Edited by W. Joseph Stroupe with the mission of explaining world events correctly via strategic analysis & forecasting
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Author's Note to the Reader:
We are not concerned here with the implausible scenario of a Soviet-style collapse of the American superpower, perhaps induced at the hands of the rising East. Nor is it about the destruction of the US. Rather than thinking in such unrealistic black-and-white 'colors', the reader should consider whether the current US global position of dominance is currently at risk, not the existence of the US as a superpower.
Too many persons have become captive to thinking merely in the two 'colors' of black and white - the US destroys Russia and/or China, or conversely, they destroy the US. Or, the US economy collapses in ruins or else it upholds its global dominance, with no consideration given to any eventuality somewhere between those two ends. The US need not be destroyed or suffer a collapse as did the Soviet Union in order to lose its top global position. It could well come about with a sufficient and permanent loss of US global political, economic and military leverage (the ability on the ground on an ongoing basis to successfully seduce and/or otherwise compel the world's players either to align with or else refrain from opposing US interests and goals), as the reader will see in the analysis that follows.
It isn't yet fashionable to speak openly of a world subdividing itself again into two camps - those aligned with the US and those aligned with the Russia-China axis at the core of a new rising, multifarious yet coherent pole of the East - with the dividing line between the two camps consisting of the contest for control over global strategic resources.
Despite all the relevant signs pointing precisely in that direction -
The deepening accord in all key spheres between Russia, China, India, the other rising powers of the East and the key resource-rich regimes of the world
The steadily rising East-West tensions, the ever more divergent interests between East and West
The increasingly incompatible approaches to global issues and problems resulting in an ever-widening chasm between East and West
The fact that the chasm between East and West can only be 'bridged' superficially, merely papered over by ostensibly meaningful agreements that in fact embody very little of real substance (such as those agreements on the North Korea, the Iran, the democratic reform and the economic liberalization issues)
Still, the arising of any new coherent pole of the East and the thriving of a new cold war between East and West isn't generally accepted as a reality by most observers - not yet, anyway. Additionally, neither are the rising powers in the East seen by most observers as able to mount a truly serious challenge to US global dominance anytime soon. Despite its current troubles, the US is still generally seen as the Global Colossus that no challenger can successfully 'do battle' with, as it were.
Why are the clear developments signifying the building beneath the surface of a Neo Cold War and what will be proven here to be the grave and impending threat posed by the rising East to the current US global position still being widely overlooked, at least publicly, at this advanced juncture in global developments?
Fashionable new theories that teetered on the brink of the supposed global absolutism of US power arose after 1991 in the post-Soviet period, in the heady days of the aftermath of the astonishing disappearance of the once-feared Soviet Empire, leaving only one superpower to dominate the globe:
The new theories purported to describe and explain the supposed ushering in, not merely of a new unipolar configuration for the ongoing world order, but of a brand new American-made fabric for the international order itself - the de facto, virtual global totalitarianism of the US superpower - wherein virtually all global authority and leverage in every sphere - military, economic, political, ideological, moral, and diplomatic - was seen for all practical purposes as vested in the US, in virtual perpetuity, as "the only superpower left".
The new fabric was seen as the de facto global ideological, economic and military totalitarianism of US democracy, and it was declared that from 1991 forward the world order would have to be defined in terms of that new international, but US-made fabric. According to the new thinking the world order would continue for the foreseeable future to be unquestionably US-centric and US-dominated almost by default.
The leverage of all the other, lesser powers (if exercised independent of, or in opposition to the US) was seen as a perpetually insignificant factor unworthy of serious consideration.
According to the new global absolutism theories, the US was ushered into a unique position such that the position itself inherently and automatically guaranteed the US possession of virtually inviolable global dominance. Wherever this absolutist view was not explicitly stated, it was (and to a considerable extent it still is) almost always implied and assumed. Hence, when Russia and China began dispensing their "multipolar" ideologies embodied in their numerous Joint Statements on the World Order starting in 1996, most observers snickered at the prospects for actually putting an end to US global dominance anytime soon.
There is still a great deal of snickering going on today because, while on the one hand the illusory concepts of a global American Empire and the supposed global ideological absolutism (totalitarianism) of American-style democracy have been thoroughly discredited and prevented from achieving realization (by the global rise and bolstering of authoritarian regimes and "sovereign democracies"), on the other hand the illusions of a perpetual global totalitarianism of the US military and of the US economy have maintained until now their tenacious grasp on the minds of all too many observers, though ever more serious doubts are arising of late.
According to these and related popular theories, overwhelming US global economic, political, ideological and military power and leverage doom to ultimate failure any attempt by lesser powers, even acting collectively, to actually free the world order from US domination anytime soon. Those fashionable new theories declare the US cannot actually be shifted out of its position of global dominance anytime soon for the simple reason that the US will not permit any other power or group of powers to rise to the level of becoming a match, and therefore a real threat, to the US. Notwithstanding the current US troubles on the world stage, across the globe few observers truly see the US in grave jeopardy as respects its global position. And any who do claim to see it in such jeopardy are still not taken very seriously.
While China and Russia are certainly rising and their strategic cooperation is rapidly deepening, both powers are still widely seen as mini-sized as compared to the US, and both are also still widely seen as inordinately dependent upon the US economy and US wealth. Militarily, the two powers are seen as a long way off from being able to mount a serious challenge to the US. Even the Russia-China axis itself, and the wider rising East, still struggle with the compelling tendency to continue to see themselves in this very light - standing very small in the enormous global shadow of the US. Consequently, the persuasive new theories that arose in the post-Soviet period to explain the supposed arising of a fundamentally brand new, deeply entrenched unipolar world order have gained wide acceptance and continue to have a profound effect on the thinking of persons across the globe.
The US is still widely seen as an enormous colossus whose global position cannot be gravely endangered except by another colossus of at least equal size - and no such rival colossus is evident. Instead, it is the multifarious rising East, a comparatively mini-sized and complex (not monolithic) creature, that is taking up its position on the world stage as challenger to continued US global dominance. Could the American Goliath really be at risk from comparatively mini-sized challengers in the East? Most observers have more than a little difficulty envisioning how and why such a challenge should genuinely be taken seriously.
But the new theories touting supposed US global absolutism have not, in fact, enhanced the ability of those embracing them to correctly analyze and forecast global developments. Quite to the contrary, as developments do keep steadily advancing deeper into a global realignment of key powers away from the US and toward the East, and along the trajectory of the rapid rise of the East and the equally rapid decline of the actual leverage of the West on the global stage, and toward the arising of a Neo Cold War rivalry between the two sides over control of global resources, the new theories are getting incrementally pushed ever closer to the trash bin of mistaken analysis and irrelevancy. Those (the majority of observers) who are still holding to the selfsame new theories keep trying to force-fit global developments into the idealistic, theoretical, fashionable mold that increasingly fails to match with what is actually happening across the globe. This has the effect of fogging up the issues, the true condition of East-West relations, the ability to identify the genuine and persistent forces still governing those relations even after 1991. Consequently, the real meaning of ongoing developments gets clouded.
Actual global developments are not tracking along lines that are even remotely in accordance with the new theories. The US, bogged down in two rapidly mounting military-economic-geopolitical quagmires (Iraq and Afghanistan), facing numerous and simultaneous new quagmires (such as Iran and North Korea), facing a rapidly approaching day of economic reckoning for all its short-sighted, self-diminishing economic policies and facing also a world insidiously disconnecting itself from the US as the only global economic engine, and suffering an unprecedented degree of international disdain and isolation, is in real strategic trouble on the global stage, while simultaneously the East continues its meteoric economic and geopolitical rise with a clear stance as a determined opponent to continued US global dominance. How is it that the US is truly wedged in a predicament of strategic trouble rather than merely experiencing a temporary downturn, as so many still assume?
The degree of leverage the US is now actually able to successfully exercise on the global stage to seduce and/or otherwise compel the world's players to align with its interests and goals has severely and strategically collapsed from what it was only five years ago when 9/11 occurred. Its formerly overwhelming degree of global power and leverage is quite literally a thing of the past. How so?
Not Europe, nor Latin America, nor Central Asia, nor the Middle East, nor South and Southeast Asia any longer feel obliged to tow the US line as they used to, whether willingly or under the compulsion of formerly overwhelming, multi-dimensional US strength.
Significantly, that former overwhelming leverage was the guarantee, the insurance policy that no new arrangements independent of, or in opposition to the US, ones that might undermine and endanger its global position by weakening, circumventing and undermining its key underpinnings, could ever be formed, enacted or could thrive. That all-important (to the US) insurance policy has already been cancelled.
The US is already suffering a real and verifiable, permanent downscale of genuine consequence on the world stage. While still a colossus, it isn't remotely as massive as most observers apparently assume that it still is. Consequently, the new theories asserting the virtual perpetuity of overwhelming US global power and dominance are inordinately based in unfounded assumption, wishful thinking and outright fantasy.
Even those who passionately disdain US-led unipolarity have generally fallen victim to the fog-inducing effects of the increasingly irrelevant new theories discussed earlier and have (erroneously) resigned themselves to live under US-led unipolarity for the foreseeable future. They tend to 'see' the US as virtually invincible, or at least as still towering almost irreversibly far above all other powers. They erroneously assume any credible challenge to US global dominance must come from a power (or powers) of nearly equal or greater size as compared to the US itself. Hence, laboring in that fog, the majority of observers 'see' the possibility of the arising of a new cold war between East and West as largely irrelevant for the simple reason that the East is not yet 'seen' even remotely as a real match for the size and power of the US global hegemon and for the West in general. Why would the East, possessing comparatively mini-sized global power, be so foolish as to embark upon the 'self-destructive' course of opposing the West in a new cold war? Most persons have tended to conclude that it would not embark upon such a 'futile' course and that it is not now doing so.
It is entirely appropriate at this juncture to ask a series of questions designed to re-calibrate our thinking to be more in line with the reality of the current global situation:
What if US-led unipolarity turns out to be a mere temporary aberration, not the new entrenched reality asserted by the new theories? What if US troubles on the world stage actually do signify, not merely a temporary downturn, but rather a strategic loss of global power, an ongoing, largely self-induced multi-dimensional (economic, political, military, diplomatic, ideological, moral) over-reach and a resulting irretrievable forfeiture of a consequential sum of its global leverage, as detailed here?
Could such ongoing, deepening US troubles, coupled with certain clever, opportunistic and insidious asymmetric strategies hatched in the East and expertly directed against US strategic vulnerabilities, catch the US Colossus massively off its guard, resulting in the ability of a rising multifarious East to push the Colossus past the tipping point as respects a loss of its global dominance?
Increasing numbers of informed leaders and experts who are charged with oversight and protection of US national security are using such terms as "economic catastrophe" and are sounding an ever louder alarm about the increasing exploitation and the potential exploitation by the East of key US vulnerabilities, such as its huge foreign energy dependence, its gigantic foreign cash and financing dependence and its massive dependence upon high-tech computers, networks and satellites.
Issues and problems of global importance that painfully demonstrate the increasingly divergent interests and ever more incompatible approaches of East and West are rapidly coming to a head. As they continue to do so, they will increasingly bring to the surface and out into the open the true condition of East-West relations - that of a fundamental rivalry between two opposing poles.
What are the key issues and problems rapidly coming to a head?
The Iran crisis and prospects for a US attack on Iranian facilities and assets
The North Korea crisis and the growing prospects for a war resulting from stringent US-led embargo and interdiction at sea
Continued NATO/EU expansion eastward and the creation of an ABM shield on Russia's doorstep
The issue of international energy security and whether the current US-backed energy market order will continue to be dominant
As these and other issues and crises inexorably and imminently come to a head, likely involving further military conflict and crisis as well as an intensified arms race and ever more strident East-vs-West energy geopolitics, then all the remaining fog with respect to the true condition of East-West relations will dissipate, and the full-blown arising of a Neo Cold War between the Neo West and the rising multifarious East, with the Russia-China axis at its center, will be more clearly discerned. The events now impending that will cause the present fog to dissipate will be like a 'coming out' for the Neo Cold War.
Under the surface, or behind the veil if you prefer, the foundations of that inevitable Neo Cold War have been building steadily for at least a decade. Inordinate US global dominance exercised in greedy, overly-muscular fashion and a growing wariness and determination on the part of the rising multifarious East to bring in a 'more equitable' world order are fundamental forces fueling the inevitable arising of the Neo Cold War between East and West.
The deepening Russia-China axis and its growing constellation of strategic partners, though increasingly wary of US global dominance and not lacking in determination to bring it eventually to an end, of necessity have avoided directly confronting the US head-to-head in a conventional boxing-match-style economic or military conflict. Such a conventional confrontation between the US and the comparatively smaller, less powerful Russia-China axis would quickly result in a catastrophe for the East. In fact, the rising East has intentionally kept its relations with the West as friendly as possible in order to avoid the terrible costs of a direct, conventional confrontation. This policy has facilitated, without needless interruption, the ongoing and massive transfer of wealth from the West to the emerging (rising) economies of the East. It is a very smart and pragmatic policy for the East.
Nevertheless, simultaneous with that policy another one is being actively pursued. The rising East is not content to merely assume that the US Colossus will treat, or will learn to treat the globe's lesser powers in a fair and equitable manner, taking proper account of their legitimate views and interests. Unilateralist, overly-muscular and mostly self-serving US policies and actions since the 1991 collapse of the roughly balanced bipolar order of the two superpowers demonstrate that nothing can be taken for granted in that regard. Prudently, the rising multifarious East has been learning ever deeper and wider multilateral cooperation within itself in the energy, economic, diplomatic, political and military spheres aimed at developing and putting in place potent asymmetric leverages in all those same spheres.
Especially in the sphere of control of global energy resources, the rising East is increasing its global leverage far more quickly than most experts predicted, and the profound political effects across the globe are only now being recognized. For example, in The Washington Times of October 29, 2006 David R. Sands writes in his article entitled, "Fueling U.S. Adversaries", that America's most determined adversaries are being powerfully bolstered by exploiting the tight global supply situation and sustained high prices. He quotes Secretary of State Rice, who admits she previously underestimated the ways the "energy question" has distorted international relations. On the potent worldwide political effects being wrought by energy, Secretary Rice stated before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April, 2006:
"I can tell you that nothing has taken me aback more as secretary of state than the way the politics of energy is - I will use the word 'warping' - diplomacy around the world."
The Council on Foreign Relations released a report entitled, "National Security Consequences of U.S. Oil Dependency" in October, 2006. In it the authors lament the fact that few in the West understand the full dimensions of growing US vulnerability with respect to the energy weapon. The report expresses alarm at the multi-pronged, potent global changes being wrought by the increasing energy-based political, economic and diplomatic leverage of Russia and the East and the corresponding collapse of US leverage in the same spheres. The report is an alarming, but certainly not an alarmist, wake up call for the US and for the wider West.
The rising East is fully preparing its array of potent asymmetric levers enabling it to win any form of conflict with the West, but it will not provoke a conflict. While it fully intends to complete very soon its rise in all the spheres noted above, it won't be the multifarious East that provokes conflict; instead, it will be the US and its allies that will do so. The impending provocation, whatever it turns out to be, will oblige the rising East to scrap the policy of striving to maintain peaceful relations with the US in favor of employing the full range of tools, alliances and strategies it has put in place in order to win a renewed conflict with the West.
And the provocation that will mark the 'coming out' for the Neo Cold War is impending. What will it be?
Iraq was the opportunity to isolate the US - one of the key strategies pursued by the East to lay the basis for undermining the US global position. And the US did not disappoint by staying out of Iraq. It went ahead with its invasion and has suffered enormously on the world stage as a result. While it has been suffering the rising East has been cleverly capitalizing and preparing to win any future conflict, whether direct or indirect, whether in the sphere of energy, economy, ideology, diplomacy, or military, or a combination of all the foregoing. Now, should the US engage in a new provocation, such as an attack on Iran, a war with North Korea that starts at sea over the interdiction of ships, a renewed push to instigate "colored" revolutions throughout the East in an effort to scupper its geopolitical rise, further eastward expansion of NATO and the EU and setting up ABM missile complexes and other military installations on Russia's doorstep or in Taiwan, or other serious provocations not actually listed here, the West will find the assertiveness and self-confidence of Russia and the East to be much greater than when it pushed past all objectors to invade Iraq in 2003. This time the East will possess the viable option of bringing into play its wider and much more potent array of asymmetric levers to enormously increase the costs to the US of provocation, putting at grave and imminent risk the very global position which the US still tenaciously clings to.
Can the still relatively mini-sized but rapidly rising multifarious East accomplish the desired shift of the US out of its global position? After a review of the array of potent asymmetric levers now held in the rising East's grasp, a much better question is whether the US can possibly find a way to hold onto that position in the face of the clever, multi-dimensional asymmetric assault that awaits the Colossus if it further provokes its smaller rivals, which it most assuredly will do. The world is now poised for the dramatic 'coming out' of the Neo Cold War. It is a Neo Cold War that the Neo West can't possibly win.
| Note: This Gold version of the analysis is significantly condensed as compared to the full text Platinum version available only to subscribers. The Platinum version addresses head-on the issues of the genuine potency of the asymmetric challenge of the US by the rising East, whether current US troubles on the world stage are only temporary or are becoming permanent, and whether or not the US position of global dominance is already at grave risk. |
© Copyright 2004-2008 This article may not be reproduced, reprinted or otherwise disseminated, nor may its inherent distinctive and original ideas be used elsewhere without the prior written permission of W. Joseph Stroupe. No journalistic, analytical, editorial or forecasting substance from GeoStrategyMap.com may be republished or employed in any form without prior written permission. Send all requests for permission by email to: editor_in_chief@geostrategymap.com. |
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