When ‘New Normals’ Become Abnormal
The old world has died but has by no means died completely. Equally, a new world is emerging but its outlines remain imprecise; its borders and contours are unclear. Its content, however, is forcing us to revert to the Hobbesian theory that hostility and disorder are the natural state of mankind (something that is painful to contemplate and even more painful to admit). Indeed, history continues to alternate between a state of complacency and a sense of fear that tends to magnify risks and perils. The end of the Cold War seemed to indicate that we were moving in the right direction, and we recalibrated our expectations accordingly—but the last decade or so has proven that our expectations were based upon the far-fetched illusion of an increasingly peaceful and prosperous world. The real world is turning out to be much gloomier and more precarious. The 2008 war between Georgia and Russia was a volte-face event that directly underlined the rosiness of our world view, and Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea was the final proof that our expectations of a post-Cold War world were far in excess of the possibilities available to the new world order. Moreover, there are of course those who selfishly welcome the emergence of a new world with new rules that will suit their own interests, those who wish for an increasingly disunited world ruled by revisionism, betrayal, conflict and force. This world is arriving at a startling rate of speed: wisdom’s seat is increasingly (irretrievably?) vacant, and hubris is increasingly meeting nemesis.
New World, New Rules
Our highly fractured modern world is made up of several disentangled poles seeking to ‘enlighten’ the global system according to their preferences. Their policy-making toolkits are firmly grounded in realpolitik, but the more transactional the system becomes, the more tempting it becomes for them to brush aside the complexities of political and historical differences and to ignore the technocratic expertise which is so badly needed when seeking to strike foreign-policy bargains. And besides, the system’s capacity to reconcile engagement with containment is unpredictable. Furthermore, what makes the process idiosyncratic is the fact that attempts to achieve stated goals are not based upon preserving and furthering value-based alliances, but instead upon ‘running the show’ through functional power-sharing on a case-by-case basis. As a result of the demise of the post-Cold War order and the powerful aftershocks that have followed, we are living in a world in which no clear and universal system exists for major powers to efficiently react to and deal with ongoing challenges. There also seems to be no (geo)political willingness to attempt to redesign our world in a spirit guided by the nineteenth-century ‘Concert of Europe’, i.e. seeking to reverse the apparent decline of the international system and prevent it from collapsing entirely. Instead, each major power is striving to rebuild the world’s ‘security’ architecture according to their own whims and to suit their own reasons and resources, disregarding the interests of others and, perhaps most importantly, ignoring the painful lessons of the past. Let us now touch upon the geopolitically ‘egocentric empires’ that are fracturing the world by making it increasingly multipolar, disconnected and in conflict.
The Sino-centric World: The history of our world is one of power shifts, and our era is no exception. We are witnessing a new version of the Thucydides trap with China's active efforts to acquire the international status it believes it is entitled to on the world stage. This makes sense, considering the political and economic might of the world’s largest population, but is a cause for concern when one considers the system of government the country has developed at home and exports abroad. China’s quest for leadership is not limited to her immediate neighbourhood, and reaches out to a number of locations across the world. Naturally, China’s leaders regularly claim that their foreign policies are guided by good intentions, but it is vital to never stop monitoring how this mega-country is increasingly shifting away from the guiding principle of ‘hide your strength, bide your time’ towards undisguised efforts to increase its military and non-military means of coercion. In this regard, various changes to the structure of the People’s Liberation Army aiming to increase the operational capabilities of the country’s armed forces when deployed far from mainland China are of particular interest, as the 2018 Report to Congress of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission notably underlines. Even the most cursory glance at China’s effective implementation of her well-publicized Belt and Road Initiative, with USD 400 billion already spent, raises serious questions in terms of commercial soundness. Numerous cases of ‘debt diplomacy’, the funding of projects that fail to meet bankability tests, disbursing loans with no strings attached, imposing Chinese standards and criteria when measuring work performance, etc. are all serious concerns that Beijing must do her best to allay. In addition, the potential ‘dual-purpose’ use of commercial ports leased or owned by Chinese companies around the world also needs to be carefully considered. When expanding abroad, China tries to skilfully follow a ‘cherry-picking’ approach to the existing international order rather than simply trying to dismantle and substitute it, e.g. by using her right of veto at the UN Security Council, World Bank infrastructure facilities, etc.
A World with little Order: Essentially, this is a world in disarray rather than any kind of order. The proponents of this type of order are states ranging from the clear champion of the ‘disorderly ordered’, Russia, to those qualified as ‘rogues’ (e.g. North Korea). The ideology of this camp, as expressed in real deeds and actions on a regular and daily basis, has already been discussed extensively and need not be repeated here.
The U.S.-led Order: Many are wondering whether the Pax Americana has finally and irretrievably been shelved—an acutely pressing question, particularly given the foreign-policy implications of ‘America First’.
This type of order has organically been related to the notion of a liberal order, since the latter is deemed to be the perfect modus operandi by which the United States can incentivize (mostly non-communist) countries to accept its primacy and ensure that Western gains following World War II remain clear and tangible. Once recognized as a ‘liberal leviathan’ and an ‘empire by invitation’, the US-led order is disintegrating under the onslaught of external pressure and domestic policy U-turns—the latter strangely opposed to Washington’s post-WWII policy of global engagement. Instead of recoiling and retrenching herself, it would be in America’s (and the world’s) best interests to focus her efforts upon strengthening and improving remaining elements of the old order and upon introducing new elements capable of coping with current challenges. The current administration should reverse its course, returning from a zero-sum to a positive-sum outlook by creating new platforms for partnership, by leading regional democracies and by stepping up economic programmes for key regional allies (an equivalent of Marshall Plan for Georgia?). Since the U.S. played such a major role in designing the system that is currently crumbling, it is her moral duty to not only resist its dismantling but also to pool her resources with those of other Western democracies, to more actively fight the ‘Finlandization’ (or worse) of countries by revisionist states, and to prevent some of her allies from sliding away from liberalism towards more authoritarian forms of government.
It is also clear that the so-called Rules-Based Order—the model currently under debate as a result of ‘America First’, and comprising Western democracies such as the EU and Canada—would not be as firm and sustainable due to these countries’ limited political and military resources, and should be considered as a last-chance option in a desperate attempt to save the remnants of the liberal order.
The Liberal Order: Two decades ago, the international liberal order (primarily led by the U.S.) seemed to be on the rise, ensuring an even distribution of powers and equality among the members of global institutions. Most importantly, this was the order which stood out for its adherence to the universally recognized norms of international comity, non-interference in sovereign matters, the promotion of free and non-politicized trade, unfettered development and (reasonably) free financial flows. But this order is no longer on the rise, and its principles are now sadly reminiscent of the bipolar days when the free world co-existed with the totalitarian. The bright hopes that followed the Cold War are crumbling one by one.
In Brief
The bipolarity of the world after the Second World War has been superseded by the interwoven duo of unipolarity and (somewhat unsuccessful) attempts to establish a liberal world order. This combination is now steadily receding, replaced by an increasingly multipolar world characterized by competition between great powers. Another feature of the current system is that this competition is mainly fought along the periphery (e.g. Georgia, Ukraine, Syria) with little or no direct contact between major powers. Not yet. The existing system is also marked by proxy wars fought through ‘rollbacks’—e.g. attempts to prop up regimes locally or on the contrary to topple them in various ways for a variety of pretexts. All in all, however, the lessons of history demonstrate that rising powers are almost always keen to overtake dominant ones, and that gains and losses in ‘major power’ status very often determine the viability of the prevailing order. Promotion to such status can be achieved by peaceful means (e.g. as a reflection of ‘soft power’), by pursuing hybrid geo-economic methods (e.g. by adopting a ‘sharp power’ approach), or through the shameless exercise of hard power (e.g. ‘humanitarian interventions’, ‘restoring peace’, etc.) if the conditions are right and impunity guaranteed. Last year showed us that the worst consequence of the ongoing competition between major powers, as reflected through their instinctive transactionalism, is states trying to grab everything in reach. More than ever, international relations are about winning instead of co-operating, and interdependence and interconnectedness, as well as bonds of trust, are waning.
Our Own Rules
As we suffer from the effects of a highly fluid (and somewhat chaotic) situation in international relations—one whose politics have no fixed lines between ‘white’ and ‘black’ but instead a wide grey area of uncertainty—it is more important to adhere to an emerging strategy rather than to a ‘grand’ one. Doing so would grant Georgia the tactical mobility and flexibility that the country would need to effectively pursue its strategic national interests on the regional stage and beyond. A ‘transactional curve’ would certainly involve better and deeper foreign-policy ties with our allies, notably on matters of security. As far as the latter domain is concerned, partnership packages could involve a wide range of questions including intelligence-sharing and joint contingency planning—and ideally more regular military drills. Even if the relative small scale of such exercises would render them largely symbolic, they would demonstrate commitment to the country. Beyond matters of security, the level of Georgia's international ‘game’ could also be raised by a return to a deep (but not overly protocolic) diplomacy, pursued through a politically neutral and professional diplomatic cadre. Such resources would be a precondition to Georgia defending her national interests and pursuing her long-term foreign policies based upon functional groupings. Ideological dogmatism must be abandoned. Stronger national security, a more favourable geopolitical environment, better means at the country’s disposal and true statecraft must be made the real lodestars of Georgia’s national agenda.
By Victor Kipiani