Beware the faultlines: Global danger lurks in the struggle between the superpowers
LIVING in Scotland these days you could be forgiven for thinking at times that the entire world order was being addressed through the arguments for and against Scottish independence. Any cursory glance at online forums or readers’ comments in this or most Scottish newspapers will confirm that.
At times it wouldn’t matter whether one was discussing, let’s say, the political travails of Equatorial Guinea, there would still be those who manage to construe such a discourse through the lens of whether Scotland should be a sovereign nation or not.
It goes without saying then that there are grave dangers in taking such a blinkered view of the world around us, not least at this precise moment when arguably geopolitical storm clouds are darkening in such a way that the slightest strategic miscalculation by one of the major world players could have enormous ramifications.
On its border with Ukraine, Russia is massing troops, armour and missile systems on a scale not seen since the war there in 2014. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has already warned of the possibility of “fullscale hostilities” while Russian President Vladimir Putin informed a rather alarmed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about what Mr Putin claimed were Ukraine’s “dangerous provocative actions” in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
In response US Navy destroyers are heading into the Black Sea and Nato looks on anxiously while trying to second guess Moscow’s intentions. Meanwhile, not to be outdone, China is deploying its own air force jets and bombers into Taiwan’s airspace in what security analysts says is Beijing’s biggest ever incursion to date.
Periodic sabre rattling by the world’s major powers is nothing new of course but ask international observers about these current potential flashpoints and the one thing on which they are agreed is that shifts in the trilateral relations between Russia, China and America right now are of real significance.
This is not simply a return to the past, a time when Cold War principles applied and to some extent the parameters and boundaries that could be pushed were well established and recognised. What we are witnessing here is a different kind of war, one as some analysts suggest for international legitimacy. A battle between Russia and China on the one hand and the US on the other for the hearts, minds, and resources in those vast swathes of the world that remain politically unaligned.
In other words, this is comparatively uncharted geopolitical territory. A place where no longer will Russia under Mr Putin’s rule be talked down to by an America that insists on universal standards while Washington itself – as Moscow sees it – fails to live up to those same standards. Those days are over, and we are now different the Kremlin is saying loud and clear.
Likewise, the same message is emanating from Beijing and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Anyone doubting this need only look at the uncompromising response of Chinese diplomats last month at a summit in Alaska when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned China against using “coercion and aggression.”
Mr Xi’s men were having none of such US “condescension,” countering with the riposte that America can no longer “speak to China from a position of strength.”
In short, both Russia and China are pushing back in a way seldom seen in recent years. Both are signalling that they will only deal with the West where and when it suits them. For its part, the West can threaten sanctions but, as far as Moscow and Beijing are concerned, the prevailing mood is, so what?
Arguably then, it would be no exaggeration to say that these past weeks have marked a watershed moment in relations between the three powers. Just to underscore that again both the Chinese and Russian foreign ministers compounded tensions with Washington after announcing their intention to deepen their relationship.
While Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov made a big play of hailing China as “a true strategic partner of Russia,” the Chinese government-backed newspaper, Global Times, was insisting that it saw “no upper limits” to Sino-russian cooperation.
As Guardian columnist Simon Tisdall observed a few days ago, what is currently unfolding is reminiscent of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-four, and a world divided geographically, politically and militarily into three rival super-states: Oceania (North America plus Britain), Eurasia (Russia and Europe), and Eastasia (China).
That both Mr Putin and Mr Xi have political problems at home, and tough talking helps provide a distraction from those, doesn’t detract from the fact that their mutual re-positioning and facing down of America is almost unprecedented in recent times.
For his part US President Joe Biden’s administration seems to be relying on the international alliance network it is rebuilding and taking comfort from the fact that America’s allies are all responding positively to Washington’s call to stand up against China. All of which right now doesn’t actually make the world a safer place.
Words alone of course are one thing, deeds something else again. And this perhaps is where the real danger lies: that possibility of misinterpretation and a response to any given crisis, such as Ukraine or Taiwan, by any one of these three global players based on a misreading which, in turn, leads to another miscalculation, and so on to God knows what outcome.
As history has shown, it’s all too easy during a military or global political stand-off for it to escalate in such a way that neither side can be seen to back down. Writing recently in Foreign Affairs, analysts Richard N Haass and Charles A Kupchan describe how the international system is “at a historical inflection point,” with the West “losing not only its material dominance but also its ideological sway.”
A “rising China” and “pugnacious Russia” stand in the wings ready to mount their own challenge like never before, the authors point out before suggesting that what is now urgently needed is the creation of a “New Concert of Powers,” to help promote global stability.
The search is on it seems for a viable and effective way forward, which is perhaps just as well given the dangerous faultlines rapidly emerging across the globe.
It would be no exaggeration to say that these past weeks have marked a watershed in relations between the three powers