The return of the Cold War atmosphere between the superpowers opens the doors of chaos around the world
Monday, September 9, 2024 - 01:00
The world is currently experiencing one of the most turbulent periods since World War II, with some 50 conflicts between states. Not long ago, there was an international consensus on the importance of dealing together and effectively with any disturbance, whether in the form of violence, breakdowns of public order, mass migration or humanitarian crises. This consensus was captured by Hillary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State, in her introduction to the 2010 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Report, when she said: “We will bring together like-minded people and nations to solve the pressing problems we all face.” This momentum for further international consensus was reinforced by the United Nations’ 2015 Sustainable Development Goals, which stated: “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, ensure justice for all, and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.”
But strategic analyst Andrew Hyde, director of the Stimson Center’s multilateral financial diplomacy and peacebuilding programs, said in an analysis published in the American magazine “The National Interest” that such international initiatives rarely achieve the desired results, pointing to what Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, said last May: “A look at the world today reveals how far these ideals are moving away by the day.”
The long-held belief that fragile states and ungoverned spaces pose a threat to global security—and thus to U.S. national interests—shaped U.S. national security policymaking for much of the first two decades of this millennium. At the same time, this led to a relatively durable international consensus based on recognition of U.S. leadership in the world, which contributed to sustained efforts to resolve conflicts, including the ambitious United Nations peacekeeping agenda. At the same time, ungoverned spaces or failed states were seen as fertile ground and safe havens for rogue actors in the international system, including insurgents, terrorists, human traffickers, and drug traffickers. U.S. allies and partners supported policies and programs aimed at bringing peace and security to these areas. In those years, states hostile to the United States and its policies did not obstruct international efforts to achieve peace in conflict zones, although they did not participate in those efforts. For example, the United Nations Security Council passed numerous resolutions and presidential statements affirming the responsibility to protect civilians. The consensus of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council at that time contributed to the issuance of resolutions on international armed intervention for humanitarian purposes, which were consolidated after the end of the Cold War in allowing international intervention in conflicts such as the civil war in Somalia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Regional organizations, such as the OSCE, also supported these efforts by assisting in government reform in the former Soviet republics, both in Central Asia and in southeastern Europe.
But that era seems to have been forgotten, according to Andrew Hyde, a specialist in diplomatic communication, national security and multilateral organizations, who says the United States is the cause of the deterioration of international consensus on efforts to maintain global security and stability, because of its rush to topple governments in countries it dislikes without thinking clearly about the governance challenges that would result from the fall of the regime. Moreover, the return of great-power competition in the world over the past decade has destroyed any global consensus on the need for peace and security. The system that was once the monopoly of one indispensable state is beginning to disintegrate.
The impact of this fragile international consensus has become more evident in the second decade of the third millennium, as failed or disintegrating states have faced a toxic mix of intractable challenges, including extreme poverty, displacement, climate change, the novel coronavirus pandemic and weak institutions. Many of these states, such as Afghanistan and a number of sub-Saharan African countries, have resisted any external efforts to pave the way for effective governance.
As the rivalry between the great powers intensified, the civil war that erupted in Libya in 2011 was a pivotal point; the coordinated international move to curb what was considered the aggression of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime was followed by a NATO military operation in Libya, which later became more aggressive and intrusive than Moscow and Beijing had envisioned when they agreed to a Security Council resolution authorizing this intervention. The scope of NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011, based on a Security Council resolution, expanded into a larger operation that resulted in a change of the ruling regime while the chaos continued and turned into a civil war, which made Russia feel that it had been deceived and misled by Western countries during the discussion of the Libyan crisis. Since then, the atmosphere of the Cold War has returned to the UN Security Council, and the five permanent members of the Council have competed in thwarting the issuance of resolutions related to conflict areas in the world, each according to its position on the conflict; Russia and China have used their veto power to block the issuance of dozens of resolutions sponsored by the United States and its allies regarding the conflict in Syria, while the United States has used its veto power to block the issuance of resolutions submitted by Russia. The United States has also used its veto power to prevent the issuance of numerous resolutions regarding the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip over the past ten months.
At the same time, Moscow, Beijing, and other capitals see ungoverned spaces and regions and fragile states as opportunities to expand their influence and undermine the Western-led international consensus, rather than as threats to their national security. For Moscow, it has adopted more aggressive and overt forms of siding with local forces in these regions and obstructing concerted international efforts to establish new regimes in countries such as Syria, Libya, and West Africa, where the Russian military Wagner Group has played a role in the remarkable transformation of regional political conditions in many parts of the world. For China, it has adopted a quieter approach to expanding its influence through development initiatives and investment in infrastructure projects in some countries ruled by regimes that lack popular legitimacy and credibility. And, of course, in dependent states ruled by authoritarian regimes, it often turns to external efforts to reduce conflict and unrest so that they can continue to exploit natural resources for the benefit of the new ruling elites in those countries. Hyde said that Moscow and Beijing now realize the high cost of chaos and division in the world; Because while they may welcome a deteriorating international order that is no longer led by the United States, they also realize that the resulting chaos could exact a heavy price on everyone as a result of the spread of unrest and uncertainty, affecting their interests.
Finally, Andrew Hyde notes that the United States should use its influence to urge the international community to restore interest in failed states as a threat to the national security of the world’s countries.
At the same time, the United States is not immune from the repercussions of growing global divisions, which have eroded the political consensus in the United States about what policies to pursue; the United States needs to exercise sustainable and long-term global influence to achieve results that will be measured over decades, not years. At the same time, Russia, China, and other countries hostile to the United States will not accept continued American dominance of the global order. Therefore, it is necessary for the great powers to search for common ground to maintain peace and stability in the world; because the zero-sum approach fueled by competition between these powers would undermine international cooperation to deal with common threats such as terrorism or illegal immigration, and thus open the door to chaos and political and economic instability in the world.
