In recent years there have been heightened geopolitical turbulences and continued tensions in Europe, Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. The instability is closely connected with the return of geopolitics and the new Cold War, widely discussed in academia and by the public.
In Europe, the Ukraine crisis has kept Russia's relationship with the US and EU frayed, which is seen as a notable sign of the return of geopolitics and breakout of new Cold War. The geopolitical gaming in the form of proxy wars intensifies the fragmentation in the Middle East.
In the Asia-Pacific region, geopolitical hotspot issues such as the Korean Peninsula problem and disputes over islets and maritime rights show widespread tensions. Surely these are related to the complex power structures in the regions and unsolved problems left by history, but one of their common characteristics is their close link with the US global strategic adjustment.
In Europe the US for years has been pushing forward the enlargement of NATO and plotted color revolutions to force out Russia from its traditional sphere of influence. While Russia and Europe become the biggest victims, the US can achieve its dual purpose of hindering Russia and weakening Europe. As the US seeks to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan and meanwhile interferes with affairs in Libya and Syria in an irresponsible manner, the Middle East has lost control and order, seeing competition for dominance and the rise of terrorist extremists.
The US rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region has not only disturbed the Korean Peninsula, China-Japan relations, the East and South China Sea, but also created in East Asia an intensified strategic competition among powers in which small countries seek petty interests.
Washington's steps to escalate geopolitical tensions fundamentally rest on its strategic anxiety about the rise of the emerging countries such as China. To maintain its fading hegemony, the US resorts to geopolitics to exert its influence on the international power shift because the West believes that the world peace is built on equilibrium. That's why the Western world is always delighted in talking about equilibrium and where American strategists like Zbigniew Brzezinski devised the Grand Chessboard.
The US-provoked geopolitical tensions will have immensely adverse effects on the transformation of international system. First, the global governance will face frequent challenges from geopolitics. Geopolitical tensions have led to the coexistence of two paradigms, the geopolitical one and global governance, with the latter constantly challenging the former. One important reason for the hard progress in multiple spheres of global governance is that the return of geopolitics has severely hit the cooperation of countries, great powers in particular, in the international system.
Besides, global governance will be geopoliticized due to the squeeze of fragmented regional governance. The US currently appears to have little regard for many international systems it founded. For instance, if the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and Trans-Pacific Partnership can be successful, the World Trade Organization will be seriously marginalized. In this context, emerging countries like the BRICS have to build new international institutions and systems while seeking reforms for existing ones, which will lead to the regionalization and fragmentation of global governance.
Moreover, the return of geopolitics has caused growing risks in political, security and military fronts such as the danger of new Cold War, heightened clashes of civilizations, frequent local conflicts, widespread nationalist extremism, regional extremism and international terrorism as well as a fierce arms race.
The biggest problem for global governance is that the US, the founder of the international system, has seen a fundamental crisis in its abilities of national and global governance. More sadly, Washington doesn't introspect its own capacity building but instead resorts to geopolitics in a bid to defer the decline of its hegemony. This may be an unavoidable tragedy for all the hegemonies, but in globalized times, it will unfold into a tragedy for the world.
The author is a professor at the Middle East Studies Institute of Shanghai International Studies University.
Source: Global Times
