Prof. Dr. Tanweer Khalid
A polycentric new world order started emerging after the end of the cold war but it has began to fray at the edges when the old world order broke down after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States as a uni-polar leader was neither successful nor acceptable by all the other countries.
The elements for a new world order is not a new subject for states but has its roots in ancient civilisations with significant contributions from renowned philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, who gave a philosophical underpinning to the concept. Plato’s idealistic vision of a state in the ‘Republic’ and Aristotle’s pragmatic analysis of a political organization in the ‘Politics’ is not just civilizational history but an approach of utopian idealism and real-world complexities.
The real world poses both challenges and opportunities for a new world order achieving a balance between material progress and spiritual values essential for sustainable development, where economic efficiency, social justice, freedom and preservation of the human species and its natural habitat are considered as the primary insights. In other words a comprehensive approach that integrates philosophical wisdom and scientific advancement is adopted by embracing these principles and fostering global cooperation, so that humanity can aspire to a more equitable and sustainable future.
The international rule based order is under stress since its establishment after World War II threatening its very foundations. The causes for such vulnerability are the growing friction among the major powers, the triumphant rise of ultra-right wing political parties, dilution in the forces of globalisation and free market economies and the world’s inability to defeat the terrorist groups comprehensively.
A world order means a rule-based order fundamental to the very existence of states without external pressure which require a collaborative approach that might be institutional, regional or global. Questions are asked such as what can be done to reinvigorate the existing old order or substitute it with a more transformative contemporary approach.
To have answers it is imperative that we must understand the most distinctive attributes of the post 1945-world order, what forces are now placing it under strain and what aspects of today’s order are most vulnerable and which are most resilient. It is necessary that foundation of global stability and order should be strengthened. Cotemporary analysis of world order had documented the ‘decline’ of the west and the rise of the ‘rest’. The rising powers dispute the longstanding rules of the global game and are determined to alter fundamental principles and standards of international conduct. But despite the reservations they accept that in the views of G. John Ikenberry, contemporary political scientist, the western liberal order laid down in 1945 and which emerged victorious in the cold war, is here to stay.
This has powerful advantages. Firstly capitalist democracies still hold a majority of global power. Secondly sprawling landscape of rules, institutions and networks easily accommodate newcomers who can easily join but hard to overturn. Thirdly rising powers will never align into a cohesive, counter-hegemonic bloc given their distinct histories, identities and interests. Finally all major powers, rising and established, have a status-quo orientation and do not want to overhaul existing regimes but want to attain greater voice and weight within them.
The old world order and a transforming new world order points out that there exists a western liberal international order whose distinctive values, norms, laws and institutions are designed to govern state conduct. Though the post World War II order originated in Europe it achieved its full expression with the rise of the US to global leadership. The US combined power and purpose to forge a multilateral world order using persuasion, incentives and coercion to do so denoting a baseline level of predictability and patterned regularity for states and institutions which make it effective. Norms and rules are not divorced from power and great powers have been the makers of world order and the weak the takers. There is little change at present in the world order vision which carries the imprint of national purposes, historical legacies, ideological predispositions and political culture.
The principles of order based on liberal internationalism remains consistent while the old world order broke down after the demise of Soviet Union. The unipolar world lead by US was not accepted by all. China has invested significantly domestically and around the world attempting to change world institutions becoming the first socialist super power. Russia and China have closer cooperation and Russia wishes to export resources eastwards if sanctions persist after the Ukraine war.
A closer cooperation between US and Europe is possible in theory but the US is focusing more on the Indo-Pacific region perhaps in the form of an extended AUKUS bloc (Australia, UK & US). UK is trying to play a central role as under the commonwealth but it will not be easy after Brexit. India does not want to cooperate with China as it has issues of territorial claims but it has not criticized Russia’s war in Ukraine and maintains high trade relations with it.
It continues to have problems with Pakistan though unable to manage an enormous population demanding employment and welfare under Modi’s nationalist government. Europe has been internally divided for a long time between northern and southern countries as well as old and new members.
They disagree over border control policies, quota for refugees and future enlargement but they have acted swiftly regarding their approach on the Ukraine war pointing at Russia as the aggressor. But Covid19 pandemic crisis and the war in Ukraine have accelerated the reshaping of globalisation and formulation of a new world order.
Sovereignty and non-intervention are important rules of the world order but emerging security threats have weakened this presumption and sovereignty is depicted as contingent on fulfilling certain obligations. At 2005 UN High Level Summit, it was unanimously endorsed that states can forfeit their external intervention if it makes war on its citizens or fails to protect them from atrocities. But western states have hijacked the norm to pursue a policy of regime change intervention in Libya, Saddam Hussain’s removal in Iraq, Russia’s actions in Ukraine, Transnistria, along-with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Use of force without UNSC approval has been a repeated deviation which includes NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999, invasion of Iraq by US-led coalition forces in 2008, a novel interpretation by administration of George W. Bush under the doctrine of ‘pre-emption’ in the Syrian conflict is evidence of UNSC’s growing irrelevance to international peace. Failure to update council membership is a long-term threat to UNSC legitimacy and credibility.
There is a deadlock in global trade liberalization, failure to complete the WTO’s Doha Development Round since 2001, rising competing models of regional trade like TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), long term role of the dollar and China’s no strings attached approach.
Besides mitigating and adapting to ‘climate change’, it is the gravest long term threat to world order posing an existential threat to life on earth. Another major challenge to contemporary world order is the maritime, air space, outer space and cyber space domains. More pressing are orbital debris, vehicle collisions and space militarization which need rules of the road. The US must recognize certain realities and set its objectives in the light of them. It should give special focus to important emerging democracies like India, Brazil and Indonesia and bind itself to multilateral institutions based on enlightened self-interest and lessons of history. Since the US remains as a dominant factor in any global order it must temper its historic ‘exemptionalist’ stance towards multilateral cooperation or rich critique to the detriment of world order.
As the world transforms towards different blocs, the new world order is taking shape with entrants of the New South in a multi-polar world. They are adding more muscle to the G – 20 and as an array of non-western countries, forging a new identity. Hence it is hard to dismiss the fact that change in the international structure is being constructed towards greater multi-polarity. Renewed interests of major powers in securing support and partnerships with countries of the global south, new African engagements, enlargement of the BRICS indicates an openness for reform is clearly visible because the risk of losing global power and influence is real. The old order should accept multi-polarity and change with the time.
The author is the Secretary of Pakistan Institute of International Affairs and former Chairperson of Department of Political Science, University of Karachi.
