Are we moving towards apolarity?
Fareed Zakaria frets about this possibility in Newsweek after going to Davos: We are certainly in a trough for America?with Bush in his last years, with the United States mired in Iraq, with hostility toward Washington still high almost everywhere. But if so, we might also be getting a glimpse of what a world without ...
Fareed Zakaria frets about this possibility in Newsweek after going to Davos: We are certainly in a trough for America?with Bush in his last years, with the United States mired in Iraq, with hostility toward Washington still high almost everywhere. But if so, we might also be getting a glimpse of what a world without America would look like. It will be free of American domination, but perhaps also free of leadership?a world in which problems fester and the buck is endlessly passed, until problems explode. Listen to the new powers. China, which in three years will likely become the world's biggest emitter of CO2, is determined not to be a leader in dealing with global environmental issues. "The ball is not in China's court," said Zhu Min, the executive vice president of the Bank of China and a former senior official in the government. "The ball is in everybody's court." India's brilliant planning czar, Montek Singh Alluwalliah, said that "every country should have the same per capita rights to pollution." In the abstract that's logical enough, but in the real world, if 2.3 billion people (the population of China plus India) pollute at average Western levels, you will have a global meltdown.... The ball for every problem is in everybody's court, which means that it is in nobody's court. The problem is that this free ride probably can't last forever. The global system?economic, political, social?is not self-managing. Global economic growth has been a fantastic boon, but it produces stresses and strains that have to be handled. Without some coordination, or first mover?or, dare one say it, leader?such management is more difficult. The world today bears some resemblance to the 1920s, when a newly globalized economy was booming, and science and technological change were utterly transforming life. (Think of the high-tech of the time?electricity, radio, movies and cars, among other recent inventions.) But with Britain declining and America isolationist, that was truly a world without political direction. Eventually protectionism, nationalism, xenophobia and war engulfed it. In a provocative essay in Foreign Policy three years ago, the British historian Niall Ferguson speculated that the end of American hegemony might not fuel an orderly shift to a multipolar system but a descent into a world of highly fragmented powers, with no one exercising any global leadership. He called this "apolarity." "Apolarity could turn out to mean an anarchic new Dark Age," Ferguson wrote, "an era of waning empires and religious fanaticism, of economic plunder and pillage in the world's forgotten regions, of economic stagnation, and civilization's retreat into a few fortified enclaves." That might be a little farfetched. But for those who have been fondly waiting for the waning of American dominance?be careful what you wish for.A few thoughts: 1) It's fascinating to contrast Zakaria's column with Gideon Rachman's take on Davos. Zakaria is gloomy because of the absence of U.S. policymakers; Rachman is (somewhat) more optimistic because of the optimish of American businessmen. The fact that Rachman and Zakaria can draw such contrasting takes suggests that Davos is more of an IR Rorshach test than a place where consensus is created -- people take away from the conference the preconceptions they bring to it. 2) Zakaria -- and Ferguson -- exaggerate the lack of existing policy coordination and underestimate the extent to which China and India have been brought into important global governance structures. Pointing out that there's been little progress on global warming and only grudging progress on trade talks is not evidence of apolarity. A decade ago, when the US and EU more clearly held the levers of power.... there was grudging progress on global warming and little progress in advancing trade talks. This has little to do with the distribution of power and a lot to do with the thorny domestic politics of these issues. [Er... what about the point on global governance structures?--ed.] I'll have a lot more to say about that in the near future. [Ooooh, foreshadowing!--ed.]
Fareed Zakaria frets about this possibility in Newsweek after going to Davos:
We are certainly in a trough for America?with Bush in his last years, with the United States mired in Iraq, with hostility toward Washington still high almost everywhere. But if so, we might also be getting a glimpse of what a world without America would look like. It will be free of American domination, but perhaps also free of leadership?a world in which problems fester and the buck is endlessly passed, until problems explode. Listen to the new powers. China, which in three years will likely become the world’s biggest emitter of CO2, is determined not to be a leader in dealing with global environmental issues. “The ball is not in China’s court,” said Zhu Min, the executive vice president of the Bank of China and a former senior official in the government. “The ball is in everybody’s court.” India’s brilliant planning czar, Montek Singh Alluwalliah, said that “every country should have the same per capita rights to pollution.” In the abstract that’s logical enough, but in the real world, if 2.3 billion people (the population of China plus India) pollute at average Western levels, you will have a global meltdown…. The ball for every problem is in everybody’s court, which means that it is in nobody’s court. The problem is that this free ride probably can’t last forever. The global system?economic, political, social?is not self-managing. Global economic growth has been a fantastic boon, but it produces stresses and strains that have to be handled. Without some coordination, or first mover?or, dare one say it, leader?such management is more difficult. The world today bears some resemblance to the 1920s, when a newly globalized economy was booming, and science and technological change were utterly transforming life. (Think of the high-tech of the time?electricity, radio, movies and cars, among other recent inventions.) But with Britain declining and America isolationist, that was truly a world without political direction. Eventually protectionism, nationalism, xenophobia and war engulfed it. In a provocative essay in Foreign Policy three years ago, the British historian Niall Ferguson speculated that the end of American hegemony might not fuel an orderly shift to a multipolar system but a descent into a world of highly fragmented powers, with no one exercising any global leadership. He called this “apolarity.” “Apolarity could turn out to mean an anarchic new Dark Age,” Ferguson wrote, “an era of waning empires and religious fanaticism, of economic plunder and pillage in the world’s forgotten regions, of economic stagnation, and civilization’s retreat into a few fortified enclaves.” That might be a little farfetched. But for those who have been fondly waiting for the waning of American dominance?be careful what you wish for.
A few thoughts:
1) It’s fascinating to contrast Zakaria’s column with Gideon Rachman’s take on Davos. Zakaria is gloomy because of the absence of U.S. policymakers; Rachman is (somewhat) more optimistic because of the optimish of American businessmen. The fact that Rachman and Zakaria can draw such contrasting takes suggests that Davos is more of an IR Rorshach test than a place where consensus is created — people take away from the conference the preconceptions they bring to it. 2) Zakaria — and Ferguson — exaggerate the lack of existing policy coordination and underestimate the extent to which China and India have been brought into important global governance structures. Pointing out that there’s been little progress on global warming and only grudging progress on trade talks is not evidence of apolarity. A decade ago, when the US and EU more clearly held the levers of power…. there was grudging progress on global warming and little progress in advancing trade talks. This has little to do with the distribution of power and a lot to do with the thorny domestic politics of these issues.
[Er… what about the point on global governance structures?–ed.] I’ll have a lot more to say about that in the near future. [Ooooh, foreshadowing!–ed.]
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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