What real media analysis would look like: Part 2 of terrific three part series in Asia Times

Greater China

REVAMPING US FOREIGN POLICY, Part 2
The misnomer of multipolarity

By W Joseph Stroupe

The term "multipolarity" has increasingly been trumpeted by Russia, China, India and many others since the mid-1990s as the most desirable and equitable configuration for the world order. Multipolarity is seen across much of the globe as the most attractive replacement for US-dominated unipolarity. Does it really matter? Are unipolarity and the US-centric world order really at risk? Indeed, yes.

The fundamental configuration of the world order is rapidly undergoing transformation as US power and influence continue



their progressive dilution in all spheres and those of rival centers or poles such as Russia and China are becoming ever more concentrated, thanks in no small measure to their advancing control over global strategic energy resources.

Control over strategic resources has become the primary lever to increased global influence for those powers either rich in such resources or closely allied with those who are.

Hence, in the insidious and perceptible rebalancing of global power, moving from inordinate concentration in one pole (the US) to distribution among rival poles (Russia, China and others) we are witnessing the progressive rising of a new world order. However, what will its true configuration turn out to be?

Fundamentally, multipolarity simply means multiple poles, or centers of power, distributed widely and more equitably across the globe, with no single pole inordinately dominating the others. However, does the term multipolarity accurately describe the configuration of the new world order that is now arising? Or is its real configuration developing into something quite different than mere generic "multipolarity"?

The concept of multipolarity does not properly take into consideration a recent and ongoing development of fundamentally enormous significance - the redivision of most of the world order into two camps, "East" and West, with control over strategic energy resources as the primary dividing line between the two camps.

Even the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) consisting of 116 developing nations, encompassing most of the world's authoritarian governments and two-thirds of the United Nations membership, generally takes stances independent of, or even against, the US pole, thus most often in de facto alliance with the rising "East" rather than West. Notably, NAM has come down on Iran's side in the ongoing nuclear dispute, reaffirming Iran's right to domestic enrichment activities, to the pointed chagrin of the US. Significantly, a large portion of the member nations of NAM possess great deposits of strategic energy and mineral resources of very high value.

Thus, simple "multipolarity" allows for the fundamentally erroneous assumption that all the poles or centers of power are genuinely discrete, that each pole is virtually insulated from the gravitational effects of other poles. In the real world such is certainly not the case.

Any pole or center of power that achieves a noteworthy degree of power and influence tends to pull or attract other centers of power toward itself - especially those in proximity to it, geographically, economically or geopolitically. Furthermore, that rising pole tends to draw additional power from the poles that begin to lean inward, as it were, toward it, thus fueling an accelerated rise of the more prominent pole. The result is a new center of power that is complex in nature, with many lesser poles arrayed around one or two greater poles in the nucleus of the newly arising center of power.

A prime example of the phenomenon noted above is the Russia-China axis that is rapidly attracting around itself an array of many lesser but significant poles. As noted above, the two poles (Russia-China and America-Britain) each possess a gravitational pull that no others on the globe can lay claim to, and the main dividing line between the two poles has become control over strategic energy resources.

Consequently, the new configuration of the arising world order is fundamentally reverting to a bipolar nature. Just two primary rival poles increasingly dictate, by their gravitational influence, developments across the globe.

Stated another way, major global developments increasingly fit into the framework of the competition and rivalry between the two primary poles. Even the notably important emerging power India, for example, is extremely unlikely to develop into a genuinely discrete center of power that will make the global distribution of power a three-way equation between West, East and South/Southeast.

Rather, India will lean significantly inward either toward alignment with the US or with Russia-China. The fundamental evidence proves India is aligning with Russia-China, notwithstanding the "face" of its pragmatic policy of concluding certain cooperation agreements with the US for access to crucial advanced technologies to accelerate its rise as an emerging power, agreements India insists must be concluded mostly on its own terms.

The recent visit of China's President Hu Jintao to India resulted in the signing of a number of key agreements and documents deepening the strategic ties between the two great powers in the key spheres of economic and security relations, deepening trilateral relations between the two powers and Russia, and international energy security. Their joint statement declared their intent to work with Russia to create a new international energy order that is fair and equitable. That directly insinuates the current US-led global energy order is not the one to be strengthened nor adhered to.

Generic multipolarity ultimately fails to describe properly these real-world phenomena, those of a global reversion to bipolarity along with the inherent complexity (multifarious makeup) found especially within the new pole arising in the "East". But that is not all with respect to the failings of the multipolar model in describing accurately where the world order is really heading. "Multipolarity" insinuates that no single pole is inordinately dominant over the others. But contrary to that insinuation, the bipolar configuration that is even now arising will definitely facilitate a meaningful degree of control by one pole, the one now arising in the "East".

Yet, the configuration that is now arising will still correctly be described as bipolar (not unipolar) because the pole in the West, though it is even now moving into a situation where a significant measure of control by the "East" is inevitable, will not be absolutely dominated in all spheres, nor will it be made to collapse as did the Soviet Union, nor will it cease to exist as a superpower.

How will the West fall under the significant control of the East? By means of the consolidation of its control over global energy and its mounting economic wealth and strength the East will take a significant measure of political, economic and even military independence away from the West, including the US itself. The US has become hopelessly dependent on foreign sources of energy, minerals and financing. In fact, the process of Eastern consolidation over global energy resources and the resultant Western loss of independent power is already underway and it is accelerating.

The Russia-China axis, increasingly winning the alignment and cooperation of India as well, is busily constructing a global complex of oil, gas and economic ties and alliances that includes most of the vital exporting states around the globe and the bulk of the rising powerhouse economies of the East. Russia, China and India are spreading their wings (or tentacles as the case may be) far and wide to encompass key oil and gas exporting states. This is ushering the world's important producers into cooperative agreements that extend far beyond energy-related matters to include the military sphere as well. Wide-ranging agreements concluded with Venezuela, Algeria and Saudi Arabia for joint ventures in the production of oil and gas and for weapons and military technology sales are only three recent examples. A clear global strategy is evident, one that is compelling and brilliant. It is also virtually unstoppable by the West.

In the military, economic and energy spheres, the uniting of Russia's technical expertise and strategic resources with the enormous financing and manpower capabilities of China and the mounting technology and manpower capabilities of India, and the extension world-wide of their joint influence to gather into orbit about themselves the key global exporters of minerals, oil and gas, is a development of enormous consequence for the current unipolar world order.

That de facto global complex, when soon completed, will incorporate a global energy monopoly whose strings are virtually pulled from Moscow and Beijing. Increasingly, key members of the complex speak about dispensing with the US dollar in their international energy transactions. The eventual consolidation of the new global energy complex will result in loss to the West in various important ways, and in a grand reversal, will place the multifarious East in ascendancy over West.

Russia and China, the foremost promoters of what they have called the multipolar world order, insist that such is not aimed at any single power such as the US. However, that is mere indirection on their part as they work smart and energetically to construct the foundation, namely global control of strategic resources, that facilitates the rise of their new world order, an order aimed directly at undermining the US global position.

Additionally, they now know full well that what is arising will not be merely "multipolar" in nature, that is, an even distribution of power centers across the globe. Instead, they fully realize their potential to achieve energy-based ascendancy over the West by means of the complex of global energy ties and alliances they are now constructing. Consequently, the move toward global equilibrium (from unipolar to so-called "multipolar") will overshoot the mark of equilibrium and hand energy-based ascendancy to the now rising multifarious pole of the "East".

Along the path toward this eventuality there will undoubtedly be more oil wars such as the one waged in Iraq in 2003, and ideological "wars" such as the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine of 2004, but the West cannot prevent the eventuality described here being realized very soon judging by the rapidity with which global events are moving in that very direction.

Hence, the bipolar world order that is even now arising will not, in fact, be balanced or symmetrical, with both poles roughly canceling each other out in a zero-sum game. Instead, it will be asymmetrical, with the "East" in ascendancy over the West.

In view of the foregoing, the term "multipolar" may adequately describe the complex, multifarious composition of the rising pole of the East itself, but that term is entirely inappropriate to describe the essentially (uneven) bipolar global configuration that is impending for the world order.

From the preceding fundamental analysis of the geopolitical system we could now attempt to construct a new and more accurate term to describe where the world order is actually heading:

Asymmetrical bipolar complexity refers to the uneven bipolar world order that is impending, one in which especially the East pole is complex (multifarious) in nature, consisting of many lesser poles in array around the nucleus that consists of the Russia-China axis.

To coin a new term, the phrase could be shortened to Asymm-Plexity by dropping the "bipolar" portion for the reason that in its most fundamental sense the word "asymmetrical" already strongly insinuates just two main parts (bipolar), but of unequal size or power. "Multipolarity" is a misnomer because it fails to meet the requirement of accurately describing where the world order is actually heading.

Asymm-Plexity (asymmetrical bipolar complexity) more accurately describes the uneven bipolarity that is impending.

Part 3: The rising pole of the East

W Joseph Stroupe is author of the new book entitled Russian Rubicon: Impending Checkmate of the West and editor of Global Events Magazine online at www.GeoStrategyMap.com.

Original article posted here.