The new regionalism: Drifting toward multi-polarity
Michael A. Weinstein
A report provided by EurasiaNet partner PINR
Now that the experiment in American unilateralism has failed with the
collapse of the adventurist campaign in Iraq, the world returns to the two foundational
models for global power relations: multilateralism and multi-polarism.
Whoever occupies the Oval Office after the November 2004 election will have to try to
recoup the power that the United States lost during its rendezvous with neo-conservative
fantasy. That can only be done -- if at all -- through an attempt to reconstitute a
multilateral consensus on globalization in which the United States is primus inter pares,
guaranteeing the security of world capitalism militarily, but not using its military power
to impose its policies on its allies and independent limited collaborators (China and
Russia) without genuine negotiation and compromise. Under multilateralism, the United
States usually gets its geopolitical way, but forbears from acting in opposition to
significant resistance from other major power centers. The Iraq adventure has demonstrated
that unilateralism alienates allies and collaborators, resulting in the loss of American
credibility and clout. Multilateralism remains the path that leads to the maximization of
American power in the world.
The question is whether the Iraq adventure marks a watershed in world
politics, in which the currents that once ran toward multilateralism in the decade
following the fall of the Soviet Union have now shifted in the direction of
multi-polarism. Well before the second Gulf War, China, Russia and France had voiced
preferences for multi-polarism, in which American leadership is replaced by negotiation
among regional power centers, among them North America. The Iraq war may have tipped the
balance so that it favors the multi-polarists. If the United States cannot be trusted to
take the interests of allies and collaborators into account in its strategic policy, these
governments will seek to retrench, moving to gain as much control as possible over their
regions, so that they can exert a veto on American interventions into them. Although each
regional power center has its own independent interests, they all have a shared interest
in fending off American dictation and, therefore, constitute an incipient defensive
alliance.
Multi-polarism is a containment policy against the United States -- the
one-time hyper-power that has revealed its vulnerability and the limits of its military
control.
The most likely configurations of world politics in the coming decade are weak to moderate
multi-polarism and weak multilateralism. There is some small chance that the United States
will regain acquiescence in its status as the "world's only superpower" and,
with it, a comparative advantage for the realization of its policies and the satisfaction
of the interests actuating them. The more highly probable scenario is a slow drift toward
multi-polarism.
Multi-polarism is only a dream unless it is backed by military power.
The primary indicator of a tendency toward multi-polarism is the military policies of the
regional powers. The two most important -- China and Russia -- have publicly stated that
they are committed to building state-of-the-art militaries. India is similarly committed
to militarization, as is Pakistan, so far as its limited resources permit. Europe presents
a more complex picture. Faced with opposition to its attempt to assert leadership in
Europe, the Franco-German combine remains bound into N.A.T.O. and is left with its
economic and diplomatic cards. By taking advantage of the internal conflict within the
European Union ("Old Europe and New Europe"), the United States has helped to
block the emergence of a full-fledged regional power center. It is not able to do the same
elsewhere. China and Russia will lead the move toward multi-polarism and other powers
around the world will follow them whenever it is in their interest to do so.
The major point for the emergence of multi-polarism is East Asia. What
drives the New Regionalism is a partial power vacuum caused by recognition of the limits
of American projection of military power and the loss of American political credibility as
a trustworthy ally and collaborator, and moral credibility as a champion of democracy,
human rights and even global capitalism. The regional power positioned most favorably to
take advantage of the vacuum is China.
China
The coming confrontation with China was the focus of the American
National Security Strategy of 2002 and the justification for its doctrine of maintaining
American military supremacy through coming generations. China's strategic aim is
eventually to make the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits its own Caribbean, excluding
the United States from military influence and the economic advantage that it brings. China
can be expected to seize as much control over its region as it can, consistent with
maintaining foreign investment and normal trade relations. If there is a drift toward
multi-polarism, it will be manifested, in China's case, by a harder line towards Taiwan
and Hong Kong. If China can drive Taiwan into its orbit through military threat coupled
with de jure autonomy masking de facto dependency, it will have moved a long way towards
satisfying its strategic aims. Other states in the region will take notice. China can also
be expected to drag its feet on the North Korea nuclear weapons issue. It will not want to
give the United States an easy victory and will try to undermine American credibility on
North Korea by extorting concessions from the United States.
Other states in East Asia will not be favorable to expansion of Chinese
power over the region. They will depend on the United States to defend them, but will be
less certain than in the past of the effectiveness of that protection. If North Korea is
not de-nuclearized and China comes to exert some sort of hegemony over Taiwan, Japan would
be tempted to nuclearize, as would South Korea. Simultaneously, they would explore more
aggressively strategic bargains with China, further diminishing American influence. The
United States will face a decisive question: Does it have the military and economic
resources, and the political will to resist a well-calculated Chinese power grab?
Russia
The second major site for the emergence of the New Regionalism is
Russia. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has returned to its traditional strategic doctrine of
containing encirclement and, if possible, expanding its cordon sanitaire (in this case,
restoring it). Putin has made it explicit that Russia has to take care of its own economy
and society, pursue an independent foreign policy, and aggressively militarize. The
strategic aim of those principles is to regain control over Russia's periphery: to draw
Ukraine and Belarus firmly into its orbit and to re-exert influence over the former Soviet
republics in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Specifically, Russia's goals are to edge
American bases out of Central Asia and to gain some control over Caspian Sea oil.
Russia is hampered by economic weakness, dependence on oil revenues, the war in Chechnya
and an inefficient military. Its effectiveness as a center of multi-polarism will hinge on
its ability to generate a sufficient economic surplus to deliver on the promise of a
state-of-the-art military. As the re-militarization program proceeds, Russia will attempt
to exploit dissidence in the former Soviet republics to its south when that is to its
advantage, and to cultivate closer relations with them when that is advantageous. The
United States will seek to hold on to its gains in the region, but the question again is
whether it will have the resources and will to do so. The former Soviet republics are not
eager to fall under Russian hegemony and rely for their independence on Euro-American
protection. The Iraq adventure has not changed that. Russia has chosen to pursue a
multi-polar strategy, but it is a work in its early stages.
India and Pakistan
The South Asian sub-continent is the third site of the New Regionalism.
Both India and Pakistan are committed to militarization. Their conflict over Kashmir
remains unresolved and the Iraq adventure has put a strain on American mediation of it.
India's prime strategic aim is to secure itself from any military threat so that it can
pursue an autonomous domestic and foreign policy as it develops economically and enters
the globalized economy as a full player. Pakistan, with a much weaker economy and an
unstable regime, is hedged in by its imposed alliance with the United States, and the
internal conflict that the alliance has caused.
With the United States tied down in Iraq, India will be tempted to exert pressure on
Pakistan over Kashmir. If it pursues such a course, Pakistan will become even more
unstable and its relations with the United States will be strained. There is a low
probability of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, and a much higher
probability of low-level confrontations. The United States will have less influence over
the course of those confrontations than it did before the Iraq adventure, and will be
compromised by the clash between its economic interests in India and its strategic
interests in Pakistan.
Europe
It will be difficult for the Franco-German combine to become the
nucleus of a European regionalism. Here the United States has confident allies in the
coalition of states that resists Franco-German hegemony in the European Union. In
addition, shared economic interests in transnational capitalism make any Franco-German
long-term break with multilateralism unlikely.
Lacking independent military power, the Franco-German combine is blocked from strategic
autonomy. If the United States resumes a multilateralist policy toward Europe, it should
be able to regain its former position as primus inter pares in the North Atlantic.
Tendencies toward multi-polarism will be long-term, depending on the degree of economic
and political integration within the European Union, which would eventually lead to
greater military independence.
Islamist Militancy
Cross-cutting the New Regionalism is the worldwide Islamist movement,
which was the pretext for the Iraq adventure (the notion of Saddam Hussein giving weapons
of mass destruction to terrorists). That the United States has lost credibility in the
Islamic world is a platitude. Islamic militancy has not diminished since the Iraq
adventure and all reports point to its increase. Rather than advancing the "war on
terrorism," the Iraq adventure has pushed it back.
Conclusion
The United States will be forced in the coming decade to continue to
focus attention and dedicate economic, military and diplomatic resources to contain
Islamism. There is no end in sight of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and there is little
chance that Iraq will be a unified and stable market democracy. The Middle East will
preoccupy the United States with little possibility of favorable results, while major
powers in other regions will take every opportunity to pursue their own strategic aims of
greater autonomy and control.
The decline in American credibility and the worldwide recognition of its military
limitations does not spell a decisive shift to multi-polarism, but a drift in that
direction. Signs of that drift would be a more aggressive Chinese approach toward Taiwan,
a more aggressive Indian approach to Pakistan, and a genuine commitment to rapid
re-militarization in Russia. American power has been potentially impaired in those three
regions; they are the potential crisis points outside the Middle East where the United
States is most likely to face effective challenges to its power and interests.
EurasiaNet, June 17, 2004 |