Order, Unorder, Disorder, Re-Order: Towards A Long Twilight Zone
· Free Press Journal
No international system or geopolitical order is cast in stone. The liberal international order is on its way out. No tears need be shed over its likely demise. It isn’t worth defending. The global economic order is also in flux.
Gramscian Twilight And Monsters
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The bewildering state of the world fits in Antonio Gramsci’s description. The Italian Communist Party leader wrote in 1929 that “the old order is dying and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters”. Are we now in another Gramscian interregnum? French economist Gustave Messiah, too, warned us in 2003 when he wrote, “In this twilight monsters arise.”
The fall of the Roman Empire made way for the Dark Age. We again see the barbarians at the gate. The New Dark Age has its own barbarians—big tech plutocrats and the new robber barons.
Fiction Of Liberal World Order
Historian Niall Ferguson maintains that the liberal world order was, in any case, largely a fiction disguising the raw power of the American empire. Trump has “only shed the garments that dressed it up and taken the gloves off”.
The institutions that govern the present world order are anchored in yesterday’s distribution of power. These are unable to wrestle with the current challenges, like polycrisis, digital fragmentation, supply chain insecurity, debt distress, and geopolitical rivalry.
Un-Order And Global Dynamics
Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, calls the world order “un-order”. This is “not the same as disorder, where rules exist but are broken. Un-order is a world where the rules themselves have simply ceased to matter”.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb goes thus far as to say that we are facing a “hinge moment in history akin to 1918, 1945 or 1989”. A “new international system” is emerging, driven by what he calls “the Global West”, the “Global East”, and the “Global South”.
He is of the view that the Global South will also “decide what the next world order will look like”. Not everyone agrees. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said recently that the international order could be “rebuilt out of Europe”. He further said that the world is not destined “to submit to a more transactional and insular world”.
Trump And New Royalism
Trump is the wrecker-in-chief of the liberal world order. He wants to replace it with what an analyst calls “new royalism”, a return of the Westphalian great power system. Trump’s vision of the world can best be described by what American political theorist Samuel Francis calls “anarcho-tyranny”.
Uneven Multipolarity
How would the future world order look like? It could be one of uneven multipolarity, featuring several major powers or regional blocs of unequal capabilities, connected by flexible and fluctuating economic and security ties.
Decades ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski said neither the US nor China can lead on its own. The world is moving towards a “one world, many systems” model. The 10-member BRICS can play a critical role, but it won’t be easy. China wants to build it in its own image. India, Brazil, and South Africa would like to do so in the spirit of NAM.
Global South And Multipolar Reality
We are living in a world that scholars of international relations have variously described as “unbalanced multipolarity” and “many-worlds theory”. The Global South is a divided house.
The world is neither bipolar nor multipolar. The much-fancied multipolar world is still a distant goal. We are condemned to live in parallel universes for a long while. No one will miss the liberal international order when it is gone. But as things stand, it could rumble on for some time. The Global South is bitterly divided. The expanded BRICS is a divided house. China and Russia are using it as a geopolitical tool.
New World Order Taking Shape
In a way, the new world order has begun to take shape much to the disappointment of countries like India, Brazil, and South Africa. John Rennie Short of the University of Maryland argues that the world order “might be in flux, and the US still has a big role in it, but a new world order has begun”.
Liberal values and institutions will not disappear but will coexist with the ideas and institutions of others. The “American Century” is over. But the US will very much remain part of the new world order that has begun to acquire some shape.
China, already in the G2 world, has acquired an unprecedented global clout. President Trump described his summit meeting in Busan with President Xi Jinping as a G2 encounter. It is widely believed that the US and China are the only two superpowers with military and economic heft to lead international alliances. In fact, a China-centric new world order is there for all to see. Beijing is currently working to hijack the Global South and seeking to deny any significant role to India in the new world order. The BRICS expansion was a combined Beijing-Moscow trap.
Challenges For The Global South
Can the Global South successfully challenge the West’s domination? BRICS is attempting to provide an alternative vision of the new world order. We are witnessing the end of a world order that was led by the United States.
As India is currently in the grip of strong gods of nationalism, it has lost much of its clout. Its bandwagoning with the US has begun to hurt. India’s tilt towards the US-Israel-UAE axis raises serious questions about New Delhi’s traditional views on multipolarity and strategic autonomy. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is right when he says that the global order is headed for a “long twilight zone” and that it will be “messy, risky, unpredictable, and perhaps even dangerous”.
Middle-Power Multilateralism
Some Western critics argue that BRICS is chasing a “multipolarity mirage”. Others contend that the US will not take the end of the liberal world order lying down. As they argue, when empires fail, they don’t simply retire; they consume their periphery.
A more viable option seems to be to work for what Nathan Gardels, editor of Noema Magazine, calls “middle-power multilateralism”. It should include Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia, as well as the Global South. Only such multilateralism can provide a counterweight to both the US and China.
The author comments on global affairs.