If one were to identify specific year that marked the end of the unipolar moment, 2008 must be listed among them. The major defining development of 2008 was certainly the 2008 financial crisis, also known as the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), and for some, particularly economists, also as the Great Recession. Primarily triggered by the collapse of the US housing market and the widespread failure of financial institutions heavily invested in subprime mortgage-backed securities, it quickly spread globally and resulted in a severe worldwide economic crisis. Particularly for the US, the 2008 crisis significantly damaged the US’s standing, particularly reshaping how other nations perceived its economic leadership, credibility, and global role. More importantly, it undermined the credibility of its economic model, exposing systemic flaws in their financial system (Roubini & Mihm, 2010), and highlighting how the system encouraged unfettered corporate greed which further increased income and wealth disparities, facilitated by governmental inaction (Nye, 2010). Many countries the global south began to question the legitimacy of their own neoliberal reforms (Wade, 2009), and began to look to China’s state-driven approach (Ikenberry, 2011). Some commentators, like Zakaria, increasingly discussed the possibility of a “post-American world” (Zakaria, 2008), suggesting a turning point in US global hegemony.