Geopolitics and the lens of history

The 2008 global economic crisis has been historical, it has been widespread and longstanding, and it has been the indicator of the erosion of the West’s dominance in global affairs.

The US’s unipolar moment that had begun with November 1989’s fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of Russia had brought in a goodness in the world, that of globalisation. The complex web of supply chains connecting far-flung states for the industrial production of specific products reached unprecedented levels in this era. This became possible because the US was able to align most states towards a singular interest — the interest of the US and its allies. Everybody benefitted from this new world order proclaimed in George Bush’s January 1991 speech, wherein the ‘rule of law’ would govern the conduct of nations, and where the peacekeeping role of a credible United Nations would fulfil the promise and vision of the founders of the world body.

But it was an unsustainable proclamation, because the ‘vision of the founders of the UN’, rather the vision of the victors of WWII — who were now also the victors against the second pole, the USSR — would only be shared by the wider community of nations, as long as the US would remain insurmountable. But human nature is fluid, and so is human history; it cannot stand on one static equilibrium, change is its innate dynamics.

Yet ironically, the most cerebral and the most prudent, when in the seat of power, make the mistake of thinking that ‘their vision’ is the ultimate, unquestionable one. Perhaps the truth of the matter is that at a certain height of knowledge and power, precision and conscientiousness are given up for generalisation and hubris. And what the most powerful tend to forget is that the ‘others’ whom they have defeated once, have not stopped living, learning, evolving and resisting their defeaters any single day or year.

So it happened that within the first two decades of the dollar-dominated globalisation era, the others took what globalisation had to offer and learned how to circumvent US interests in the games it was playing with them. Japan is a good example of learned and modified behaviour. It had modernised in the Meiji Revolution, was destroyed and occupied in WWII, again restored its technological advances and again faced two ‘lost decades’ when the US hit it with its ‘trade war’, just before the US opened its arms towards China. Yet again, Japan has mended its ways with the US and has accepted it as a patron and an ally. Now the same cycle seems to be repeated with China in Trump’s Trade War.

At the same time, the ‘vision of the founders’ has perpetually flawed. The ‘rule of law’ has mostly proven to be the rule of intimidation and coercion, and the UN has seldom proven to be an insurer of peace in the numerous wars and conflicts that have ceaselessly followed WWII or even the Cold War. It has only been able to protect the big powers by facilitating proxy-war settings in wars and conflicts, and specifically the western big powers post-Cold War.

Historically speaking, unipolar moments are unrealistic and unsustainable; the historic normal is constant competition and rivalry between major powers and the impending possibility of war between them. And with this dangerous precedence comes a structure in global politics that divides nations and creates alliances. As the unipolar gradually falls with its own weight of unilateral self-assuredness and self-indulgence, the gradually strengthening states muster together to make alliances strong enough to make the fall inevitable.

So, as the GDP of the G7 countries is projected to fall from 45% of world total in 1992 to 27.7% by 2018, the emerging BRICS countries would be growing from a mere 15% to 33.6% of the world total in the same period. Moreover, even as the G7, sensing its economic downfall, expanded itself to G20, it did not give the G20 any practical importance until 2008, but by then perhaps it was too late. Because the same big economies that were added to G20 were now ready to join China and Russia in making BRICS. BRICS has already added Saudi Arabia, Iran, the UAE, Ethiopia, Egypt in January 2024; but when in the coming years it also adds Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Congo, Nigeria, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Belarus, as planned, it will by far have the biggest GDP, oil-production and exports.

But will history stop at BRICS? Will the G7 stop living or resisting? Will others not find new ways to become stronger and powerful? Because the parameters partaking in global politics are not only innumerous, they are also everchanging and unpredictable. Reality is not confined to the generalised framework we create in our minds to simplify complex situations, nor does it restrain itself in set patterns with limited parameters — reality is not like experiments done in the lab, where only two variables are allowed to play while rest are controlled. Once a third variable is allowed to play, the experimental results may turn unpredictable and chaotic, let alone the innumerous variables out at play in real life.

Life and its ways, in essence, are multifaceted, perplexed, winding and truly unpredictable. We generalise that true success and value can be found in power, economic and military might and currency, but once we reach that pinnacle, we find ourselves at the most vulnerable and most impermanent place. Life does not rest at a place, history never ceases to churn its wheels upon nations — so that nations come out more experienced each time, and relatively similar state of affairs always yield new, unusual outcomes; so that humanity is reminded every time that it has no kings, no empires, what it has is perpetual strife, race and antagonism. But as much as humans boost to be scientific and logical, they are as much prone to self-deception; they tend to eschew reality and forget the lessons of history; they tend to the assumption that ‘power’ is the real and attainable value. And for the purpose of ‘power’ they turn the complete human landscape into a battlefield where the fittest and the most cunning will survive, and the meek and humanly will perish.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2024.

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