Perspectives
The US past the uni-polar moment
FOLLOWING the end of the Cold War in the late eighties, the rules guiding international relations changed. There are, however, doubts that they changed for good. The events unfolding in the caucuses during the last few weeks, it is reckoned, should have dispelled those doubts. In late August, President Bush demanded that Russia's leaders reject their parliament's appeal to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and awaited a positive reply.
Within 24 hours Bush had his response; President Medvedev announced Russia's recognition of the two bitterly contested Georgian enclaves -- something unthinkable as America continues to be the final arbiter of global affairs as the planet's sole superpower. The Russian message in recognising the enclaves was, however, unmistakable. The outcome of the war triggered by Georgia's attack on South Ossetia on August 7 was non-negotiable and irreversible.
After that, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband's posturing in Kiev about building a coalition against Russian aggression looked somewhat foolish. The stand-off in the caucuses, it is true, has portended a period of intense diplomatic activity which, however, reveals cracks within Nato's transatlantic solidarity and the European union itself, with the members caught helplessly between the extreme choices.
However, this month's events in the caucuses signal a turning point in the global order, and its veracity can hardly be questioned. The geo-strategic interest of the US in the region has for the first time been challenged, although the current tension in Georgia under Russia's military threat lacked both the ideological and the global dimensions that shaped 40 years of confrontation between the West and Soviet Union after the Second World War.
But what is absolutely clear is that America's un-ipolar moment has passed, it has crossed the zenith of its power and the new world order heralded by senior Bush in the dying days of Soviet Union in 1991 is no more. The days when the US was able to "bestride the globe like a colossus" enforcing its will across the world are indeed over.
For nearly two decades, while Russia remained sunk in "catastroika" and China briskly built its economic powerhouse, an unrivalled US exercised unprecedented and unaccountable global power, arrogating itself and its allies the right to invade and occupy other countries unhindered by international law or institution -- sucking ever more states into the orbit of its voracious military alliance.
Now, pumped up with petro-dollars, a resurrected Russia has called a halt to this relentless expansion of power and demonstrated that the colossus could be held back -- given the will of any single power at least on regional basis -- even if on a limited scale. Its satraps are feeling the new limits of overstretched American power, whether it is Georgia or elsewhere in the region.
With regard to the recognition of the Georgian enclaves, there are certainly dangers for Russia's territorial integrity. By legitimising breakaway states, a huge, muti-ethnic Russia has put itself at grave risk. But observers see little practical impact of the move, which is presumably intended to create only a bargaining chip for any likely future negotiation. Moreover, in spite of both the West and Russia using the excuse of "genocide" to try and give themselves legal cover, Russia is surely on stronger ground over South Ossetia --where its own internationally recognised peace keepers were directly attacked by the Georgian army.
There has been much talk among western politicians during recent days about Russia isolating itself from the international community. But, unless that community simply means North America and Europe, nothing could be further from the truth. Although the US and British media have swung into full cold war mode over the Georgian issue, the rest of the world tends to see the crisis in altogether different light.
According to Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore's former UN ambassador, the world is "bemused by western world moralising on Georgia," while the Western view is that the world should "support the underdog Georgia against Russia." Most support Russia against the bullying West. The gap between the Western narrative and rest of the world couldn't be clearer.
The reasons are not hard to understand. It's not only that the US and its allies have trampled international law and the UN itself to bring death and destruction to the Middle East, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan. In the fog of imperial hubris that left it over-stretched and unable to prevent the return of a multi-polar world, the US took Russia's allegiance to the new order and its subservient role therein for granted.
However, the inevitability of history has at long last struck her, although there is no imminent prospect of a serious challenger to the US -- which still remains overwhelmingly the most powerful country -- for years to come. But that power is now being questioned.
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