The New Multipolar World Order
Written by Alfonso Elizondo
Created on Friday, May 20, 2016; 17:50
The world today consists of two blocks of countries: those that are under the control of neoliberalism and states with mixed economies. There are several geopolitical conditions that have led to the creation of this new world order, such as the information revolution, globalization, neoliberalism and the crisis of 2008. Under these real conditions of the current geopolitical reality it must be acknowledged that there is an emerging group of nation states with mixed economies consisting of countries with different levels of national and regional power, development, and economic, social and cultural relations.
Almost all researchers with an international reputation in Economics and Finance agree that the development of the new capitalism will incorporate most countries around the world with very uneven outcomes. While the nations that are passively integrated into the neoliberal model will suffer the worst consequences due to trade liberalization, the weakening of the state and the impoverishment of the population, the emerging states will implement substantial technological training for the base of their societies and take advantage of their low labor costs.
Forming this second group will be South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, but especially China, followed by India and Russia. At the same time there is the decline of the US and its hegemony crisis which includes countries under its control because they have not been able to sustain an individualistic, wasteful regime of permanent military aggression against other countries.
According to Eric Posner, Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, the new world order is dead and the Washington administration is trying to put a brave face on the current bad times, blaming Russia for behaving as if it is in the nineteenth century. Posner says that it is not Putin who is taking the world back to the past, but Obama, who still speaks as if today is the year 1991.
Posner explains that in the decade of the nineties it would have been possible to talk about a unipolar world, as Russia was the only counterweight to the United States and by that time it had already ceased to exist, while the United States was strong enough to impose its conditions on many other countries. It was in September 1990 that George W. Bush announced the establishment of a ‘new world order’ based on four* specific pillars: international courts of universal human rights, international criminal justice and free trade and investment. But for various reasons and due basically to the fault of the United States, this system soon became obsolete. [only 3 pillars seem to be mentioned above]
In the opinion of Posner, the liberal order that came into being after the fall of the USSR was based on the false idea that all nations were equal and followed the same rules. But in reality these rules are the rules of the West, and the United States played the role of president of the Supreme Court which at that time had no rivals because of the great military strength it possessed. But now, that illusion has disappeared and today’s world is more like the way it looked in the nineteenth century.
Professor Posner continues by noting that if the Russian Empire, the UK, France, Japan and the United States were the major powers in the nineteenth century, that list now includes the United States, China, Russia and the European Union. So to avoid a potential war between these nations, they should recognize each other and act on the principle of equality.
Posner notes further that the United States should not be surprised that only poor African countries fear the international court and that both Russia and China have an independent foreign policy and are not subject to US. According to Posner, the new multipolar world order was already formed two or three years ago, but Washington still does not accept it and pretends that they cannot understand it.
Perhaps this apparent stubbornness on the part of Washington in trying to remain in the global leadership position without sharing it with any other power is due to the fact that China, its main competitor, has ceased to be the leading importer and exporter it was for the last 30 years, or it may be the natural inertia of the great empires that continue to think they are still all-important leaders until a series of violent, bloody and unexpected events make them change their minds.
Addendum: From our particular personal perspective we think the powerful political class and institutions ruling in the United States since the 1970s, as in the case of the Pentagon and its intelligence forces, Wall Street and other major financial holding companies, the invincible oil companies, those driven by greed, weapons manufacturers, insurance companies, producers of drugs and other social services, etc., are far from letting anyone take away the wealth they have preserved and accumulated over several generations.
For Americans and for the vast majority of Western nations, the fundamental right of republican democracies is to be able to preserve the goods and services that their ancestors bequeathed to them. Within their collective culture, the God of reason has always supported the Americans and will continue to do so until the end of time.