Rajesh Rajagopalan at the SAIIA 75th Anniversary Conference

Cross-posted from The Real World.


I attended the South African Institute of International Affairs' 75th Anniversary conference, 'Africa in a New World: Geopolitics, interdependence and leverage', 17-18 September in Johannesburg and made a presentation on 'Moving the Center of gravity from the Atlantic to the Pacific'.

I did not have a written paper but my notes are posted below.

Introduction
Is the center of gravity of global politics moving from Atlantic to the Pacific? Is there also a power transition away from the US? I suppose the answer is yes to both, though the first shift is much more prominent and relevant than the second.

Shifting from Atlantic to Pacific
Since US both an Atlantic and a Pacific power, the shift from the Atlantic to the Pacific does not hurt the US. Can the shift to Pacific or Asia-Pacific lead to a different type of international politics, different from a European style of international politics? In other words, would Asia’s rise lead to a new (more harmonious?) international political culture or would Asia’s future be Europe’s past? But little sign of any dramatic change in Asian int’l politics. Insecurity and the consequences of insecurity no different in Asia. US presence/alliances keeps lid on more extreme insecurities

Nature of current international order
Is the curret system unipolar, multipolar or what? Unipolar-in purely material terms, because difference in wealth and power between dominant power and everybody else is greater than at anytime since end of the Roman Empire. But does this disparity lead to greater American control?

Not necessarily; being a GP ain’t what it used to be because:
• Ideology of nationalism
• Norms (legitimacy) of resistance
• Democratisation of firepower makes conquest difficult
• Nuke allow even small/weak states (NKorea) to counter US

Nevertheless, US capacity to control still immense. Example: US-Ind nuke deal; US changed global rules for just one country, demonstrates what power can do. So though US can’t get its way always, US dominance should not be underestimated

Moving towards multipolarity?
Obviously, US declining in relative terms since 1945, but not against the same power:
1940-1960s vis-à-vis Europe
• 1960-80s vis-à-vis Japan/southeast Asia
• 1980s-current vis-à-vis China, India
• This suggests that current challengers might not displace US

History of rise/fall of GPs illustrate that these are mostly internally determined; so difficult to predict; three lessons, however:
• GPs/hegemonies/empires last long, maybe hundreds of years
• Have not usually been balanced by other power (Roman, Chinese, Mughal etc, not balanced by others)
• GPs have usually declined for domestic/economic reasons, not because of other GPs
So US decline inevitable, but when, how impossible to predict. Assumption that US would quickly decline not valid.

What if multipolarity happens? Speculations about the future:
• Multipolarity may lead to greater insecurity and war
• Major players could become regional hegemons, dominating neighborhoods
Could lead to more insecurity
• Nevertheless, nukes likely to prevent direct combat between nuke powers, as in bipolarity
• But, as in bipolarity, it could lead to proxy wars, support for insurgents etc, because nuke war no longer possible
• Global norms/institutions could potentially suffer with no one (GP) to care for them.