Many political scientists hold out hope that the multi-polar world that is much as you describe (as opposed to the bi-polar world which existed during the cold war) will ultimatly be a much more peaceful world.

The reasoning goes, that as trade between the multi-poles becomes more engrained, the parties will have no advantage to attacking one another; and additionally, should one block attack another, it would face almost certain destruction by the trading partners of the block that it attacked.

Unfortunatly, I think that such a world will be much more unstable than those who cling to an almost "utopian" image of such a multi-polar world would have us believe...My view of this coming world is thus very close to what you describe.

A multi-polar world would by its nature, be somewhat chaotic. unless we are very lucky, that chaos would at some point cause the players to begin a inevitable slide back into a bi-polar geopolitical circumstance, if not an all-out world war of epic, and even mankind destroying proportions.