Prof. Gamini Keerawella, Executive Director,
Regional Centre for Strategic Studies was invited to speak at the inaugural
session of the conference on “South Asia Amidst New World Order”, held in
Kathmandu, Nepal from 25 - 26 April, 2018. This two-day conference was
organized by the Centre for South Asian Studies and Konrad Adenauer –Stiftung
institute in the event of celebrating 10 years of contribution of the
Consortium of South Asian Think Tanks (COSATT). He delivered the speech on the
conference theme leading the way to open scholarly discussions.
The full text of his speech can be accessed
here:
South Asia Amidst New
World Order
By
Prof. Gamini
Keerawella
Executive Director,
Regional Center for Strategic Studies
Professor Emeritus,
University of Peradeniya
First, it is
necessary to clarify what ‘New World Order’ signifies. The hope of a new world
has a long history and it cropsup again and again in times of socio-political
crises and rapid historic transitions. However, the concept of a ‘new world
order, perceived from a systemic perspective, emerged amidst the crises and
calamities of global politics in more integrated world in the early 20th
century.
Among the first to
use the term ‘new world order’ as a political prescription to reorganize the
world were Woodrow Wilson and V.I. Lenin.
Wilson wanted to see a new world order after the First World War to be based
on Liberal Democratic norms, while Lenin wanted it to be on Socialist norms.
In January 1918,Woodrow Wilson presented his
famous Fourteen Points to the US
Congress,as the basis for peace after the First World War. In Fourteen Points, he advocated no economic
barriers and secret agreements betweenstates.
To address the pressing issue of nationality in post-war Europe in the
wake of the dissolution of three multi-national empires in Europe, Wilson presented
the principle of National Self-Determination.
Lenin believed that
the Russian Revolution heralded a new era in human history. He thought that a
new world order was in the making, consequent to the impending socialist
revolutions in Europe, followed by the national democratic revolutions in the
colonial world. However, crises and calamities in the inter-war period shattered
the hope of a New World Order. In the course of the inter-war years, an idea of
a new world order emerged from a different framework with the rise of Fascism
in Europe.
In the throes of the
Second World War, H.G. Wells presented the idea of a new world order to unite
the nations of the world, bring peace and end the war. In the book published in
1940 titled The New World Order, H.G.
Wells remarked that “Step by step and here and there it will arrive, and even
as it comes into being it will develop fresh perspectives”. However, systemic rivalry
cropped up between the United States and the Soviet Union after 1947 belied any
hope for a new world order of peace and stability which H.G. Wells predicted.
The discourse on the
need for a change of the existing international economic order found a forum
with the establishment of the UNCTAD in 1964. The demand for a change in the
existing international economic system was found in the report prepared by Raul
Prebisch for the Geneva Conference on World Trade and Development in 1964. In
1974, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration for the Establishment of a New International Economic Order.
The enthusiasm generated by the UNCTAD initiatives, especially among developing
countries identified as ‘the South’, dissipated gradually in the 80s.
The end of the Cold War
kindled the hope, more than ever, for a new international order. The end of the Cold War was viewed as a
decisive historical event, the ‘end of history’ and the dawn of a new
historical era. President Mikhail Gorbachev articulated his vision
for a new world order and identified the wide-ranging measures necessary for
creating a new world order at the UN General Assembly in December 1988.Presidents
Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush met on
December 2-3, 1989 on board off Malta, to discuss the post-Cold War order. At the meeting, both leaders widely used the
term ‘new world order’ to denote the post-Cold War world. The cooperation between the superpowers was
considered the foundation for peace and security of the new world.
The early euphoria
generated by the end of the Cold War as to the emergence of a new world was
proved to be short-lived. In August
1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. In November The
UN Security Council passed the Resolution 678 authorized all necessary means to
uphold and implement the earlier Resolution.
The United States launched ‘Operation Desert Storm’ in January 1991. The process of
disintegration of the Soviet Union was complete by the 24 of December 1992,
leaving the United States the only superpower in the world. Subsequent political developments that took
place at the global scale dissipated the remaining hope for a new worlds order
after the Cold War.
The manner in which the Cold War ended was interpreted as an ideological
victory for Liberal Democracy. On the
face of it, it was true that liberal capitalism had won the war of systems. But,
the liberal capitalism with ‘Washington Consensus’ had not succeeded at a more
fundamental level because, as Ken Booth aptly remarked, it could not satisfy
all basic needs but it could meet the wants of the powerful. The language and
idioms that the political leadership of the United States used to describe the
new world order underscore US intentions for hegemony in global politics. However, it is clear that the realities in
post-Cold War global politics do not allow the US to enact its own script for a
new world order. Before long it became clear that so-called post-Cold War ‘New
World Order’ wasneither ‘new’ nor ‘world’, nor ‘order’.
The term new world order has so far been
presented as a prescription—a guide to a desired world order. In contrast, the termis now usedto describe the
more fundamental systemic level changes that are currently taking place in the
modern international order. It is a gradual process but, in the last few decades,
the changes are very rapid and protruding. These structural changes have given
new credentials to anew discourse on ‘new world order’.
In order to understand the current discourse on new world order in a
broader political perspective, it is necessary to trace how some fundamental
elements of the ‘old (modern) world order’ are getting changed. The genealogy of
the modern world system could be traced in the Western Europe after the demise
of the Medieval Order. Since the 16th century, the
‘Modern’ World Order evolved into an integral package where modern capitalism,
the nation states, modern science and enlightenment culture remained as its organic
elements. The emerging new nation
states in Europe formalized a particular international order at the Westphalia
Peace Accord in 1648 by baptizing the sovereign nation state as the only actor
in the emerging international political order. The Western colonialism evolved
as an economic project of capitalism and also a political project of new nation
states. The colonialism was the tool
used to superimpose the ‘Modern State’ in non-Western societies. It was an
integrated project with many dimensions. As Immanuel Wallenstein pointed out, modern capitalism emerged as a
world system with long-distance trade on a global scale. Colonialism
facilitated this process. It was an unequal exchange in which surplus from the
periphery of the capitalist world system continuously transferred to the center. It leads to a process of capital accumulation on a global
scale, and necessarily involves the appropriation and transformation of
peripheral surplus. This division of labor leads to the
existence of two interdependent regions: core
and periphery in a single world
system. All these units and processes were not static. They were changed over
last five centuries to suit evolving historical forces. But all they were within
the same paradigm.
In contrast, the rapid
and fundamental changes set in motion by political, economic developments and
technological advances in the last fifty years are gradually pushing the
existing world order towards a paradigm shift. Primarily, the form and functions
of the sovereign nation-state is rapidly changing. Its power and dominance is
curtailed, internally by the sub-national forces and externally by the international
decision-making instruments. As a
result, the earlier primacy and authority of the state as the unit of the
international system is structurally undermined. That doesn’t mean that the state
as a political entity is withering away soon. In fact, it is rapidly changing and it is
compelled to share its authority and power internally and externally with other
entities. The emergence of a host of collective and parallel decision-making
bodies in international and regional arenas is locating the state in a changed politically
space.
Another important
development that has a profound impact on global politics is the emergence of
international public space along with international civil society. Prior to the
Second World War, the main, if not the only, actor in international politics is
the sovereign state. The intervention of
non-state actors who are operating in international public contribute to decide
the direction of global political discourses, using global forums which states
cannot afford to ignore simply.
Further more, the process of globalization, which presently in full
motion, created an unprecedented globalized world. The intense global flow of
goods, services, finance, people, images and ideas has compressed the world by
linking dispersed localities and people. The unprecedented level of contraction
of time and space in human activities due to some technological advances has
pushed the entire world into a structurally a different phase of
interaction and web of global relations. It creates a high degree of
interdependence and multiple properties of collective decision-making systems
in global politic. As a result, one nation rests on the
decisions of many others. Further more, the role of Internet, E-mail, Facebook
and Twitter in day-to-day life
reflects the way in which the world today has transformed. The political power
of social media in the information age has been revealed in many parts of the world
and it clearly indicated new trends in political behavior and culture that no
political leader can ignore.
At the same time, the
nature and the form of war have changed. The intensity and violence of
inter-state wars are replaced by intra-state wars, especially identity-based
conflicts. In the changed context, new
doctrines of intervention have also emerged. As Economist identified in 1992, two sets of conditions that are used
to justify such interventions. These two
conditions include, first, ‘Wars of Interests’ and, second, ‘Wars of
Conscience’. In wars of interests, the
focus was on the control of vital resources that the developed world needs
urgently. The second category includes direct military intervention that is
necessitated in the face of degrading living conditions and humanitarian crises
due to man-made or natural calamities. As far as the second category is
concerned, there was no consensus in the international community because of the
complexities and competing strategic interests.
Since the emergence
of modern international system, the center of gravity in global politics
remained in the West. Consequent to the economic and politico-strategic
resurgence of Asia along with other changes in international politics, the
center of gravity in global politics is gradually moving towards Asia
Pacific. It is now estimated that Asia
will surpass North America and Europe combined in global power based on GDP,
population size, military spending and technological investment by 2030. According to World Bank, South Asia solidified its lead as the fastest growing region in the
world in 2016. WTO rated China the second largest merchandise trader in
the world in 2016. Accordingly, China has risen to the second largest economy
in the world, surpassing Japan in the new century. Today,
China claims to the second largest navy in the world. India is ranked
fourth in the Global Fire Power (GFP) ranking, based on each nation’s potential
for conventional war-making capabilities across land, sea and air.
These developments
are crucially important to South Asia, as a region and to its individual
countries. First of all, South Asia’s position in the global order has
changed. It is no longer a periphery to
the West. In 2016, South Asia is the fastest growing region in the world in 2016.
According to World Bank economic growth in South Asia is expected to gradually
accelerate from 7.1 percent in 2016 to 7.3 percent in 2017.Further more,
the shifting of center of gravity in global politics from the West to the
Indo-Pacific region has made the Indian Ocean a pivotal global geo-strategic
space in global politics. The South Asian Peninsula
projects into the Indian Ocean basin centrally, making it a natural hub linking
the eastern and Western flanks of the Indian Ocean. Nearly 40 percent of
the world’s offshore petroleum is produced in the Indian Ocean and two-thirds of global seaborne oil trade transits the
Indian Ocean, rounding South Asia. It is
important to note that Indian Ocean ports handle about 30 percent of
global trade. South Asian advances in the knowledge industry linked with the IT
revolution are also very impressive today. The impact of the lead in ‘colonizing the
cyberspace’ by South Asia is reverberated in the Silicon Valley too. South
Asian brainpower is a critical factor in the corporate world in the West.
In order to fully realize
South Asian economic potential in the context of Asian prosperity, regional
stability and peace is a high priority and the present downward trajectory of regionalism
and regional bonding in South Asia has to be reversed. Despite all the positive developments, the old
antagonism between India and Pakistan, and their strategic rivalry lingered in
the new millennium too. The Jammu and Kashmir issue was the casus belli
between India and Pakistan: it continues to be the same. The Indo-Pakistan
rivalry has now become a socially constructed phenomenon. With the formal
declaration of the acquisition of nuclear weapons in1998,both countries added a
new dimension to the Indo-Pakistani rivalry. It is important to note, however, that
the regional level bi-polar order is changing as a result of the power
asymmetry between the two countries. India emerged the predominant power while
Pakistan could not maintain the bi-polar structure in the face of its continued
internal crisis.
Each country in South
Asia needs keep the house in order, if South Asia really wants to reap the
dividends from the growing Asian prosperity. It is true that, going with global
trends, the violence of declared
inter-state wars in South Asia has been reduced. Since Kargil war, no
war between India and Pakistan has been reported.
Political and economic cost involved with the inter-state wars compels states
to think twice before going to war.
However, that of intra-state wars, especially identity-based conflicts,
replaces the propensity of inter-state wars. Except the Maldives, all the countries in South Asia are
multi-ethnic, multi-religious entities.
In the context of the global tendency of rising ethnic sub-nationalisms,
ethno-political mobilizations has become a conspicuous feature in the political
landscape in South Asia. To quote Anthony
Smith, it is still nationalist high noon, and the owl of Minerva has not
stirred. In the context of ethnic resurgence, many ethno-national identities
come forward to redefine their collective self and to change their relationship
with the state, either peacefully or violently.
At the same time, the
states in South Asia are compelled to take into account the fact that new
global-scale social forces, set in motion by globalization, have contracted the
conventional role of the state. Human rights, good governance, and
accountability are no longer just domestic issues and concerns as international
civil society actors fully use the UN institutions and instruments to make them
global. The process of relocating political
authority upward towards super-national entities, sideward towards
transnational organizations, and downward towards sub-national groups and
communities is a stark reality which South Asian states need to accept sooner
or later.
To
conclude, the main challenges that South Asia confronts amidst the emerging new
world order are, first, how to come to terms with international regimes and
global instruments that are active in many areas that were hitherto considered
an exclusive prerogative of the sovereign state, and second, how to manage of
ethnic relations in the context of ethnic resurgence and the rapid pace of political
mobility in which new socio-political groups come forward to demand a new place
in the political sun. In order to meet
these challenges what required today are new concepts, the vision and
strategies to remodel the state and rebuild the enlightened democratic citizenship
in line with global dynamics in motion in this era of historic transition. In
this context, the symbiotic link between the restructuring of the state and the
rebuilding the new democratic citizenship should be taken into account.
25-03-2018
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