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We are living in an era without a single, dominant world power. The globe is beset by crises-climate change, resource scarcity, food and financial crises, nuclear proliferation, and failing states. No one country can devise solutions to address these kinds of problems. Even the United Nations is not up to the task. Indeed, as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown admitted at the Progressive Governance Conference in April in London, the international organizations founded in the wake of World War II no longer meet today's needs.

It was just 17 years ago that the American journalist Charles Krauthammer spoke of the dawning of a new era in which, for decades to come, the United States would serve as the epicenter of the world order. Only five years have passed since then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell told an audience at Davos that America claimed the right to initiate unilateral military action.

Alas, the Iraq war shattered the dream of an age of "liberal imperialism," in which America spreads its values and ideals by coercive means. The financial crisis of the last two years has further accelerated the displacement of power-from the United States and Europe toward India, China, and Russia, as well as the Arabian Gulf states.

George Bush Sr. is said to have remarked, "We can't make the wrong mistakes." An American administration that wants to avoid "the wrong mistakes" is going to have to find its place in the new multipolar world.

Who are the decisive powers in this new world order? The United States, Russia, India, China, Brazil, and the European Union surely count among them. Interestingly, these countries are growing ever closer together. The current financial crisis has shown how deep their ties have already become. Other similarities are likewise revealing. With the exception of Europe, each of these countries contains within it aspects of the so-called first, second, and third worlds.

These countries are neither enemies of one another, nor are they friends; they are "frenemies," competitors for the world's scarce resources. These countries assure their people that they can shape the coming global order and provide for their future welfare, but their respective visions of the future can differ greatly. A potential "clash of futures" looms on the horizon of the multipolar world.

Not all "frenemies" are democracies in the Western sense. The successes of Singapore and China, as well as of the Gulf states, prove that states need not be democratic to guarantee their people a high standard of living. But, that need not be cause for pessimism. Within the new nondemocratic world powers, productive elites are replacing parasitic elites. Where the former get the upper hand, they produce a system more free and just than the one they inherited. Their goal is to develop the economy and correct social inequalities. They know that where there are slums there will be "failing cities" and "failing states."

The Alfred Herrhausen Society, the international forum of Deutsche Bank, is organizing a new project entitled Foresight in order to analyze and compare the future visions of emerging and existing world powers. Through discussion and debate, it hopes to find elements for a common future. The inaugural event held in Moscow brought together participants from Brazil, China, Europe, Japan, India, Russia, the United States, and other parts of the world to discuss Russia's role in a multipolar world. One of the main goals of this series is to see the world through the eyes of others, rather than through a purely Eastern or Western lens.

New alliances that set countries against one another will not be able to solve the challenges of the 21st century. New forms of international cooperation, consultation, and compromise will have to play a central role in a multipolar world. It is absurd that Italy belongs to the G-8, but not China or Brazil. And what sort of meaning can a global security council have when India, Brazil, and the European Union are left out, while France and Great Britain are permanent members?

Needed are new forms of international governance: in a world with diminishing resources and accelerating climate change, states might be tempted to pursue their own interests in order to gain short-term advantages. The challenge will be to devise a new international framework and an organized balance of interests. Only a common future-"change through rapprochement" not a "clash of futures"-can bring us further.

Certainly, the past ten years provide much cause for pessimism. In order for the next ten years to be a success, we will need to be fortified by a credible, if skeptical, optimism.

Wolfgang Nowak is the managing director of the Alfred Herrhausen Society since 2003. Prior to that that, he served as the director of the Federal Chancellory's Policy Department.

This article was first published here by our partner Internationale Politik-Global Edition.

Related materials from the Atlantic Community:

• The Editorial Team: Obama Will Win Back Europe's Support
• James Joyner: American Foreign Policy Bids Farewell to Neoconservatism
• Jan Ross: The United States: Heroes of the Retreat
  

November 1, 2008

Donald Stadler, Self-employed, Diamond Contributor (1052)

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I like this comment! What's this?

"Even the United Nations is not up to the task. Indeed, as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown admitted at the Progressive Governance Conference in April in London, the international organizations founded in the wake of World War II no longer meet today's needs."

It's very clear that virtually the entire post-WWII world order will have to be rethought and reinvigorated in the coming decade. Major parts of it will have to be replaced, I think.


A major part of that is that the US will surely have to rethink it's place in the coming order, with particular thought to the role of 'frenemies'. Or to use more traditional terms, adversaries and rivals.

Adversarties and rivals such as Germany, France, and Spain, as well as countries more traditionally classed in that manner like Russia and China.

The US will no doubt continue relatively freindly cooperation with some of these 'frenemies'; but I think various long-standing security arrangements which the US has traditionally undertaken will (out of sheer self-interest) need to be abandoned. Specifically, why is the US still guaranteeing the security of Europe? Why is is continuing to patrol the Persian Gulf and Indian Oceans, when the bulk of trade going through those bodies of water are bound for the EU, China, Japan, and India rather than the US?

It may be that some of these missions will be continued, but I think it will have to be on a paying basis, whether in the currency of exchanged favors or some other currency.

We in the US had naively believed that our country had built up many, many years of such a credit balance with European countries, but European actions during the past decade have shown that this credit has been unilaterally vacated by European nations, Germany in particular.

We need to abandon the illusion that Europe and Europeans are our friends. So 'frenemies' is a very useful word in the 'new world order' I tink, because it describes the new Transatalantic realtionship very accurately....

November 1, 2008

Member deleted

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I like this comment! What's this?

There is admittedly a different kind of "imperial overstretch" happening here with the United States. A different kind of overstretch than what Paul Kennedy had long warned against. An overstretch can also be that of fatigue - of the idea of a state and the faltering of that idea within a context of spiralling world events and gaps that are sought to be filled in. The United States' statements were under a different rubric altogether. The centi-petal forces are slwoly making its presence felt. They are of various kinds and alliances are taking on various shapes. The possible alliance between Russia and South American states - alongwith Russia's other kinds of partnerships (energy-alliances as one may call it - alongwith a new Russian paradigm of the "partnership-of-equals" that its recent territorial agreement with China symbolised) with other states do point to a multi-polar world with a difference. One may not be too sure of the emergence of certain third world states as a foci-of-power, unless limited to a regional complex like South Asia. But apparent markets and market-size may not be the harbinger of new power blocs. Emerging markets no longer promise a state a position, should that emergence threaten the global economy and the structural institutions that undergird it. Structural institutions also symbolise values and norms of reiteriative actions and emerging markets are often expected to live upto those norms. In the present scenario, emerging third world markets can turn into a nemesis for powers that have invested in it and are, in turn, penetrated by it. That may and can come via the informed abuse and camouflaged violations of those norms that underpin global commerce and economy, alongwith political and military reach and prowess. Such developments may seem, in the short run, to affect global distribution of economic power but may be the acts of ignorant forces that may be cutting down the very branch they are perching upon.

Russia's re-assertion of its power and diplomatic reach may be a pointer to a new form of governance. Since the term "governance" connotes certain normative underpinnings to it, the apparent rise of certain powers may not be conducive to a new "global governance". The issue is less of the decline of the US hegemony - most visible within the trans-atlantic alliance though not divorced from it or of it - but rather more about and of the emergence of newer possibilities that seem reachable - even via the violations of the norms of both commerce and governance. It matters less if some states may seem to embody such developments of the 'rejection' of the normative underpinnings that are intrinsic to governance and trade. However, it begins to matter when such states may begin to be seen as contenting or emerging centres of power. It is this aspect that makes one pause before admitting and/or granting particular states certain leverages that particular acknowledgements come across as.

The primary condition to any reformulation would need a certain acceptance of the normative aspects of global eminence for states - in its exercise of such a position. That by itself calls for quite a bit - in the internal dimensions of the state and the well-established parameters of Human Development Indices, Observance of Human Rights and the nature of the Weberian state and the nature of its usage of violence. The reduction of structural violence and the degrees of success of any state in achieveing that becomes imperative before that state can be afforded the privilege of the position of a global power.

Since structural violence (both direct & indirect) is often seen as arising from the psycho-cultural imperatives, one should be more cautious over according states the designations of emerging powers. I would say, the world should be more worried over the apparent emergence of particular states and their penetrations elsewhere. One sometimes begins to wonder if the changing global patterns reflects a worrying trend or the unravelling of the normative underpinnings that are central to both the trans-atlantic community as well as Russia.

The UN has been based upon particular normative requisites that are taken for granted, globally and definitely by the trans-atalantic community, including Russia (to a certain degree though its internal situations may not reflect or rival those of the trans-atlantic community). It is time to think whether better normative values have beeen achieved and the earlier discussions been resolved - before one begins to look at a changing world without worrying.

Tags: | global governance | trade | emerging powers |

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