Episode 5, ‘Back to the Future’, addresses two fundamental questions: firstly, are we witnessing the coming of a New World Order? and secondly, are the US and China locked in or headed towards a New Cold War?

The international order is undoubtedly accelerating back to a kind of multipolarity which interpolates increasingly more elements of the Yalta world—of great powers and spheres of influence—and lesser elements of the Helsinki world—of cooperation and peaceful resolution of conflict, but where globalisation traits like powerful non-state actors and advances in cyber and artificial intelligence are a prominent feature. The question is, will the world slip back fully to a Yalta-style system? And if only in part, what other features will define this emerging order?