ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Multipolar world

A multipolar world is like playing with many toys instead of just one toy. Imagine you have a lot of toys like dolls, action figures, teddy bears, and cars. When you play with all the toys, you can have fun and do different things with each of them. Each toy also has its own strengths and weaknesses, so you have to figure out how to use them all together to have the most fun.

In a multipolar world, there are many different countries (or toys) that are strong and have their own strengths and weaknesses. Each country (or toy) has its own ideas and values about how things should be done, and they all want to have a say in what happens in the world. They might even have different ways of doing things or different goals they want to achieve.

This is different from a unipolar world, which is like playing with only one toy. In a unipolar world, one country (or toy) is the strongest and has the most power. They can decide what happens in the world and what other countries (or toys) can and cannot do.

A multipolar world can be good because it means that everyone has to work together and compromise to achieve what they want. It also means that no one country (or toy) has all the power and can't make all the decisions by themselves. However, it can also be bad because it can be hard to get everyone to work together and agree on things, and some countries (or toys) might try to bully others into doing what they want.

In short, a multipolar world is like playing with many toys where each toy has its own strengths and weaknesses, and in this world, there are many different strong countries that have their own ideas and values about how things should be done.