UNFOLDING OF POWER CENTRES & END OF USA HEGEMONY

Until around 1920 British Empire was the only superpower; from 1940-90 the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union dominated creating a 'bi-polar' world; and since 1990 the U.S.A. has been the worlds' most influential and dominant power, returning to a unipolar world. It is a perceptive history that can be debated but cannot be changed. World is undergoing a tectonic shift in defining dominance. 

The U.S. transatlantic allies appreciate how its global leadership is changing and what this means for their interests. As the United States’ international engagement changes, allies need to intervene to prevent power vacuums from emerging. Europe needs to appreciate the potentially consequences of failing to adapt to changing US leadership and an increasingly complex changing world. 

There is a real chance that the EU project could collapse in the next few years due to external and internal pressures. A fallen European Union would benefit none and the PIGS of the lot (Portugal, Italy, Greece & Spain) would suffer the most and sadly they are the nosiest advocating this alienation. England, as we know how hard they are hit from being away from EU now. The world needs to align quickly without losing time due to pushback that it now is facing from newer non democratic coalitions. 

Today all global objectives under United Nations are almost redundant as mentioned in their Charter>  Maintain International Peace & Security, Protect Human Rights, Deliver Human Aids, Promote Sustainable Developments, Upholding International Laws. Not a single one of UN’s stated objectives are working at even minimum threshold levels. It has become a plain White Elephant.  

As a matter of fact, the world would be better off to reframe the Institutional matrix afresh by dissolving the existing ones & start afresh with newer reality with fresh sets of rules and regulations governing them & newer models of global governance and alliances for diplomacy, trade, environment, human rights, hunger, wars & conflicts, and common resources, like ocean and Arctic zones. 

Global institutions need more diversified leaderships & now would look beyond U.S. hegemony if they are to ensure their long-term legitimacy and influence and hope with member countries. We must not forget that out of nearly 200 UN member countries, almost 150 would fail without institutional supports of world bodies, including several who are barking the loudest under EU umbrella. 

The international responses to the current health crisis seem to herald the emergence of a frailer international system. The resurgence of jingoism and the hardening of state borders and other regressive developments underscore the dangers that current global leadership is bound to face. 

Even before the pandemic, current leadership of U.S. has been routinely criticizing the value of alliances and institutions such as NATO, advocated the breakup of the European Union, and withdrew from a host of international agreements and organizations. That is Trump for U.S. of A for the world. He pandered the autocrat nation’s like- Russia, North Korea, a proxy barking dog for China, he has questioned the merits of placing tested values such as democracy and human rights at the heart of foreign policy.

Trump’s transactional politics only buttresses the notion that U.S. is abandoning its commitment for a rule based international order. Predictions of U.S.’s decline and a shift in international order are not new, but every time, thus far, U.S. cyclically regenerated itself, but this time reality is different. The very forces that made U.S. hegemony so durable earlier are today driving its dissolution. Today, those same dynamics have turned against the United States and are seemingly permanent. 

The emergence of the United States as a singular power was mostly contingent on the dissolution of the Soviet Union and then the continuation of that singularity through the subsequent decade stemmed from the fact that Asian and European allies were content with U.S. hegemony that did not ruffle a status quo and continued its stated commitments. The breakup of the Soviet Union finally closed the doors on the only project of global order that could rival capitalism.

Without Soviet Union’s support, most Moscow-affiliated countries and political movements decided it was prudent to get on the U.S. bandwagon. The world suddenly became unipolar again. The United States and its allies benefitted from a de facto patronage monopoly during the period of singularity. During the 1990’s, most governments saw no viable alternative to U.S. sources of support. USSR was split, Germany had a reunification, Great Britain was a lost cause & China was nowhere. This made the allies smug and became vulnerable to covert attacks on their underbellies.

In the meantime, China virtually entered every household to tighten its stranglehold on their economies, while Russia continues to threaten to cut gas supplies to EU and making those U.S. Super allies to come down to table who were despising Russia as no better a country with a large backyard gas station.

The collapse of communist economies in Eurasia zone brought in disastrous consequences where tens of millions of citizens were pushed on the brink of humanitarian crisis while simultaneously creating a class of wealthy oligarchs who turned state assets into personal empires in cohort with the politicians.

Post the collapse of USSR, the corruption seeped rapidly in many flawed democracies in Asia as well. Not that corruption was absent in the world pre USSR collapse- it existed and continues accelerated & unabated.

A reference about corrupt leaders would be necessary to crack the citadel of facade, frauds and lies that these leaders have proliferated and weakened their countries and have completely destroyed the values of democracy that emerged with collective struggle for a better future. In a world, where power and political influences rule, we are living through a time that is controlled by some of the most corrupt politicians.

Some of the names would shock the readers with disbelief while their publicists and the lobbyist are trying to build an image of saviour and Messiah for them. According to https://www.wonderslist.com/10-most-corrupt-politicians/ , the top 10 of the world’s most corrupt politicians as of 2018 include some names that surprises, but is there as a matter of fact. Just check the link provided.

Even Fiefdoms and Kingdoms have not been out of the lure of corruption. The list is shocking, but it is not my figment of imagination. No wonder- Power corrupts, absolute Power corrupts absolutely.

Throughout the nineties, democratic forces joined and helped produce an illusion of an invincible liberal order of U.S. global dominance. That illusion now lies in slivers & tattered by haughty arrogance of autocratic nations. 

With waning of U.S. dominance (their own doing and rapidly declining under Trump) there was an opportunity for autocratic regimes to spread their influence and often autocratic ones appealed to many leaders of weaker states across the world, especially in Africa and Asia.

That was the pivot point where ingress of China globally, by becoming a WTO member, became dominant, in less than two decades, by using all tricks in the book and taking contracts that now is perceived by many such nations as toxic loans.

The fate of such nations, in near future, is doomed for any redemption, unless global forces works together to build back the democratic narratives by making such regimes irrelevant again- a long shot under current US Presidency.

U.S. no longer presides over a monopoly of patronage and the new regional organizations and autocratic countries challenge the U.S. hegemony today. With shifts in the global economy, with rise of China, these changes have transformed the geopolitical power balance & landscape. 

Policymakers in West, even 20 years back, dismissed such challenges as wishful rhetoric. Analysts in the West specifically doubted that Beijing and Moscow could ever overcome decades of mistrust and rivalry to cooperate against U.S. efforts to maintain an international order. China and Russia now directly challenge the international orders throwing all western calculations to bite the dust.

At UN, as permanent members of the UN Security Council, China & Russia have sabotaged the global agendas of U.S. and have blocked it with their veto powers routinely. They have vetoed U.S. proposals on Syria and efforts to impose sanctions on Venezuela and Yemen. In the UN General Assembly, between 2006 and 2018, China and Russia voted the same way 86 percent of the time. By contrast, since 2006, China and the U.S. have agreed only on 20 percent of the time.

Frankenstein that U.S. created now rides on its shoulder & its hegemony just took a walk by the sidewalk. 

Dominant autocratic regimes- Russia & China- have pushed for new regional security organizations & cooperation resulting in the emergence of parallel structures of global governance that undermines more liberal structures that democracy offers, including those of World Bank & IMF. 

Unwittingly India also became part of such parallel influence. India is a typical example of a country that wants to ride on two boats and now is ignored by most. It is the tacky lowball politics that has lowered its global position as an emerging power to a country that is often considered as a failed democracy by many, if not an autocracy where one man dominates all politics and policies for last 6 years.   

The end of monopoly on patronage has seen the concurrent rise of radical nationalism even in countries that were firmly embedded in the U.S.’s circle of influence like- Turkey, Hungary, Philippines to just name a few. With the expansion of alternative political models, a new feature of international politics is emerging as a result, autocratic regime like; China and Russia have the latitude to question and challenge U.S. hegemony.

The key question to ask now is to what extent U.S. maintains financial and monetary dominance? It today lacks the will and the resources to consistently outbid China and yet expect its allies for the allegiance to U.S. permanently. We can already see fissures in EU and sneering when U.S. openly questions NATO and reduces its forces from the alliances to deploy in Asia to confront China.

U.S. political and economic model to retain its appeal has to first get its own house in order. But to succeed, U.S. must recognize that the world no longer resembles the historically anomalous periods of 1990’s & early 2000’s where chaos in world orders reinforced its dominance.  That singular moment has passed, and it isn’t coming back. World would look for a newer alliances.

Sadly with global pandemic continuing unabated, the likelihood of fascism returning is a reality and a new world order just might get defined in a way that may drag the world in the dark political eras of a century back. After all, history repeats itself, if lessons are not learnt well from it.

This is how hegemonic influences end in democracy, slowly & surely- and new force emerges with mendacious plans for mankind.

We are all transiting a difficult time & by end of 2020, the world should know if it would be a safer place ever or would be in a flux in a conflict zone as has been in the post industrialisation world and now in digital age forever.

 

30 June 2020