in these developments.
The details of his statements are given below:
I have prepared an article titled "Global Transitions, Value Chain and Architecture of Iran's Development" for serving friends. I hope that what is presented can give us a vision of global developments and explain Iran's position in it.
In this discussion, I will talk about three general topics. First, getting to know the developments that are taking place in the political economy of the world; What is happening in the world and to what extent we observe these developments and have a real understanding of them. Second, the concept of security; In this section, I will talk about the duality of security and development. And thirdly, in the framework of global and dual changes of security and development, we enter into a general and strategic discussion about the development of Iran.
First part: global transitions and value chain
If we look at the world and the wealth distribution equation in it, according to the statistics of the World Bank in 2025, the total gross domestic product of the world is about 117 trillion dollars, that is, 117 thousand billion dollars. Of this figure, more than 30 trillion dollars belong to America; That is, about 26% of the world's gross product is produced in America. About 19 trillion dollars (16%) belong to the European Union and about 19.4 trillion dollars (16.5%) belong to China.
If we add these three figures together, the two figures of 19 trillion dollars become about 38 trillion dollars, and with 30 trillion US dollars, we reach a total of about 68 trillion dollars; That is, about 58% of the world's production is done only in these three poles, and the rest belongs to the whole world. Therefore, the first very important point is to know the poles of economic power in the world and see what our relationship is with these poles.
the end of the unipolar world; Transition to conditional power
America is still a great economic power, but it is no longer a totalitarian; It means that it has gradually lost the absolute uniqueness that it had especially in the 1990s. Of course, the issue is not just the number. A very important point that I think should be taken into account is the change in the behavior of America.
In the 1990s, we were almost facing a unipolar world. Because of this unipolarization of the world, America, which was one of the founders of the liberal order, gradually began to violate the same order; To the extent that with the arrival of someone like Trump, he did not and does not consider himself to adhere to any of the values of the liberal world and felt that there was no need for this adherence.
Before that, America emphasized the values of the free world in competition with the Soviet Union and considered itself the guardian or, in other words, the godfather of this world. But in the unipolar world, he no longer saw the need to consider himself bound by the liberal order. In my opinion, America gradually moved towards a kind of non-mercantilist order; An order similar to the period of the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, that is, the pre-liberal era. The basis of American policy went towards absolute domination over the world and disregard for others.
But this situation did not last, because China rose and now the world is facing the second power in the world, which claims to be equal with America. It is true that the size of the Chinese economy is still about two-thirds of the American economy, but its growth has been much higher than that of the United States in the past few decades. So a second power is being established.
The rise of India and the multipolarization of the economy
Europe is still a major economic power and has its place. I do not agree with the view of those who consider Europe irrelevant to America. But another very important point that we pay less attention to is the economic growth of India in recent years. India has grown very high (while the US is growing at a rate of less than 2% and China is growing at a rate of about 4%, India is expected to grow at a rate of 5.5-6% until the horizon of 2050) and if we look at a longer horizon into the future, we will probably see that the existing balance will change completely and India will probably overtake the European Union as the fourth pole of the world economy. That is, if we want to have an assessment of the balance of economic power of the countries in the horizon of 2035 or 2040, we will not necessarily face the same balance today. However, neither China nor India have the world's production from the point of view of soft power and cannot compete with America's power. It remains to be seen what they will do in the coming years. It seems that Xi Jinping is paying attention to this issue and is trying to fill this void in the global initiatives he is presenting.
The first thing to be learned from these global developments is that it is true that the hegemonic trend of America is declining, but what is promoted in the official media as "decline" is not true. There is no decline, and the decline hypothesis misleads our understanding of global developments and, accordingly, our policies. We are faced with the systematic containment of American power by emerging powers, not its destruction. This is a very important point that we must pay attention to.
If we consider the horizon of 2050, almost all forecasts indicate that China's GDP will definitely exceed that of the United States by that year. Some predict that China will catch up to America in 2035, and those who are more pessimistic predict 2045. In any case, China, as a global economy and a leader in the size of economic production, has appeared as a serious competitor of the United States in this era, and its economic growth is more than that of the United States. Therefore, if we want to know the world today, we should not only look at today and the situation of Iran in this crisis; We should see the vision of at least the next ten years and ask what is happening in the world, where we are in this world and where we want to be. This issue is very important.
The issue is not only the amount of production. Until today, the engine driving world production was mainly in the West, but now this engine has moved towards Asia and the East. Therefore, the future world will face a different geopolitics: out of the four major poles of the world, two poles will be located in the West and the other two poles will be located in Asia. Therefore, the future system will not necessarily be a system with only one production and power center located in the west and on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In the next ten or twenty years, the geopolitics of the world will change completely and will be transatlantic. It is very important that we have a clear picture of it.
The problem of "decline" and the capacity to reproduce the world order
I mentioned about decline. This discussion is very important and if we do not have a proper understanding of it, it gives us a very wrong signal. Look; It is not the first time that the West, or indeed the world order, is in trouble. Its first crisis was after the Second World War. This order faced a very serious crisis, but it was able to overcome it and then by inventing the welfare state, it survived against the rise of Marxism and did not surrender to it. The growth of Marxism in the first seven decades of the 20th century was amazing. This ideology was spreading at an extraordinary speed. However, the liberal order collapsed. After that, this order survived the crises of the 1980s, 1990s, and then the crisis of 2007.
Therefore, if we see that the Western world or the liberal world is facing a challenge, we should not hastily interpret this challenge as a decline. The West is definitely facing a challenge; Both from the inside, that is, from America itself and the completely anti-freedom behavior that we see in America today, and from the outside against new competitors. But this does not mean that the liberal order does not have the power to read and reproduce itself.
More importantly, who is the beneficiary of the official world order today? The very interesting point is that now against America, the country that defends the liberal world and its reconstruction is Communist China; China, which is still under the rule of the Communist Party, has changed its policies and methods. Realistically, China has now become the main defender of the liberal order. In the following, I will talk again about what is happening in the political sphere of the world.
value chains; New global battlefield
You said that the world gross product in 2025 was equal to 117 trillion dollars. It is important to have an understanding of this volume of production in what chains? There are three major value chains in the world; Of course, along with many sub-chains.
The first chain is located in the Western Hemisphere and mainly in the Americas; The same "Western Hemisphere" that the Americans say no one has the right to enter. This is the chain that Mr. Trump brazenly says about Greenland is a piece of ice and it belongs to me, I have interests there and Denmark is useless there; It means that it does not even tolerate the presence of a small European power in it. It brought disaster to Venezuela and then brought up the Cuban debate. Basically, it does not tolerate foreign force in this western hemisphere.
The second chain is located in the north of the world and a major part of the world's production and value chain is formed and moved there. But the most important chain is the middle chain that starts from China and extends to Africa. Therefore, most of this 117 trillion dollars is actually generated in these three chains. The point is to understand that these chains are not disconnected points, but rather a connected chain: from the supply of energy to the supply of raw materials, knowledge and technology, production, transportation and the consumer market. The concept of the value chain is that this whole cycle should work together as a chain.
The middle chain is the main global chain in which we have a geographical presence and ironically, we are located in one of its essential junction points.
The important thing is, what do we want from this chain? Do we want prosperity for Iran from this chain or do we want to dominate it? And what do we expect from the supremacy of this chain? It is very important to clarify that now that we are in the center of this chain, what is our relationship with it? What is our objective function? This targeting is the main discussion that I want to talk about today.
A very important point is that when a major part of the world's value is formed in the form of such a chain, aren't the powers of the world sensitive to its security and are they not thinking of some kind of ruling system over it? Can we alone threaten this chain? It is a chain in which everyone, from top to bottom, has a stake. For example, China's trade volume with Africa alone is 2.5 trillion yuan. Which way does this business go? Most of it is from this chain. Can China tolerate the long-term insecurity of this chain? leave America and Europe aside; Can India? Of course not.
Let me put the question in another way. Is the purpose of power to create prosperity for nations or to threaten this chain and exercise power and control over it? The important question is how to create prosperity for the nations by protecting the security of this chain? It is at this point that we should talk about the new concept of power. Power in the 21st century is not the control of the land; Power means protection from stable flow, security and the possibility of increasing the capacity of these chains and creating added value for nations.
The next question is whether this chain can be defended militarily? And in case of insecurity, will there be military intervention? Answer: Yes. It is enough to pay attention to the figures of military expenses in the world. The world's military expenditure is a huge figure and is reported to be around 2.887 trillion dollars for 2025 (with an annual growth of 2.9%). Look at the table below:
About a third of these costs, that is, about 954 billion dollars (33%), are related to the United States. The second investor and spender is China. Although China does not advertise its military power and the image it has created in the world is mainly the image of the "factory of the world", in practice only in 2025, it will have about 336 billion dollars (12%) of the world's military expenses, and it is the second country in the world in this regard.
After that is Russia, which is now involved in war and was once the second largest military power in the world. Russia's military spending is about 190 billion dollars (6.6 percent); It means almost 60% of China's military spending. Another very important point is the growth of Europe. Europe, whose share of military spending in GDP had decreased to less than 1.5%, now reached about 864 billion dollars with a growth of 14%, which is unprecedented since the Cold War. Consider NATO, which has a major share: NATO alone accounts for 55 percent of the world's total military spending, or $1,581 billion. These show that the world is sensitive to the security of the value chain and does not see the issue only from a geopolitical angle.
Another very important point is the growth of military investment in India as well as in Germany; Germany's military expenditure has reached 114 billion dollars.
Middle East arms race and Iran's position
If we look at the arms race in the Middle East, this region has also seen significant growth in military spending. The total military expenditure of the Middle East in 2025 is about 218 billion dollars, which has grown by 36% in the last decade.
Saudi Arabia leads the region with $83.2 billion (8th in the world and 6.5% of GDP), followed by Israel with $48.3 billion (11th in the world and 7.8% of GDP). Türkiye also has a high figure of about 30 billion dollars, and the official figure of Iran is about 7.4 billion dollars (ranking 38 in the world and 2.1% of GDP). I hope that the real cost of Iran's defense is much more than this official figure. But in any case, Iran has been able to resist the biggest power in the world with this small figure.
In any case, these figures should be seen in comparison with the world's biggest powers. I presented these numbers because when we talk about "network security", we don't mean to forget about military security. Military security is important in its place and no one wants to doubt the necessity of increasing the defense power of the country. Defense power should still be on the agenda, and if we look at the growth of military spending in the world, we will find that this issue is still on the agenda of the world and has not been removed from it.
But at the same time, the concept of security has gone far beyond mere military security.