The rising pole of the East
No one doubts the existence of a number of new rising powers (or "poles") in the East, or that the two primary poles are identified as Russia and China, with India rapidly rising as a third pole of importance, or that the rising economies and markets in the East are increasingly attracting the main attention and the tangible interest and respect of the rest of the world.
Few would argue that the United States and the wider West have something to worry about as a consequence of the unrelenting rise of the new poles in the East. Notably, their dramatic rise is a phenomenon that has been judged as carrying real meaning only in the past three years or so, demonstrating how quickly the geopolitical landscape can change - is changing. These matters are not debatable.
But significant uncertainties still plague the minds of many observers when it comes to a discussion of whether the Russia-China axis will continue to hold together and whether it will further tighten its cohesiveness; whether India will align with Russia-China to form a strategic triad; whether the lesser poles in the East, along with the bulk of the energy-exporting states (poles) around the globe and even key European Union states, might be ever more cohesively aligning with Russia-China; and whether a tangible arrangement of some kind that encompasses all of them might be coming together. Finally, will any such arrangement pose a real challenge to US global dominance any time soon? These are the key questions that demand sound answers.
The view has been put forth by this author/analyst that the rising powers in the East, along with the bulk of the world's energy-exporting states and certain key European powers, are in fact already coming together to form a tangible and ever more cohesive phenomenon of truly global proportions and leverage. Yet this is one that is of necessity multifarious in composition - in essence, a comparatively loose global confederation of sovereign states that nonetheless shares a common vision and increasingly finds itself firmly "on the same page" respecting a few grand issues of overriding importance that increasingly trump all else.
Its structure has been presented as less than (and different from) a full-fledged North Atlantic Treaty Organization-style formal military alliance, yet its reach, potency and cohesiveness are potentially much greater than that currently enjoyed by NATO and the wider West. It has been called "the rising multifarious East" that is mounting a potent challenge to US-led unipolarity. Is such a phenomenon real or only imaginary?
Multifarious, not monolithic - yet ever more cohesive
The term "multifarious" was chosen intentionally to describe the nature and composition of the rising East. Webster defines "multifarious" as "having great variety, diverse, composed of many varied parts". The rising East is not monolithic in its composition, but neither is the West, which at any point in time has been composed of the US and its diverse allies around the globe, some of which are democracies and some of which are culturally, politically and economically very different from democracies, those that have been cruel dictatorships with miserable human-rights records, for example.
During the Cold War when the far-less-than-monolithic West faced a common foe, the Soviet Union, its diverse members acted cohesively and in accord as against a common threat. The greatly varied membership of the bloc of the West had one overriding interest in common - they did not want to be dominated by communism and the Soviet Union. They owned a galvanizing common vision - the defeat of communism and the spread of "freedom" from external oppression worldwide. The phenomenon of greatly varied component parts becoming galvanized, uniting and acting cohesively against a common foe isn't grandiose - it's rather mundane.
In view of the foregoing, the objection that the rising East is far from "monolithic" in its composition is merely a distraction from the real subject of whether there exist unifying issues of adequate potency, ones that transcend the differences among its members, so as to produce cohesion among them and the subsequent arising of sufficient structure to facilitate collective action against what they perceive as a common foe. Does the rising multifarious East share a common, galvanizing vision?
There definitely exists an issue of such fundamental importance, value and potency that it far transcends the inherent differences among the members of the rising East. It is an issue that is embraced by the potential membership with passion and intellectual readiness, one of a nature such that the membership requires little elucidation and articulation of its core importance and practical worth to them individually, an issue that reaches immediately to the very core interests of every potential member. It is therefore an issue that inherently possesses a commanding power to unify. It is an issue that has already proved itself as a potent unifier of greatly diverse poles and that is continuing to prove itself along that important line. It is incorporated as an integral part of a truly galvanizing vision.
The cohesive glue identified
It is the issue of the desirability or the undesirability of continued excessive US global dominance in the economic, diplomatic, geopolitical and military spheres. That issue touches immediately on the vital interests of all the world's powers for the simple reason that what is perceived as the increasingly greedy and headstrong militaristic fashion in which the United States has tended to exercise its global role since 1991 cuts directly or indirectly into what mounting numbers of the world's players see as their legitimate economic, security, political, diplomatic, regional and geopolitical aspirations, goals and interests.
The US has inordinately cornered for itself far too many of the
viable possibilities for wealth and power since 1991, and this is ever more deeply resented across the globe. The disparity between the excess the US has traditionally possessed in the way of wealth and power and what much of the rest of the world is left with and what it cannot readily obtain because of the inequitable unipolar world order is continually showcased, and often heaved in its face.
Added to this is the fact that US foreign policy is seen virtually in every corner of the globe as the runaway risk to international peace and security. The galvanizing vision is that of the ushering in of a new and more equitable world order that will end excessive US dominance.
By its shockingly self-centered focus since 1991, and especially since its ravenous 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States has made itself a persuasive and compelling galvanizing force for those opposing US-led unipolarity, a force at least as potent as that inspired by the entirely disreputable and aggressive Soviet Union during the old Cold War that deeply united and powerfully galvanized the West against a common foe.
Now, there is every indication that the grossly unrepentant US administration will soon embark on a course in the Iran and North Korea crises that the world at large perceives as even more greedy and reckless with respect to the exercise of US power, bringing in additional ill-advised and enormously destructive military options aimed at forcibly consolidating America's avaricious clutch of global power and the exclusive multidimensional wealth that accompanies it.
Notwithstanding the recent Democratic mid-term election victory in the United States, the issue of the desirability or the undesirability of continued excessive US global dominance is one that is gaining, not losing, potency to galvanize the rising powers in the East and their energy-exporting partners around the globe in opposition to continued US-led unipolarity and in furtherance of the vision of the creation of a new world order.
Diverse players amalgamated
It is this very issue and its related vision of a new world order that have driven Russia and China, two extraordinarily diverse powers, so tightly into each other's arms. It is an important lesson to recognize with what deepening accord and cohesion they are learning to act in nearly every sphere of endeavor, and why they are doing so.
Their joint statements issued since 1996 on the world order have all had one overriding theme - the need to bring in a more equitable "multipolar" world order to replace US-led unipolarity. While certain analysts have kept on trumpeting the supposed impending disintegration of the unanimity between the two great powers, the two have proceeded from agreement to cooperation to full-blown strategic partnership, all in spite of their significant differences and the numerous obstacles encountered along the way.
Their common interest to see an end to inordinate US global dominance, and the figurative and literal violence to their legitimate interests that accompanies that dominance, transcend and override their differences, leading to ever deeper joint cooperation between them.
The Russia-China axis is the geopolitical seed around which a rising multifarious but cohesive pole of the East is progressively coalescing. What is proving itself as a unifying force of compelling potency at work between Russia and China is also proving itself elsewhere in the wider rising East and far beyond to include the bulk of the world's energy-exporting regimes.
Far too many analysts in the West simply don't understand, or stubbornly refuse to accept, the potency and significance of the forces at work here and their potential for altering the entire geopolitical landscape now - not in the next decade.
Increasingly, all these East-centric players are finding themselves to be more firmly "on the same page" with respect to the grand, transcending issue of bringing an early end, by virtue of a new world order, to US global dominance. The informed observer already knows of the rapidly spreading global complex of energy-based ties and alliances covering the spheres of the economy, energy, security and diplomacy that is being constructed among Russia, China, India, nearly all the other rising economies of Asia, and the bulk of the world's energy-exporting regimes in Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
It is even going so far as to cross (ignore) formal EU lines to include, on certain fundamental levels, key European states such as Germany, France and Italy. That global complex of ties and alliances excludes completely the US. It progressively binds its participants ever closer together in mutual energy-based economic, political and diplomatic interdependence and helps to deepen the cohesiveness across the global grouping.
Consequently, the members of that global grouping have formed and are continuing to form a strikingly concrete low-level (foundational) interleaving of ties and alliances among themselves in all spheres of endeavor that increasingly bind themselves to one another in real terms and that is fundamentally centered on, irreversibly focused on, the East, not on the West.
That profoundly meaningful new development, namely the arising of an interwoven and cohesive new East-centric global grouping with truly unmatched economic and energy-based clout, is
fundamentally flowing against and undermining the foundations of the US-backed liberal global oil-market order, reworking the entire geopolitical landscape and unhinging the very underpinnings of US-led unipolarity, and the grouping's jubilant members fully know it.
The question is asked, "Why should anyone believe that the rising powers in the East will truly act cohesively enough to be able to present a real challenge to the US global position?" It must be remembered that the rising poles in the East and their energy-exporting partners around the globe do not exist, and do not act, in a vacuum. They operate in a world still inordinately dominated by the US. It is a US determined to hold on to its position by keeping all challengers down, by force if need be.
The pent-up global tensions arising out of what is seen as 15 years of grossly inequitable US-led unipolarity now need only a spark to ignite a reversion to a full-blown neo-Cold War and the accompanying global polarization into East and West. That polarization will be accompanied also by a further galvanizing of the powers around the globe that oppose US global dominance.
The spark will be the next military campaign undertaken by the United States against one of the members of the so-called "axis of evil" - most likely Iran. The current US administration is facing an imminent Iraq-based collapse of its Middle East aspirations and fortunes, and no one should miscalculate US determination to get a "win", to hold on to its global position and to cut Iran and other rivals down to "proper" size to try to ensure that win. Consequently, US actions themselves will only further strengthen the already considerable cohesion among the members of the multifarious East.
The Iraq invasion of 2003 galvanized the globe's players in opposition to the US. The sparks mentioned above will further consolidate the members of the multifarious East in opposition to US-led unipolarity. Inevitable, impending US actions along militaristic lines are very potent unity multipliers for the array of poles comprising the rising East.
As long as the US exists as a superpower and seeks to retain and acquire (or reacquire) inordinate dominance over the global order, then the cohesiveness of the East will be strengthened and assured. Since the US cannot be made to cease to exist as a military and economic superpower, but only constrained and harnessed tentatively by an East that must stay on its toes constantly, then there is little chance the rising East will either fail to achieve the cohesiveness forecast here or suffer a loss of that cohesiveness once it is fully attained.
Its common foe, the US itself, isn't disappearing from the global scene any time soon, and once the US is shifted out of its global position it will unceasingly try to reacquire that position, obliging ongoing vigilance and unity in the East.
The potency of the rising East
It must be emphasized that the intent of the rising East is not to destroy or to collapse the US or its economy. Instead, it is to shift the US out of its position of global dominance and to take the reins of the US economy, like a cherished bull, and to impress it into service to the interests of the rising East.
This concept should not seem too hypothetical or be too foreign to the mind of the reader, for the adroit task described here is already being accomplished. The US economy and those of the wider West are already being tasked by foreigners to support an ongoing and massive transfer of wealth to the rising East.
Where does one consider that the enormous foreign-exchange reserves and the huge trade surpluses of the so-called emerging economies in the East came from? How did the global economic landscape completely reverse from that of independent economic strength and wealth in the West to that of a West largely absent its former independent economic strength and steeped in red ink, and mounting economic might and ascendant wealth in the East? The economies of the West, and in particular the US, are already being massively harnessed to serve the interests of the rising East.
Thus, contrary to the conventional-wisdom-based argument that says the US economy is too big and too powerful to be threatened by the rising East, the US economy is already being "harmed" and "threatened" in a very real sense; it is being yoked by foreigners in the East to serve the purposes of the East.
Even a powerful ship of immense size and strength is entirely controlled by only a few individuals at the helm and by its comparatively tiny rudder. Who is genuinely at the helm of a US economy excessively dependent on foreign cash inflows and financing from the East, massively dependent on foreign sources of oil from exporters tightly aligned with the East, a US economy sinking in red ink that has already forfeited an excessive degree of its former independent might and has thereby sacrificed its former autonomy?
The stark facts reveal that US government officials at the Federal Reserve and in the White House have largely been playing with a toy plastic steering wheel, as it were, while the genuine helm is largely manned by others in the East. The repeated complaintsand mostly empty threats out of Washington regarding China's "unfair" economic policies serve as but one example among many of an admission of Washington's loss of significant control of the helm of the US economy.
The US cannot afford to take action that angers China and the big economies of Asia for fear that its primary source of crucial foreign cash inflows would be lost, or that it would become entangled in an economic war in which it is entirely ill-prepared to prevail.
Is all the foregoing the result of careful strategies, unforeseen occurrences or a combination of both? No matter the answer, the rising East fully appreciates the unique global position it is being ushered into and it is unlikely to squander its global opportunities the way the US has done, especially since 1991 when it failed to look ahead and to make the most of its opportunities to create a US-led order that virtually all the global players could and would willingly be loyal to, as president George H W Bush promised the US would do in 1992.
India firmly in tune with the vision
Where does India stand on the great issue? Its leaders have repeatedly and fervently come out in favor of an end to unipolarity. India's meteoric rise, not insignificantly fueled by the acquisition of advanced technologies from the West, is only adding to the geopolitical leverage of the rising East where it fully knows its economic, energy security, diplomatic and geopolitical fortunes lie.
India has concluded an important agreement with the US over acquisition of advanced nuclear technologies. Many judge predominantly by appearances and assume India is thus moving into alignment with the United States, but that is simply not the case. As an emerging power, India knows full well the crucial role of the acquisition of such technologies, and its foreign policy has a "face" (more than a mere facade but much less than a true representation of its genuine alignment) that serves to facilitate such acquisitions.
But as in the deal with the US, these agreements are concluded almost entirely on terms favorable to India. It is unwilling to sacrifice its autonomy and independence from the West in any agreements it concludes. Simultaneously, India is meaningfully strengthening its ties, alliances and economic interdependence with Russia, China and the wider East. There should therefore be little uncertainty about in which direction India is genuinely aligning - it is aligning eastward.
The recent visit to India by Chinese President Hu Jintao illustrates the truth of the above analysis. The two great powers are steadily deepening their strategic ties in the key spheres of bilateral economic relations, security, diplomacy and energy.
They see each other as key centers of power in the developing "multipolar" (read: an end to US-led unipolarity) world order and continue to take meaningful steps along the path of peaceful co-existence, in spite of the many obstacles in their way. The 10-point joint statement issued by Hu and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh included the declarations that the two great powers intend to strengthen their trilateral ties with Russia and that they intend to push ahead to create a new international energy order that is fair and equitable, and to diversify the structure of the current order, as reported by Xinhua News Agency.
That signals that the current US-led global energy order is not the one that is being strengthened and adhered to by the rising East, and such a development has enormous, incalculable implications for the West and for the ability of the US to maintain its position of global dominance. So contrary to the largely unfounded expectations of most analysts, and despite some surface appearances, India is fundamentally aligning toward the East.
It's all about structure
The skeptic will often acknowledge all the foregoing analysis as that based solidly on the observable facts, yet will cling to the objection that the arising of any truly cohesive yet multifarious pole of the East requires a grand unifying organizational or institutional structure that formally encompasses its multitude of diverse members. The skeptic will assert that it needs a NATO-like institutional arrangement or an EU-like organizational structure, for example, to achieve genuine cohesiveness and the ability collectively and effectively to challenge the US colossus.
However, as it relates to the origination of unity and the achievement of fundamental cohesiveness among diverse members, that argument in essence confuses cause and effect, mistakenly reversing their roles. With respect to the origination of a deep-seated unity and cohesiveness among members of a diverse group, the organizational and institutional structures are much less the cause producing unity and cohesiveness; they are rather much more the effect, that is, the corporeal expressions of a more ethereal but profoundly potent and persuasive cause - the commonality, the shared aims and goals that come to exist first within and among a group of individuals or powers and that galvanize them.
If that commonality (shared vision) exists first, then the members may subsequently and progressively come together to form a tangible organizational or institutional structure or structures that properly and more effectively express their common will. Therefore, the commonality and cohesiveness come to exist first and they serve as the cause, which then often produces the follow-on effect of the formation of organizational or institutional structure.
It is vitally important to understand the fundamental distinction between cause and effect as it relates to the rise of the multifarious East as a cohesive center of power, because those
who calculate and judge, based on its present seeming lack of a sufficiently all-encompassing (NATO-like) organizational structure, that no such cohesive pole is actually arising, have seriously miscalculated.
The arising of such a structure or structures will mark not the mere start of the rise of such a pole, but rather the near-completion of its imposing emergence on the world stage. Such structures do not originate unity and cohesiveness; they may only augment and improve it. Therefore, all too many observers are currently far behind the curve, failing to assess properly how genuinely far advanced geopolitical developments leading to a new global order have already become.
Genuine cohesion vs apparent cohesion
As respects genuine cohesiveness and unity, which of the entities below is in fundamental and serious trouble, and which is merely awaiting the
finishing touches?
Ever more ostentatious institutions/organizations such as the EU and NATO that have significantly lost a compelling, all-encompassing and galvanizing vision and purpose and whose members are increasingly at odds with each other on key issues.
The rising multifarious East, which fully owns a compelling, all-encompassing and galvanizing vision and purpose, has formed and is forming a low-level complex of ties and alliances among its members in all spheres of endeavor to bind them to each other in real terms. It already has in place key mid-level utilitarian organizational and institutional structures (such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the Non-Aligned Movement, etc), which at present appear to lack only the conventional grand-level organizational structure.
Isn't it quite obvious that the rising East is the entity that is persistently, ever more advanced on the path to cohesiveness and unity, whereas the key organizational/institutional structures of the West (NATO and the EU) and their membership are insidiously retreating on that same path?
In reality, neither the NATO nor the EU structure can guarantee, all by themselves, the unity, cohesiveness and potency of the grouping of powers they represent. The EU is becoming notoriously disjointed on a number of key issues. The same can rightly be said of NATO, which, if it fails to achieve a clear victory soon against a resurgent enemy in Afghanistan after more than five years of costly effort, is at genuine risk of disintegration.
While NATO members keep quarreling over troop levels, the alliance forces have become critically inadequate to prevent the resurgent Taliban from pushing Afghanistan past the tipping point toward a forfeiture by the West. Both NATO and the EU significantly lack the galvanizing fundamental unity of purpose that they used to possess before 1991 when the Soviet Union, their common foe, collapsed. Their organizational structure cannot bequeath it to them, either.
They are moving toward greater disunity in spite of the surface trend of enlarging their membership, or perhaps partly because of their policy of unending enlargement. They are shortsightedly enlarging the corporeal boundaries of their organizational structure while simultaneously the ethereal boundaries that encompass the far more important factor of a shared vision keep shriveling.
If a comparatively loose grouping of powers first truly comes to possess the fundamental unanimity of purpose on an issue or issues that transcend their differences, if they share a common vision and if they have formed a low-level complex of ties and alliances among themselves in all spheres of endeavor to bind themselves to one another in real terms as the rising East is doing, then they have already accomplished the most important tasks relating to the achievement of true cohesion. Advances in the creation and broadening of organizational and institutional structures will naturally follow as the need for them arises.
Unconventional vs conventional structures
NATO and the EU are examples of traditional organizational/institutional structures that are hierarchical in nature; that is, they are organized in a conventional chain-of-command (top-down) style. However, the rising East is organized much less after the conventional hierarchical model and much more after the unconventional relational (side-by-side) model. Its members consist largely of peer powers that have progressively locked arms across the globe, so to speak, to accomplish their shared vision. Can the conventionally structured West be credibly challenged, even asymmetrically, by an unconventionally structured East that may continue to lack a single, hierarchical grand-level organization or institution? Be very careful how you answer!
There currently exist several key examples of unconventionally organized asymmetric challengers that present extremely potent, even grave, dangers to the West.
Al-Qaeda and its associated groups around the globe share a galvanizing common vision, but the organizational structure is more according to the unconventional relational model rather than the conventional hierarchical one. No grand-level command structure exists - yet all the parts act in more-than-sufficient cohesion to present a very credible challenge to the West. Additionally, no "head" exists that can be targeted so as to demolish the entire organization, as is the case in conventional structures.
The same is true of the collection of insurgent groups in Iraq that have in effect locked arms to end the US occupation. The US is in severe trouble in Iraq. Similarly, across the wider Middle East region many diverse insurgent and terrorist groups have united to end the US presence in the region altogether. Afghanistan is yet another example where the Taliban and its related groups are credibly threatening to hand NATO a costly forfeiture.
In the asymmetric challenge, the comparatively smaller challenger seeks whatever advantage he can achieve against his much larger rival. It isn't a conventional, head-to-head boxing-match-style contest. The challenger seeks to exploit the vulnerabilities of his larger rival. In this style of contest, the unconventional relational-style organizational structure of the challenger actually works to the significant advantage against his larger rival because the relational structure facilitates a highly mobile, simultaneous multi-pronged assault, each prong of which is virtually autonomous, not requiring a rich set of coordinating commands along any top-down (hierarchical) channels that tend to be vulnerable to attack.
The conventionally structured West is mostly ill-prepared to respond effectively to such an unconventional assault, especially if it is both sustained (insidious) and highly adaptable, as are all the examples cited above, including the multifarious East itself. The hierarchical structures of the West tend to be unwieldy, neither agile nor flexible, so they are not very adaptable to the rapidly changing conditions on the field of battle and the highly adaptable tactics of the more agile asymmetric challengers. Those challengers, in effect, leverage the cumbersomeness of the West's own structures against them.
Conclusion
The rising multifarious East is not shaping up to be a conventionally structured entity that is arranged primarily in a hierarchical style. For that reason, many observers have difficulty understanding the genuine effectiveness of its unconventional structure, the fact that it is already achieving profound cohesiveness and that its potency is an impending and grave risk to the West.
While they are looking for the arising of conventional structures to signal the beginning of something to be taken seriously, the multifarious East has already set in place virtually all its levers to power and has advanced to very near the completion of its imposing emergence on the world stage.
(Part 1 of this three-part article: Full speed ahead, with menace
Part 2: The misnomer of multipolarity)
W Joseph Stroupe is author of the new book Russian Rubicon: Impending Checkmate of the West and editor of Global Events Magazine, online at www.GeoStrategyMap.com.
Original article posted here.l
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