2018: International Security Order in Vibration and Reshaping
The global security situation in 2018 continued with its recent years of complexity and volatility, with its order and rules challenged by the prevailing unilateralism and trade protectionism, the emerging nationalism and populism, the resurgent power politics and authoritarianism, the intensified competition in geopolitical and other new areas, and the incessant regional turmoil and conflicts. Underlying
these is the overlapping effects of the imbalanced development of economic globalization in the post-Cold War period, the polarized international political landscape and the persistent military hegemony. In the context of more uncertain and unstable elements adding up to the global security order that hasn’t been reshaped thus far, it is a daunting task for China to understand the underlying laws and properly deal with potential crisis and challenges.
New characteristics facing international security situation
In 2018, the international security environment was characterized by the conspicuous security improvement in China’s neighboring area, the intractability of Sino-US relations, the much
attention surrounding the Middle East, and the flashpoint tension between China and the United States on trade war. Several new features stood out.
First, it remained to be the broad consensus to manage crisis and avoid direct conflicts despite heightened rivalry between major powers. The competition between major powers in geopolitical and other emerging areas has always signaled the evolvement of global security condition in recent years, yet in 2018, such competition took on some new trends: it expanded from few particular area to all-around areas; countries’ engagement generally shifted from the form of cooperation and coordination to competition and confrontation; contests between the US and China was added to the major power arena besides the previous ones between the US and Russia. Notwithstanding the changes they still stayed within major power framework, and it remained to be the broad consensus to manage crisis and avoid direct conflicts, and thus global peace and stability was generally maintained.
Second, it was unlikely for an all-out military confrontation, even though traditional security problem picked up its returning pace. Traditional security has weighed up in international security
competition in recent years, especially with quickened pace in 2018. First, military spending by major countries continued to rise. According to the report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, global military expenditures in 2017 amounted to $1.739 trillion, an increase of 1.1% over 2016 and the highest level since the end of the Cold War. Second, military powers expedited the development of information-based and intelligent weaponry and equipment. The US, Russia and others have made great progress in the military application of artificial intelligence and network technology. Third, major countries pushed forward in depth with their military strategic adjustments. The US, Russia and Japan made new plans and arrangements in their military strategy reports, gearing up to the competition between major powers in new fields. Fourth, the unilateral announcement by the US of its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty seriously clocked back the international disarmament and arms control process.
Under the new situation, a new type of arms race is unfolding with the aim of winning information war, based on building an efficient armed force, concentrating on the modernization of information-based and intelligent weaponry and equipment, and supported by the development of new strategic deterrence means. However, this arms race is still different from that in the Cold War era, making the likelihood of a fullscale military confrontation low and its negative impact manageable.
Third, hot-spot issues were on rise in some regions, and decline in some others. First, the rivalry among major powers for key geopolitical points drove up tensions surrounding some regional hot-spot issues and caused changes in regional landscape. In the Middle East, America has scaled back its strategic investment in recent years, but its rivalry with Russia over Syria has not eased. On 19 December 2018, the US announced its full withdrawal of military troops from Syria, further decreasing its strategic presence in the Middle East. At present, the US-Russia military confrontation has come to a pause over Syria, but the one over the Middle East will persist. Moreover, on the PalestinianIsraeli issue, the US move of relocating its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem not only demonstrated the US’s partiality to Israel, but was also interpreted as encouraging Israel to play a greater role in the regional reconstruction. The US policy stance on the Middle East issues not only triggered a new round of conflicts between Palestine and Israel, but also exacerbated the instability in the region. Second, some unresolved issues, including the European refugee crisis, after their accumulation and fermentation continued to unleash destructive force, sending shocks across the political, economic and social development in Europe. As a result, nationalism and populism emerged and started to converge, and social hatred leaded to a sharp increase in crime and even to instability in some European countries. Third, the situation on the Korean Peninsula was rapidly abated, and the relations between countries concerned in the South China Sea dispute improved, but South Asia faced more complexities and the anti-terrorism fight remained a daunting task. The Al-Qaida and Islamic State broke up their troops and continued to perpetrate terrorist acts after suffering heavy blows, which reflected the
fact that terrorists started to engage in decentralized, lone wolf-style, localized and extensive battles.
Fourth, the Sino-US relations have undergone some qualitative changes, but it is not likely for a “New Cold War” between the two. The Sino-US relations was one of the most followed issues in the international security community in 2018. The US has been fundamentally adjusting its China policy, as there have been changes in the US’ perception on Chinese interest, judgment on Chinese threats and attitudes towards China. Under the new situation, the US regards China as a primary competitor, revisionist, neo-imperialist, neo-expansionist, national capitalist and unfair trader and so on, and saw China’s rise as a “structural challenge to the US global leadership”. In keeping with that, the US strategies at all levels begun to focus on what it called “threats from China and Russia”, an unseen part of China policy from US administrations since the end of the Cold War. At present, the US adjustment on its China strategy is not fully in place. Given that the international context of globalization is very different from that of the Cold War, China will not get bogged down in a Cold War on its own initiative, and China and the US will not come to blows in a Cold War. But how to reshape and develop the Sino-US relations is an urgent task for the two countries.
Fifth, the new scientific and technological revolution has picked up speed, and its pros and cons on human beings have become increasingly prominent. Today, the time span for “technology liquidation” is getting ever shorter, as new technologies including cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, bio-technology have been rapidly put to their application, thus profoundly affecting the way of production, life and thinking for humans. Meanwhile, new technologies are accompanied by more and more uncertainties, as their inappropriate use may lead individuals to mental, ethical and moral crisis, or even trigger political, economic crisis and even warfare for mankind. Such a tricky situation is a common concern to the international community.
New challenges facing international security situation
Facing the complexities and uncertainties in international security situation, the international community should answer the urgent call in building consensus and strengthening global security governance. However, the reality is, that the US frequently reneged on its promises and withdrew from various organizations, weakening governance institutions and mechanisms; nationalism made a strong comeback, shaking the value foundation of governance. The primacy of national interests was overemphasized, threatening the goal of common security governance. In 2018, global security governance faced many new challenges.
Frist, global security governance mechanism suffered shocks. Such mechanism is about the overlapping of traditional security and non-traditional security. Its effectiveness should be guaranteed by international laws and the same legally binding international treaties, as well as their enforcement by relevant sovereign countries and international organizations, the absence of which strongly shocked global security mechanism in 2018. The US’ unilateral withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal and the INF Treaty has impinged on the existing global security order, brought long-term uncertainty to regional and world peace and cast a shadow over the nuclear non-proliferation and arms control regime. As of right now, the negative effects of such shocks are already evident and their long-term effects remain to be seen.
To improve global security governance, the first problem to be solved should be the absence of law enforcement, which has been the greatest challenge to both the traditional security areas related to arms control and disarmament and non-traditional ones, such as dealing with global climate change. Secondly, the problem of “legal documents shortage” should be solved as soon as possible. With the rapid development of globalization and science and technology, non-traditional security issues that pose a threat to human security are emerging, outdating the existing international rules which are based on traditional security and have as their main objective the management of state-to-state threats, and challenging the effectiveness and legitimacy of global security governance. To reach a global consensus and formulate relevant international rules as soon as possible is the first step that must be taken for an effective response to and resolution of various security problems.
Second, conducive security values were shaken up. With the comeback of traditional security in 2018, countries resorted to the development of armed forces. As major powers intensified strategic competition and game-playing, the cold war mentality of containment, alliance politics and zero-sum game found new soil, and thus gravely impacting the values of openness, tolerance and win-win cooperation.
With the emergence of new confrontations between major powers, the conflicts and contradictions of values in global security governance has become even more intense, both between countries (such as the US and Russia, the US and China), different groups of countries (such as the so-called Five Eyes Alliance and others), and between international organizations and individual countries (such as the NATO and Russia). The fundamental reason behind such is that the interests and value judgments among global governance entities are different. However, the further development of global governance can not do without the development of values, which is the most enduring force that unites and stabilizes the behavior of entities with different interest. How to reconcile conflicts, bridge differences and establish and strengthen common security values is an unavoidable topic in strengthening global security governance today.
Third, the global security governance goals is hard to achieve. In today’s anarchic international community, the achievement of such goals depends to a large extent on the effectiveness of national governance, specifically the ability of countries to implement security governance measures and to
deliver their national governance commitments. In recent years, with the convergence of populism and nationalism across countries, global security governance has been undermined by domestic affairs of some countries. In the case of refugee issue, on 16 December 2018, mass demonstration burst out in Belgium against government’s signing of the United Nations Global Compact on Migration . The US explicitly denounced the Compact as “the promotion of global governance by the United Nations at the expense of the sovereignty of states”. Australia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and other countries have also spoken out against it. This cast a shadow over the goal of safe, orderly and regular migration on a global scale.
To succumb to nationalism and populism at home, governments, especially those in some major powers, have unilaterally emphasized the primacy of national interests. In the face of the contradiction between exercising national sovereignty and achieving the objectives of security governance, they are reluctant to negotiate within the framework of international multilateral mechanism or to take responsibilities and obligations as sovereign countries in global governance, making it hard to realize some important and urgent goals.
New Opportunities for Reshaping Global Security Order
The new characteristics of the global security situation in 2018 have brought new risks and challenges to its governance and have also impinged on the existing global security order. Thus so far the old security order has not been broken yet a new one has not taken shape. China faces both challenges and opportunities in accurately understanding the characteristics of and rules governing the evolution of the security order and promoting the establishment of a new one.
First, the international security order has not yet undergone qualitative change, but its development has accelerated in quantitative terms. The existing order was developed after the Cold War and is essentially characterized by the US’ global hegemony and largest say in global and regional security affairs. With the further development of economic globalization, political multipolarization and social information application after the Cold War, a number of emerging market countries have emerged as a group with more power and will to participate in international security affairs. The international security order in which the US is the sole superpower is also undergoing a certain degree of quantitative change, which is clearly marked by the vast number of developing countries represented by emerging market countries playing a greater role in global and regional security governance.
Currently the struggle over old and new security concepts, rules and order is getting fierce. The US, proceeding from America first policy, tries to create a new American-led security order by the destruction of the existing one through unilateral means. At the same time, the majority of countries want to constructively reshape the existing security order multilaterally, enabling developing countries to have an equal voice, participation and decision-making right as developed ones, and promoting a new security order that is equitable, inclusive, cooperative and mutually beneficial. Looking to the future, the struggle between the two sets of ideas, rules and orders will be long and complicated, and the new security order shaped at the end will be the result of compromise reached out of contest between the two sides.
Second, the theme of peace and development has been responsive to the change of the times, and provided important external conditions for the formation of a new security order. The existing order was born out of the bipolar pattern of the Cold War era and took shape in the general context of the era of peace and development. This order carries Cold War imprint, as it has US hegemony as its basic characteristics, with traditional security at its core, and the US’ global military alliance system as its frame. Nowadays, interdependence has become an essential feature of the international community, with the stark confrontation between two super powers and two military blocs and the separation of the two parallel markets during the cold war period having long since disappeared. Peace and development remains the theme of the times, but its connotation and extension has taken on new changes. A more precise substitute for peace is security. Today, a world war is unlikely to break out, but security challenges abound, especially the non-traditional ones. Development issue has become a much broader one. Besides economic growth, social fairness, people’ life quality and happiness index, technological innovation and many others are catching more attention. All these changes call for a new security order and create conditions for its establishment.
Third, to reform the global security governance mechanism has become a consensus, providing inherent impetus for the establishment and improvement of a new security order. In the absence of qualitative changes in the existing security order, the international community urgently needs to create a sound security environment, achieve new security and development objectives and strengthen the multilateral global security governance. However, in recent years, some existing mechanisms have been operating inefficiently or even ineffectively, and are unable to deal with various security threats facing the international community. At present, the international community has reached consensus regarding the issue of reform with ever stronger will to reform. However, there are still great divergence of opinions on the path and objectives of the reform.
Looking into the future, the reform of global security governance should start from improving rule-making process, reforming executive body and strengthening international coordination, etc. For the exceptionalism-for-big-countries practices in the international security governance arena, efforts can be first made in insensitive and nontraditional security field based on the take-theeasy-way-first principle to strengthen coordination with parties sharing common interest, establish internal checks and balances, and increase the cost of default.