THE CHALLENGES OF MULTI-POLAR WORLD
"Noravank" Foundation
26 January 2009
Amid the world system crisis the main ideological provisions are
revaluated.
As a result essential changes take place in political sphere and the
most essential of those changes is the creation of multi-polar world
order. The geopolitical outlines of this new system are very dim and
the rules of the game are not laid down yet. This dictates terms to
the international actors.
They have to specify their political tactics and to produce basically
new strategy.
The foregoing tendencies are reasonable. The political philosophy
of the United States turned out to be plain and many countries
reacted adequately on it. Today there are several centers of
global power; their relations comply with the logic of new cold war
and turn into military (local wars), diplomatic and informational
conflicts. According to the analysts approach, the current economic
crisis is also a geo-economic component of that war: energy products
price deflation, "gas war" between Russia and Ukraine, decline in
capacities and many other developments of that kind definitely touch
on Russia, China, and this reminds the economic war against "social
camp" during the cold war.
It is also significant that today contradictions are deepening not
only between traditional opponents (the USA- the RF, the USA- the CPR,
the USA-Islamic countries) but al so implicitly between the EU and the
USA. E.g. some official circles in the EU regard the disapproval of
"Treaty of Lisbon" on a referendum in Ireland (it had to substitute
the rejected Euroconstitution) in 2008 as a result of Pentagon and
CIA activity (there was even unofficial investigation pursued on
this matter).
There are different characteristics of political developments
in circumstances concerned. But there is one issue that political
analysts are concurrent. The formation of multi-polar world contains
many dangers and in this context the growth of possibility of new
wars outbreak is inevitable.
The pessimistic scenarios. The culture of political forecasts is more
cultivated in the USA and on this matter it is significant that there
was a report on danger of expansion of mass destruction weapons (they
had in their minds North Korea and Iran) that the US special services
presented to the Senate in 2008. It is interesting that the report
contained not only observations on the difficult situation in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Pakistan but it also touched on the problems which
may cause political instability in Europe. In other report made by
internal security service, there was said that in the coming five
years the United States may be attacked by WMD. The report "Global
trends – 2025" by National Intelligence Council, which also contains
some troublous signs, needs special analysis.
Russian analysts are not optimistic either. Some of them stand on the
opinion that the state of war has been sustainable since September 11,
and it is difficult not to agree with this point of view. Others think
that this crisis may cause large-scale nuclear war. It is significant
that in 2008 the USA and Russia reconsidered their military doctrines;
the EU, Great Britain and China also introduce military reforms.
The above mentioned forecasts seem to be reasonable. Unlike two-polar
world (the USA – the USSR), there are no "deterrent mechanisms" formed
in multi-polar world, there are no treaties on the restriction of
strategic weapons and this increases the possibility of large-scale
(or even nuclear) war.
Middle East (ME). In recent years (especially in 2003-2007) ME was
considered as "risk" zone, where the relations between the USA, its
ally Israel and Iran were escalated because of the nuclear program
of Iran and developments around Iraq. At present (in spite of the
new conflict between Palestine and Israel which broke out in December
2008) there is an impression that all sides reached some non-official
agreements which deescalated situation and reduced the possibility
of nuclear war in ME. This is evidenced by passive behavior of
"Hezbollah" and particularly by the fact that on January 11 of this
year Ali Khomeini prohibited the citizens of Iran to take part in
current war a nd terrorist attacks against Israel. On the assumption
of those tendencies the following scenario should not be ruled out:
strange as it may seem today but there is possibility that in future,
in case when Iraq is parted, Israel, Iran and Kurdish state formations
may become strongholds of the USA in the region.
Today "the nuclear dominance" has shifted to the angle of India –
Pakistan relations. As it was aptly mentioned by one political analyst
"if a huge number of nuclear missiles which were at disposal of the
USA and the USSR in the years of cold war played deterrent role,
because in case of war both states could be destroyed, then the
restricted amount of nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan have
opposite effect. The absence of mutual agreement and fear of enemy’s
attack increases the possibility of using missiles".
Pakistan – India confrontation. When on August 19, 2008, the president
of Pakistan Pervaz Musharraf resigned under the pressure of opposition,
the international community was mainly occupied by the war in South
Ossetia between Russia and Georgia and other political developments
were pushed to the sidelines. Meanwhile from the point of view of
classical geopolitics Central Asia is key region and superstates
always were keen to control that part of Eurasia. Without going into
historical details it should be remembered that Afghanistan was
the first aim of the US A after the attacks on September 11th. It
is significant that in 2001 political technology, which can be
conditionally called "positive result from negative processes"
(positive reaction on negative action), was realized. Taking terrorist
attacks on September 11th (negative process) as a basis, the US (and
NATO) transformed it into a big geopolitical conquest and established
military presence in Central Asia, in the neighbour of the RF and
the CPR (positive result). In the past the same technology was used,
e.g. in 1941 when they used Purl Harbor to enter World War II. In this
political conception informational factor is of great importance, and
this allows some analysts to regard it as a component of "informational
wars of third generation".
Apropos of the resignation of Musharraf, which took place under
internal and external constraint, we can state, based on the analyses
of information flows that the controllability of Pakistan, which was
not on a high level, has even reduced. According to some versions this
trend coincides with the programs of Great Britain and the USA, aiming
to destabilize the region (on the basis of conception of controllable
chaos) and as a result to try to weaken their major opponent, China.
In the frame of the foregoing version the terrorist attacks on Mumbai
in November, 2008, which are supposed to be organized by Pakistani
government and mainly by Inter-Service Intelligence=2 0(ISI) (it
is regarded as the most powerful special service in the region)1,
show that there is such strategy. As a result the relations between
India and Pakistan became extremely tense; troops were concentrated
on the border; and mass media started to discuss the possibility of
nuclear war. It is significant that in 1997-2001 the best military and
analytical specialists of the USA worked out the following documents
"Asia – 2025" and "Joint vision – 2020", which contained the scenarios
of possible nuclear confrontation between Pakistan and India.
"New order in South Asia" scenario. In 2010 Pakistan is in deep
economic crisis. Its economy recesses, the inability of government
brings to instability, some tribes rebel, Islamic radicals become
active, invade and take over the control of Indian state of
Kashmir. India, which due to the collaboration with the USA is in
advance of China and becomes the leader of that region, demands
Pakistani government to subdue radicals and withdraw them from
Kashmir but weakened Pakistani government is not to comply with the
demand. India brings additional troops into the state. Pakistan demands
to withdraw Indian troops, China supports that demand and begins to
concentrate their troops on the border with India. The USA involves and
demands China to safeguard neutrality. The conflict reaches its climax
when India being afraid of WMD engagement on behalf=2 0of Pakistan
conducts missile attacks on WMD posts and terrorist camps (according
to other scenario that conflict emerges after Pakistani missile crashes
the plane carrying Indian ministers and high-ranked officers in the sky
over Kashmir) and as a consequence in 2020 Pakistan as a state does
not exist any more. Meanwhile India turns into undeniable regional
leader and all Asian countries and firstly Iran make overture to India.
The foregoing scenario is the most advantageous from the point of view
of the US interests. In consequence of war their main opponent China
is pushed to the sidelines and the US strategic partners India and
Iran turns into the leaders of Asia. The US has established new higher
level of cooperation with India in recent years (particularly in the
nuclear sphere). As it was mentioned above the US use new strategy
towards Iran, which can bring to partnership relations between these
two countries.
Some conclusions. It should be mentioned that there are also some
American scenarios which state the dominance of China and which suppose
the displacement of the US from South Asian and Asian-Pacific region
(the so called "Mighty China" scenario). On the assumption of modern
tendencies it may be supposed that this scenario is more realistic than
"New order in South Asia". At the same time, in multi-polar system
the US is "the first among equal" and their successively impl emented
strategy may strongly affect any process which seems to be natural.
By the way, the possibility of opposite scenarios should not be
excluded either. Zbigniew Brzezinsky, the adviser of new U.S. President
B. Obama, suggested the U.S. and China to create "big two" ("G2"),
which will be able to handle main global problems. But it remains an
open question how China would react on that suggestion.
1Not only Indian government but also some independent observers
are of the opinion that terrorist attacks were very well developed
and technically supported, particularly they had electronic ground
navigation systems. It should also be mentioned that specialists, who
are addressed to the issues of special services, agree that "Taliban"
and bin Laden are the products of joint-activity of ISI and CIA