Multipolar Shift

 

 “A new power is rising; Its victory is at hand”

These words were uttered in the 2002 film Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

As epic a line as that may have been for the screen, it is even more epic to see it play out in real time. What is this new power being referred to here?  Is there a shift in the global structure and if so how? Prior to the World Wars, the world order was structured based on the principle of multipolarity in which the world was divided into spheres of influence where great powers competed for dominance. The end of the Second World War saw a change in the order, in which the system moved from a multipolar system to a bipolar one. Once great empires such as Britain or France were reduced and in their place was the rise of two great superpowers i.e. the United States and the Soviet Union. The world entered the Cold War phase which lasted till the early 1990s when the USSR collapsed leaving the USA as the unchecked global hegemon.  This unipolar phase was declared to be the “end of history “where American ideals of capitalism and liberal democracy will reign supreme forever under the guiding hand of the leader of the free world.

This utopian vision however was not to be; in fact, now more than ever we are closer to a dystopia or as Bob Marley puts it, there is still very much “so much trouble in the world”. This of course has led many countries to question the idea once put forward by former President Barack Obama that “America is the only indispensable nation on the Earth”; and with the United States being seen by some losing its touch, many countries are now looking elsewhere for leadership, namely BRICS.

What has caused this shift? Many things actually, but the underlying factor is that too many nations do not see the current world order as working in their favour and therefore are committed to changing it. An important aspect of this change is the process of de-dollarisation. In the wake of the world wars, the United States set up the Bretton Woods system to remake the world economy in its own image with the dollar at its centre. The BRICS countries however are resolved to alter this system as they find that it is simply not in their interest to play by rules of the Washington consensus. The alternative of course is to set up their own system and what better place to start with than trade? One by one BRICS countries have announced their intention to move from trading in dollars to using a new currency as their means of exchange. At present, BRICS members have taken steps to limit the use of the dollar such as India and Brazil announcing that all trade will be conducted in rupees and real respectively meanwhile Saudi Arabia has announced that it will trade with China using the yuan instead the dollar.

And speaking of the Sauds, they have been quite busy as of late thanks to the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed who serving as his father’s prime minister has entered into a state of rapprochement with both Russia and China hence allowing them both to influence new peace deals in West Asia.  President Xi taking advantage of this alliance has managed to do what the US had failed to do in decades which is to facilitate the normalisation of relations between the Saudis and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Meanwhile President Putin, who was determined not to be outdone decided to act as facilitator of a separate negotiation between Riyadh and the Assad-led regime in Damascus. It must be noted that all of this took place without the involvement of Washington; this however runs contrary to a promise made by Joe Biden to the Arab nations that the United States would not abandon them, yet while the US has for a very long time been most bellicose in its attitude, Beijing and Moscow are willing to facilitate peace.

Russia facilitate peace? You might ask, shouldn’t they be a pariah by now due to the war in Ukraine?  That depends entirely on who you ask. In the West, Putin has been reviled as the incarnation of Hitler and Stalin rolled into one. Due to this characterization, he is all but deemed persona non grata in the West. Xi also has a shaky image in the USA and other Western powers thanks to their media portraying him as a madman anxious to finish what Mao started and conquer Taiwan. Outside of these bubbles however, the view is much different. Survey after survey has found that while Americans consider China, the greatest threat to world peace and Western Europeans name Russia, when it comes to countries in the global south they consider the United States as the greatest threat to world peace and it isn’t hard to see why they would come to this conclusion. Both Latin America and Africa lived under centuries of European colonization yet just as they finally managed to wrestle themselves free of formal colonial rule they found themselves under the yoke of American neo-colonialism. This has led them to see the US not a beacon to look up to for guidance but rather as the great colossus of the north coming to threaten them down with its big stick policy. This perception was demonstrated very recently in the visit of US Vice President Kamala Harris to the African continent. The Biden admin no doubt assumed than sending the first black female VP would resonate with Africans yet this was a grave miscalculation on the part of the White House. As she spoke, it became clear to Africans that Harris did not represent their interest at all, not when she came to lecture them about climate change and LGBT rights. These topics were ones that African leaders had little patience in discussing especially since it implied that she expected to hear them condemn the recent LGBT law passed by Uganda, something which these African countries refused to do.  One cannot help but contrast this high handed behaviour by the US with the approach taken by Russia who had the grace to write off the equivalent of US$20Billion in African debt while making no attempt to intervene in the internal politics of these nations. Is it any wonder then that so many countries are interested in an expansion of the BRICS? That only leaves the question of who will be the first to join, with the obvious frontrunner being Saudi Arabia while Iran, Argentina and Turkey are keen not to be left behind.

And speaking of BRICS one cannot help but contrast it with the other purported challenger to the American economic order i.e. the European Union. Unlike BRICS who are pushing boundaries, the EU finds itself in a great crisis thanks to the boomerang effect of the sanctions they affected against Russia. And if this wasn’t bad enough, the blowing up the Nordstream pipeline made their problem even worse. Who sabotaged the pipeline? There are theories, some more credible than others. But no matter how plausible or implausible these theories are, what is most incredulous of all is that the European members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decided to NOT support Russia’s motion for an independent investigation into the incident. That by itself is very suspicious as logically speaking, the party who was most affected should have a greater interest than anyone else in uncovering the truth, but instead they decided to all but look the other way. The oddity of this behaviour must be puzzling to anyone who would rightfully question why Europe is behaving so cowardly when their own strategic continental interest is at stake, who are they afraid of angering?

The triumph of American ideals all over the globe are said to represent the end of history, but it’s not really end of history because while Europe might be moving closer to USA’s orbit (as demonstrated by the recent NATO expansion), the rest of the world trends in the opposite direction. This movement stands in direct opposition to the Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST), a doctrine which claims that the world is best served when there is only one unchecked superpower. When competition is less, then everybody prospers, an enlightened age of Pax Americana (or so the theory goes). But as any student of business can tell you, monopolies eventually become stagnant and empires that stretch themselves too thin become inefficient. The only true constant in this world is that eventually things must change. There is no system in the world that lasts forever and while no one in their right mind would ever predict that America will decline like Rome, what is clear is that the resurgence of new players on the world stage means that the US is no longer the sole indispensable power, not when countries such as Russia and China are all too eager to return the world to a more equal balance. Hegemonic Unipolarity is a thing of the past; a multipolar world is the way forward and the best way to deal with said change is not to oppose it but embrace it.