A New Challenge for the West

Eduardo del Buey
Foto: Tomada de web
La Jornada Maya

Martes 5 de noviembre, 2019

Thirty years ago, after the Berlin Wall fell, many believed that the world was headed in a new direction. Western values had prevailed, political and economic globalization was in the process of becoming a reality, and the nationalisms that had wrought such destruction during the centuries appeared ready to be replaced by global cooperation.

Yet after three decades, the West finds its position of global hegemony challenged by a rising China and an awakened Russia, by global terrorism aimed against Western values and institutions, and by the spread of divisive politics challenging Western values from within.

When the former Soviet Union split up, Russia became a democracy of sorts. Under Boris Yeltsin, it sided with its former adversaries and joined what former President George H.W. Bush then called the “new world order”.

The world collectively faced down massive aggression by Saddam Hussein in Kuwait and brought Arabs and Israelis together in Madrid to discuss peace collectively for the first time. The ideological rivalries of the past century, fed by at times rabid and destructive nationalism, would be replaced by a world in which cooperation would be paramount.

Apartheid ended in South Africa, and Nelson Mandela inspired new hope in all of Africa. He taught the world how a leader could overcome twenty-seven years of incarceration to emerge whole, forgive his former jailers, win a fair and free election, govern honestly and leave office at the end of his term without a hint of scandal.

Latin America saw the arrival of democratically elected governments after decades of military dictatorships. The hemisphere appeared to embark on a voyage of democratization and trade integration under the Washington Consensus and the signing of a Free Trade of the Americas agreement that would create the world’s largest trading bloc.

To be sure, not all was wine and roses.

The Balkans suffered a long and bitter war with massive human rights abuses and genocide. Rwanda saw more than a million of its citizens brutally murdered in a tribal war. Israel and the Arab world alternated between peace negotiations, while a number of intifadas and Arab intransigence wore peacemakers down leading the chances for a two-state solution to slip through their fingers.

Yet, despite some regional exceptions, the world had generally enjoyed a relatively sustained period of global peace especially when measured by relations between major powers.

So, when did things begin to change?

Ten years after the fall of the wall, in 1999, Vladimir Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin as President of Russia and began his quest to consolidate all power in his hands and to resuscitate a Russian Empire that would succeed the Soviet Union as a global superpower.

Since then, dreams of Russia-U.S. cooperation on key issues have fallen by the wayside.

Add to this the rise of China as a global economic and military power, and we now have a multipolar world in which two of the three poles follow authoritarian and expansionist political models while appearing to be aligned in their quest for global influence.

Additionally, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 were a major game changer as non-state actors successfully declared war on the only global superpower. Al Qaeda became a household word, and national security a household concern. The United States was dragged into a number of wars in the Middle East that have since destroyed Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, seen the resurrection of Iran as a major regional power, divided the Islamic world, and once again left a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian in question.

Finally, the so-called “Arab Spring” and its’ failure to incite mass change resulted in hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced, leading to a global refugee crisis and mass migrations from the Islamic world to Europe. The result has been a challenge to the spirit of openness sought under the concept of a united Europe as seen by the rise in nativist nationalism, personified by Brexit and the current Hungarian regime among others and anti-Islamic movements in Europe and, as a consequence, a rise in Islamic radicalism there.

So, where does this leave us thirty years later?

It leaves us facing a realization that nothing lasts forever, that competing powers will always seek the upper hand and that they must continue to weigh the consequences of their actions in order to manage change successfully.

War continues to destroy Syria and Yemen with no sign of abating. Arab leaders continue to place low priority on addressing corruption, economic development, poverty and human rights as their countries consequently continue to suffer untold violence and destruction. The U.S., under President Trump, has also misplayed its cards in the region by pulling troops out of Syria and by siding exclusively with Israel against the Palestinians.

President Trump has also helped to enhance Russia’s presence and influence in the Middle East while losing influence in Turkey, a major ally and NATO member that is now purchasing Russian military products endangering sensitive U.S. military technology already in place. The recent U.S. pullout from Syria will allow Russia and Turkey free reign against the Kurds, traditional U.S. allies, who have suffered large losses to Turkish forces in recent weeks.

In Latin America, Russia remains the primary ally of Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. Current thinking is that Russia will obtain a military and naval base in Venezuela in exchange for propping up the Maduro regime – a direct challenge to U.S. interests. Yet the Trump administration seems to be oblivious to Russian expansionism and has failed to criticize Putin or to address his ambitions.

Given the stakes, it is not outside the realm of possibility that Latin America could become embroiled in some form of future confrontation between Russia and the United States. As with many other elements of U.S. foreign policy, the Monroe Doctrine appears to be dead, and the Trump administration appears to have nothing up its sleeve to replace it.

Russian influence also continues to grow in Africa. Putin recently hosted a summit in Russia with heads of government and state from that continent, noting that his country is ready to help Africa without “political or other conditions” unlike Western countries. Hopefully, Africans know better.

Through his actions, President Trump has compromised international confidence in the United States as a trusted partner and also mitigated the of its diplomatic corps and its intelligence organizations. Even if he loses in 2020, it may well take many years for the United States to rebuild its diplomatic and foreign policy capabilities and to regain the trust of allies and its credibility as a global partner.

Incredibly, Trump has helped Putin to all but emasculate NATO politically as a strong alliance. His support for BREXIT and constant diatribes against the European Union have accomplished in three years what the Soviet Union had been unable to do in forty – to divide the West and undermine its capacity to halt Soviet and now Russian expansionism.

At the same time, China is using its’ new-found wealth and industrial base to expand internationally. They have launched their ambitious “Belt and Road”.

initiative to create a global transportation and communications network centered on Chinese interests. Even Israel, the most stalwart U.S. ally, has allowed Chinese interests to take over and expand the major port of Haifa where the U.S. Sixth Fleet is based.

To this end, China has invested over $12 billion in Israel, mostly in the strategic hi-tech sector while it has also completed major projects in the Caribbean and Africa. The African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa is an example of growing Chinese influence as is a multibillion-dollar railway line recently inaugurated in Kenya. Chinese engineers and builders are hard at work creating a modern telecommunications and transportation infrastructure in Africa to bring much needed raw materials to Chinese factories. China remains Africa’s largest trading partner, has become its’ largest aid donor and, since 2000, has seen trade expand from $2 billion to $170 billion in 2017 with Chinese investment in the continent increasing by 46 percent per year on average.

The United States doesn´t seem to be willing to keep up with the Chinese in political influence through economic and infrastructural investments, or with Russia with respect to supporting key allies militarily in different parts of the world.

Thirty years after the birth of the post-Cold-War dream, the globe appears to this writer to be more divided than any time since the second world war.

Multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States are being starved of the financial and political capital that they need to create the kind of global consensus required to address today’s major challenges. The United Nations Security Council is frozen in time and incapable of coming to the kinds of agreements that would subject national interests to the interests of the world as a whole. And a generation of leaders preaching hatred and division around the world appear to be having their day.

While thirty years ago the West appeared to have won the day, Russian and Chinese expansionism, coupled with recent poor leadership by the United States and an inability or unwillingness by many Western leaders to listen to their own citizens, have created a distrust of local government in many countries. The election of Trump and the violent reactions of people from the Gilets Jaunes in France to the massive street protests in Chile are pointed reminders that all is not well with Western models of leadership and government.

But not all is doom and gloom.

China has managed to lift some 400 million citizens out of poverty over the past thirty years and has become a global economic and military superpower. It is using its economic clout to engage in stealing technological secrets from foreign companies or demanding that they make their technology available to Chinese companies. It has kept its currency low to enhance its exports at the cost of competing countries while it penetrates foreign markets by promising investment and aid without demanding democratic reforms. In this case, after years of global inaction, the Trump administration has correctly called China’s bluff and its challenge to international rules-based trade despite the risk of a significant political cost to some in his agricultural base who are losing billions of dollars in cancelled exports to China.

However, China is not without its challenges as it faces a generation that wants more freedoms as demonstrated by what is currently happening in Hong Kong. Its treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority, a million or more of whom find themselves in concentration camps, is indicative as to how far China will go to eliminate minorities that could conceivably challenge Communist rule and try to create a homogenous cultural base.

For its part, Russia is hobbled by declining oils revenues and rising dissatisfaction among the population. As well, it faces a motivated enemy in Ukraine, and it has still to convince the world to accept its conquest of Crimea. They also have major problems in holding things together at home as people demand free elections and an end to the corruption and autocracy of the Putin regime.

Another regional player, India is undergoing a massive technological revolution to match its green revolution of the 1970’s. Yet it too is succumbing to the allure of nativist politics, as the Hindu government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to marginalize its large Muslim population, leading some to question the ultimate destination of the world’s largest democracy.

Meanwhile, in Africa, Rwanda has become a technology hub rising from the ashes of its brutal genocide in 1994. However, democratic rule appears to be elusive there, since President Paul Kagame has followed the lead of many African leaders and made himself a leader for life, brooking no opposition.

The rest of Africa is finding new markets in China and new investment from that country. Millions are benefitting from a growing global economy, but the development of democratic governance along Western lines remains elusive in many African countries.

The main conclusion is that the past three decades have seen massive changes around the world. They have been mostly good but with mixed results based on the pace of current geopolitical trends.

The current global scenario is more positive for Russian and Chinese supporters and it indicates that we in the West have a lot of work to do in order to improve and consolidate our own political and socio-economic systems and make them relevant to all of our citizens once again before we can successfully proselytize elsewhere.

Our challenge in the West now is to learn to manage these changes, accept that we are no longer the only game in town, and harness our strengths to remain and grow as more viable players in this new world order.

[i]Mérida,Yucatán[/i]
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