Global politics has always been marked by a state of perpetual uncertainty and disorder, thanks to the state-centric approach of major powers. Such precariousness in the realm of world politics necessitates nation-states to vie for securing their national interests, ensuring well-being, and maintaining and/or cultivating an upper hand, whenever, however, and wherever possible, in their interactions with other actors.
Against this backdrop, based on their aims and ends, states resort to such measures as selective cooperation, well-calibrated compromise, and calculated competition in a bid to bring their actions in tandem with their grand strategies. Should history offer any guide, given the inherently anarchical configuration of transnational politics, states often opt for competition over cooperation due, in part, to the dearth of a higher governing authority and the presence of a state of lawlessness.
Indubitably, the history of world orders and wars corroborates the very fact that it was always the absence of a functional, inclusive, and accommodative governing framework that, on one hand, fostered predicaments and ushered into what political scientist Thomas Hobbes names ‘a state of nature’ and, on the other side, culminated in excruciatingly devastative wars. For instance, the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, the Thirty Years’ European Catholics versus Protestants war, and the 20th century’s global wars were a product of the anarchy underlying supranational transactions.
In the aftermath of World War I (WWI), then US President Woodrow Wilson, realizing the unacceptable cost accrued and damages inflicted by WWI, fathered the conception of establishing an institutional arrangement in the form of the League of Nations to invalidate war as an instrument of foreign policy and tame the jungle of world politics and transform it into a zoo.
In the period between the creation of the League and World War II (WWII), influential statesmen and notable diplomatic corridors imagined, inadvertently or otherwise, politics in more rhetorical and utopian terms and, ergo, stopped short of undertaking any pragmatic measures on account of existing fault lines, emergence of competing and conflictual political philosophies, and expansionist designs of major powers.
Notwithstanding having at their disposal good offices of the League, members’ aversion to constructive engagements, the furtherance of their entrenched interests, and beggar-thy-neighbor postures kept the regulatory regime from gaining roots and weathering the storm of orderly disorder, as put explicitly into perspective in his book “The Twenty Years’ Crisis” by E. H. Carr.
Albeit created with higher expectations and greater optimism, the League failed to stand true to its raison d’etre partly due to a multipolar configuration of power and primarily owing to the reason that its members’ whims trumped their collective will and competition dwarfed broad-based coordination, ensuing in the second global war.
Having buried the acerbic experience of the past and whilst also taking into account the League’s grey areas, the victors of WWII under the leadership of the United States laid down the foundation of the United Nations as a beacon of hope and to avert future wars. Also, being a new arbiter and commander-in-chief, the US authored a set of new institutions, prescribed new ideals, and provided for ways as elements of the so-called rule-based liberal meritocratic world order to champion global peace and security.
More specifically, the order that emanated from the debris of WWII drew its strength from institutional mechanisms such as the UN, the IMF, and the WB. Besides, liberal values, democratic governance, collective security, and supremacy of international law rendered the new operating system an impetus in gaining cross-cultural acceptance and making inroads. At its onset, the US-tailored global governance infrastructure was anchored in and concentrated in Western Europe.
In this connection, political scientist G. John. Ikenberry writes that the order till the Cold War’s end was a bounded one, envisaging safety and security for the United States’ transatlantic partners in the face of threats posed by the Soviet expansionist designs. In this way, the order in much of the second half of the 20th century remained concerned with the Soviet threat and Western Europe’s political economy of defense, arresting the liberal order from accruing coveted dividends.
Following the fall of the Iron Curtain and Soviet disintegration, not only did the configuration of global power transform from bipolarity to a unipolar arrangement but the liberal order also transcended its sphere from being a regional security framework to a global governance structure. It was those fateful days when, for the first time in human history, a single nation-state became a global hegemon in true essence.
The United States witnessed heydays of its global power, authority, and legitimacy, and celebrated its triumph under the umbrella of a unipolar moment. In this context, various writers reached the definitive epilogue that, in the race of survival of the fittest political philosophies, the American political and economic models eclipsed other competing and rival systems like fascism, authoritarianism, and communism.
An instance of such ideological triumphalist sentiments can be discovered in the widely-read Francis Fukuyama’s ‘The End of History’ and Charles Krauthammer’s ‘The Unipolar Moment’. With a single power in the commanding position, the global community hoped for hegemonic stability as there were no other competitors to disavow the US line of action and beat war drums.
In the subsequent years, with the US’s extraneous zero-sum engagements having skyrocketed, the country’s potential to keep the purpose of its order intact plummeted. In pursuance of its entrenched aspirations, the United States punitively abused power and painfully exploited its authority.
At present, the fractured order is grappling with an identity crisis and a crisis of social purpose, making it astronomically vestigial to rely on and reckon with. Additionally, the Russia-Ukraine war, the US-China war, Israel’s war on Gaza, Tel Aviv’s unlawful and unjustifiable attack on Iran’s consular premises in Syria, and maturing great power strategic rivalry on the face of mounting non-kinetic and unconventional existential challenges further add credence to the ubiquitous presence of structural anarchy in global politics’ infrastructure.
Notwithstanding such a distressful milieu, to maintain its global status and authority, the US is meteorically weaponising institutional frameworks, militarizing financial chokepoints, and polarizing the comity of nations in the pretext of the Thucydides trap to punish dissenting voices and revanchist nations. To that effect, the US has deployed its underground empire (combination of control over dollars, information, and intellectual property) to play odds against rivals as well as centripetal tendencies, reverberating what Thucydides, an ancient Greek historian, once said.
“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”—Thucydides
Against such stark realities, the need for a more democratic, adaptive, and pluralistic operating system as an alternative to the collapsing liberal order has become a matter of utmost necessity rather than a choice. Then, anti-status quo powers like China, Russia, and Iran have every reason to expedite their endeavors to establish a new global governing body in conjunction with shifting realities and as a step towards building bridges of cooperation and confidence for a more sustainable, certain, and prosperous future.
Whilst exploring the possible alternatives, Kishore Mahbubani, author of Has China Won?, writes that the future belongs to Asia and the rise of the Asian century is as clear as the light of day. As such, countries in the global south, like Pakistan, ought to revisit their priorities, redefine their course, recalibrate their external engagements and postures, and rally greater advocacy for what holds immense potential to serve their cause.
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Mr. Tufail Abbas holds a master’s degree in international relations. He teaches English essay writing and international relations via Cuckoo's Study Lab YouTube channel.