Home Random Page


CATEGORIES:

BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism






Creating a New International Order

Something must be done about Syria,” the hawks cry. Well, try diplomacy

On Syria, it’s the D-word that has become unsayable. Yes, diplomacy. To call for a diplomatic or negotiated solution to the Syrian conflict is to invite ridicule and opprobrium from the neoconservatives and self-described liberal interventionists. They still, inexplicably, dominate foreign-policy debates in the west despite their support for the catastrophic invasion of Iraq just ten years ago.

Diplomacy is for wimps, naïfs or fools; proposed peace talks in Geneva are a distraction, an evasion and a waste of time. Bashar al-Assad will kill, kill, kill while we talk, talk, talk. Only a military strike by the western powers will deter him – and protect Syrian children from chemical attacks.

This is the seductive mantra that has dominated much of the discussion on Syria. Until the Russians proposed that the Assad regime place its chemical weapons under international control – and the regime apparently decided to agree to it. Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical judo throw didn’t just put his US counterpart on the defensive; it reminded the rest of us that the world isn’t as black-and-white as the neocons and their liberal fellow-travellers often claim.

Military action is unavoidable, say the hawks. Thousands of people are dead, millions are homeless. We have tried the diplomatic route, they declare, and found it wanting. Nothing could be further from the truth. Diplomacy hasn’t been tried in Syria. It has been 15 months since the first peace conference in Geneva, in June 2012, while the second peace conference (“Geneva II”) has now been postponed twice – at the request of the Americans, not the Russians. The UN peace envoy Kofi Annan quit in 2012, claiming that he “did not receive all the support that the cause deserved”.

In a bizarre twist, we now have diplomats – such as the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and British Foreign Secretary, William Hague – loudly demanding air strikes while the generals, including Martin Dempsey, America’s top soldier, and Richard Dannatt, the former head of the British army, quietly express their doubts over the viability of military action and lend their support to a political solution.

Diplomacy might not work, but it is our best bet – and I would still rather we try to pour water, not fuel, on the flames of Syria’s terrible civil war.

The New Statesman, Sept 12, 2013


 

Creating a New International Order

“The Diplomat”, April 25, 2012

The global order has been in flux since the end of the Cold War. Two fundamental trends are reshaping the international system. First, power shifts at the global level are creating a more diverse international order as emerging and resurgent players pursue and assert their own interests. The likelihood of effective policy coordination has been reduced. Diverging interests as well as diverse perspectives on how to approach the growing number of new and longstanding issues on the international agenda have led to greater fragmentation of world politics.



At the same time, the emerging international order is characterized by deepening interdependence. All major (and minor) powers face challenges of economic growth, energy security, and environmental sustainability, all of which are intimately interconnected and which no nation can successfully confront on its own.

This creates a fundamental dilemma: managing this interdependence through multilateral cooperation demands enlightened self-interest at the very time that established means of interaction are being undermined.

As a result, the prospects for effective global governance – broadly defined as the collective management of common problems at the international and transnational level – are deteriorating because challenges on the global agenda like climate change, poverty, food insecurity, nuclear proliferation, or economic crises, are increasing in number, scale, and complexity at the very time that international institutions and national governments are being hobbled in their capacity to address them.

The G-20 is the most important recent innovation in global governance. This group played a crucial role in dealing with the immediate challenges posed by the financial and economic crisis. Yet as soon as the sense of urgency – the fear that a global financial breakdown was a very real possibility – abated, diverging interests reasserted themselves to dominate discussions and frustrate action. Real solutions to the world’s financial problems remain beyond reach, and even the legitimacy of this new organization is being contested.

Nevertheless, the creation of the G-20 is one sign that the international system is trying to respond to new challenges and fix urgent problems through new initiatives. It also reinforced the perception that global governance is in essence global crisis management; in other words, a coordinated and coherent multilateral policy is only possible under the pressure of a global crisis that threatens to have immediate and severe impact on a multitude of domestic populations.

There’s another factor at work. As international relations become more diverse and complex, power isn’t only shifting from established to emerging countries, but also toward individuals and non-state actors. Modern information and communication technologies have empowered individuals and social groups to an unprecedented degree. The Internet and social media have extended the reach and influence of individuals and organizations and enabled them to directly engage in international affairs.

The growing importance and impact of non-state actors in international politics is one distinctive political development. Transnational nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), civil society groups, social entrepreneurs, faith-based organizations, multinational corporations and other business bodies, as well as trans-sectoral public policy networks are increasingly effective in framing issues, setting agendas, and mobilizing public opinion. At the same time, however, non-state actors such as criminal organizations and terrorist networks, also empowered by new information and communication technologies, pose serious threats to the international system. Although non-state actors usually have no formal decision making power and don’t necessarily alter the policymaking process, their impact on world politics is significant and likely to grow.

The new configuration of international relations is, by and large, inherently chaotic and ungovernable. Power is increasingly geographically dispersed and politically fragmented. It’s shifting from established Western powers to emerging countries, but also, to some extent, to non-state actors who assume previously public responsibilities or pursue agendas of their own. This diffusion of power is creating a new international environment that defies clear definition. In our understanding, the new global order can’t be accurately described as a multipolar world, in which a few great powers are setting the rules of the game and disciplining those who violate them. We see little agreement on what those powers are, their willingness to work together, and the efficacy of actions if and when they do.

Global governance will become more difficult, but not impossible. Even in a world without powerful organizing forces, there are magnetic pulls and tugs that can align nations and facilitate cooperation and collaborative efforts. Let’s call this “weak polarity.” A new international order won’t emerge spontaneously, but there are many things that can and should be done to foster its creation. One defining characteristic of the emerging new age is that power, at least in the sense of traditional “hard” power, and leadership are less linked. In the absence of a comprehensive, unitary approach to global governance, new forms of leadership will emerge, not as enduring as traditional alliances or international institutions, but rather patchworks of overlapping, often ad hoc and fragmented efforts, involving shifting coalitions of state and non-state actors concentrating on specific issues. The leadership exercised by “coalitions of the willing” will be more fragmented, situational, and volatile than previous attempts. But they nevertheless might achieve concrete results.

There’s a thick layer of overlapping and competing authorities in the existing system of global governance and most emerging countries have no interest in upending this system; they prefer to make adjustments. But the future international order will be no mere outgrowth of existing mechanisms. Planetary problems pose new challenges and require new problem-solving mechanisms as management of them is of a different nature and dimension than past challenges. The lowest common denominator is no longer a sufficient starting point for meaningful coordinated action on the global level. Whether this means the creation of new institutions is of secondary importance: either existing intuitions may take up the challenges or new ones will be created.

There’s a lack of vision about the future of the international system and the emerging global order. To facilitate creation of such a vision, we need a strategic conversation about global governance and the foundations of a new international order.

 


 


Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1309


<== previous page | next page ==>
General Notes on Dialects and the Orthoepic Norm of Language | An Anchorless World
doclecture.net - lectures - 2014-2024 year. Copyright infringement or personal data (0.007 sec.)