ABSTRACT
In June 2016 a majority of Britons voted in a referendum to leave the European Union (EU) after 43 years of occasionally awkward membership, making it the first state to exit the European project. This was accompanied by a series of subsequent political and economic shocks. The EU and India look to the US as a potential balancer against a more pressing competitor. Russia better resembles a twentieth-century power in the twenty-first century. Equally unmoved by the EU, relatively dismissive of Russia and watchful of India, Beijing's egalitarianism is more rhetorical than practicable. It welcomes greater salience for its fellow poles but continues to harbour doubts about what this actually means. A Russian preference for 'polycentrism' or 'regionalism' belies an element of promiscuity regarding its multipolar aspirations, linked in part to fluctuations in its fortunes and capacity since the end of the Cold War.
