Living in a multipolar world

Two decades ago, in the early 1990s, when the erstwhile Eastern Block under Soviet dominance was disintegrating, all indications were - and analysts assessed - that the period of a bipolar world with its doctrine of a balance of power, as it developed after World War 2 (WWII), had come to an end. The world seemed destined for a unipolar order. In the fourth article in our series on the present epoch, we conclude this has been but an interlude in the flow of history as we - at least as an interim dispensation - move into multipolar disorder.

In the two decades or so since the collapse of the Eastern Block and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States moved almost by default into the position of leader of the world. In this role, it was strongly deputised by the West, and markedly the European Union and the United Kingdom. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as a leftover from WWII, largely remained in place as the dominant military grouping.

It was a time during which just about every international organisation - from the United Nations to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Bank - became heavily dominated by the US and its allies. The US, more often than not assisted by the UK and at times other NATO member states, also assumed the role of policeman of the world.

The US dollar’s position as currency of last resort became entrenched. The US was seen as the driver and, often, financier of international economic development. In exchange for this role, it ran huge global trade surpluses, which domestically made it possible to finance the most lavish lifestyle in history on the back of ever growing budget deficits. Offshore assets effectively balanced the books, the theory went.

It was also the time of ever expanding globalisation with its doctrine that we were living in a global village. Those who did not live by the rules of this global village were left behind. These rules on the economic front were dictated mostly by the IMF, WTO and World Bank.

Unravelling of unipolar world

As the debt levels of the leader of the world and its most prominent allies have reached unsustainable levels, pressures on the resources of the world have mounted to almost intolerable levels and its wars far beyond its borders have become unwinnable, the neat orderliness of the unipolar world is increasingly showing signs of baldy unravelling.

When the history of the present period in the existence of man and its nations are written, it is highly likely that historians will identify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a deeply flawed War of Terrorism as the final tipping point in the dominance of the global scene by the West. Its largely failed conference earlier this year in Toronto, Canada might also turn out to have been the so-called G20’s hurrah.

Arshin Abid-Moghaddam recently wrote on the openDemocracy website: “A decade of wars has produced a strategic shift very different from what Washington and its allies intended – less towards unipolar order than the complexities of multipolar disorder. This poses a challenge to policy-makers and analysts alike.”

He further writes that “a decade after it (unipolarity) was reformulated to the era of war on terror, the strategic context of what the late Fred Halliday called greater west Africa has indeed radically shifted – but far less in accordance with the deceptive certainties of unipolar order than the complexity of multipolar disorder.

“The strongest evidence of this is that the US’s early military victory in Iraq proved a mirage and the ongoing military campaign in Afghanistan is strategically lost. In effect, these two wars have ended the unipolar moment.”

Abid-Moghaddam argues that the result is a new regional order and that “Turkey’s repositioning within the greater west Asian area is the most prominent example of the emerging regional order.”

In another article on the same website, Ángel Gómez-de-Ágreda concurs, and states that the war in Afghanistan could leave NATO powers excluded from the entire central Asia.

“Most of Asia is sitting on the stands of the Afghan stadium watching this absurd game and sounding their vuvuzelas. NATO and the US are defeating themselves at a very low cost for competing powers.

“Not even the business opportunities represented by the announcement of the trillion dollars worth of mineral riches in Afghan soil has increased interest in the country. Even [General Stanley] McCrystal’s sacking had more media coverage,” he wrote.

The economic front

But, it is not merely on the strategic geo-political front that things are coming unstuck for US and Western dominance.

Calls for the dollar to be scrapped as the sole reserve currency no longer come from solely the likes of China. Last month, a UN report called for the abandoning of the US dollar as the main global reserve currency, sayng it has been unable to safeguard value.

To the indignation of some American commentators, the IMF earlier this month had the audacity to tell the US in a report that it needs to start getting its budget deficit down. Aiming at the American lifestyle, it put cutting Social Security at the top of the steps that the US should take to achieve deficit reduction.

Furthermore, there are increasing signs that differences on how the present economic crisis should be handled are putting strain on the solidarity among the developed world. While authorities in the US are continuing with crisis economics for fear that early tightening of loose fiscal and monetary policies could cause another recession, EU countries are implementing austerity measures to reverse budget deficits.

Taking note of the emerging multipolar world, South Africa’s Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan recently said the country supported WB chief economist Justin Yifu Lin’s view of creating a platform for multipolar growth where investment, job creation, poverty and development must take place across the globe.

“Currently, Europe is South Africa’s biggest trading partner, while it is clear that emerging markets are now providing impetus for growth. We need to reorientate our trading structures to take advantage of these new opportunities,” he said.

But the restructuring of the world economy as globalisation - as we have come to know it - seems to be losing its grip, does not only have implications for countries and regions. The Times of London recently wrote: “The glory days of the multinational company are over. The big corporate bruiser that shuffles its profits to a convenient tax jurisdiction, riding roughshod over local politics, and imposing international standards over local rules, is a creature of the past, a phantom of the ‘70s.”

Piet Coetzer