Pivoting Great Powers

 In geopolitics, pivoting is not something only pivot-states do.

*

The current debate concerning the management of international relations centres around two key concepts: multipolarity and unipolarity. The opposition of the two concepts is creating a lot of tensions and global security headaches at present, as the Ukraine war illustrates. Consequently, it is worth recalling the origins of multipolarity and of its counterpart, unipolarity.

Multipolarity has a proven historical track record of keeping the peace between great powers, through its balance of power mechanism. It originated in Europe and flourished after the fall of Napoleon, when it included 5 great powers: Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Russia. Through regular meetings between them, the five powers succeeded in keeping relative peace in Europe for a hundred years, until 1914.

Unipolarity was born out of the ashes of the bi-polar world around the year 2000, being the brainchild of American neoconservatives, with no precedent in modern history. In assuming the role of the only hegemonic power, the US has engaged in almost continuous warfare in the Middle East, Asia and now in Europe, violating - in the process - the UN charter and provoking the devastation of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine. 

In the first decade of the 21st century, a number of former and current military powers from Asia and Europe, such as China, France, Russia or Germany, have started to push for the demise of unipolarity and for the transition to a European-style multipolar world order, dominated initially by 4 great powers: the US, the EU (the Franco-German alliance), Russia and China. ( A 5th member, India, would join this exclusive great power club in the next few years). By the end of the current decade, this multipolar system will very likely replace the broken unipolar system put in place by the US two decades ago.

One other issue that is connected with the advent of multipolarity is that of pivot states, which I have already discussed elsewhere. There is, however, one essential aspect I have omitted to mention. That is, whilst no great power can be considered a pivot state, some of them are themselves pivoting quite significantly.

The first to do so was the United States. We all remember the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia". Disappointed by Western Europe's "ungratefulness" for the role the US played in the prosperity achieved by the continent after the devastation of WWII, the Obama administration decided to turn its back on Europe and pivot towards the Pacific region and China instead.

The second superpower pivoting was the EU, under the leadership of France and Germany. After refusing to endorse the US' invasion of Iraq, the two leading European countries started lobbying for "strategic autonomy" from both the US and NATO and pivoted economically towards Russia and especially China.

The latest great power to pivot was Russia, following the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev. Disillusioned with repeated Western invasions of its homeland and the presence of NATO at its borders, Russia itself pivoted east towards China. By 2023, the two countries concluded a comprehensive alliance, directed against what they regard as NATO's expansionist drive in Europe and Asia and against the regime-change crusade promoted by Washington recently.

The only great power that does not need to pivot and keeps to its millenary Middle Kingdom tradition is China. For a few decades now, China's huge market has become a magnet for all the other great powers, which covet Chinese low labour costs and access to the pockets of its large and growing middle class. 

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that China has emerged as the only great power interested in maintaining global peace and stability, as its contributions to the peace efforts between Iran and Saudi Arabia have recently proved.

Accordingly, US policymakers would be well-advised to abandon their mindless quest to keep unipolarity going, and to take their rightful place among the other great powers. Such a course of action could only pay dividends for global peace and prosperity.

How Pivot States Can Affect Global Peace and Security

 The transition from American unipolarity to a multipolar world order is well and truly underway and cannot be reversed. When dealing with threats to international security, Western policymakers should contemplate action starting from this new reality. 

*

On the 1st of January 2014, four researchers from The Hague and London published a ground-breaking research report on pivot states and their role in regional and global security. The 57-page report identified 22 pivot states from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America and listed 4 great powers currently in existence : the US, the EU, Russia and China. On its way to achieving the status of a great power, India is currently the only major regional country that still clings to its famed neutrality.

The basis of the report is - clearly - multipolarity, while the notion of spheres of interest and its importance in international relations is fully recognised as such. For the authors, the definition of pivot countries is as follows:

"Pivot states are states that possess military, economic or ideational strategic assets that are coveted by great powers. Pivot states are caught in the middle of overlapping spheres of influence of multiple great powers, as measured by associations that consist of ties that bind (military and economic agreements and cultural affinities) or relationships that flow (arms and commodities trade and discourse).

A change in a pivot state's association has important repercussions for regional and global security. States that find themselves in overlapping spheres of interest are focal points of where great power interests can collide and also clash. States located at the seams of the international system have at various moments in history been crucial to the security and stability of the international system.

Intra-state cleavages often divide pivot states. Such cleavages can be religious, ethnic, linguistic or cultural in nature, and more often than not they are a combination of all of the above. And it is precisely when these pivot states are caught in the middle, when opposing great powers push and pull in opposite directions, that they are torn apart. Hitherto weak centrifugal forces might suddenly become unleashed. Ukraine is currently succumbing to divisive forces, and Iraq is at real risk of falling apart.

In some cases there is an increased likelihood of great power conflict when pivot states fall victim to great powers encroaching on each other's spheres of influence. Great powers competing over respective spheres of influence (think here the US vs Russia) employ what is commonly called brinksmanship, either to change or, alternatively, to uphold the status quo. But brinksmanship can be exercised by pivot states too. These pivot states can be moral hazards or "rogue pivots" if they behave recklessly while betting on the opposing great power to come to their rescue. Georgia in the run-up to the 2008 war with Russia is a case in point. Georgia had been keen on bolstering ties with the West and was betting on Western assistance in its conflict with Russia, while the latter did not materialise in the end. Brinksmanship of pivot states also introduces a real risk of direct or indirect confrontation between great powers. The solution seems simple: do not let a rogue pivot state pull you into a great conflict."

The report provides a useful guide to understanding the current war in Ukraine, as well as the political instability in Georgia and elsewhere. It should be a must-read for policymakers and diplomats alike. 

By clinging to unipolarity, the US foreign policy establishment is actually depriving international relations of the needed shock absorbers and it could, unfortunately, lead the world to nuclear catastrophe.

Can the US Reinvent Itself ?

 Engaging the US in permanent military conflicts abroad is not the way to solve the serious problems at home, but a way to court disaster. America can and should reinvent itself, not as an "indispensable nation", but as a normal country.

The gaping ruins in Ukrainian cities, the thousands of deaths and millions of refugees now pouring into the West are spelling the end of the US's unipolarity in international affairs. The same conflict, however, is important for a vastly different reason: that of bringing into sharper focus the West's internal strife and the accelerating decay of its political systems and societies. 

Through the extrapolation of observable tendencies, one can safely assume that unless the US and the countries making up the Western alliance reinvent themselves and adapt to the world as it is, their very survival could be at stake. For this to happen, there are some major issues the Western alliance countries must urgently attend to. These encompass the military, diplomatic, economic and social fields. 

From a military point of view, the US's first priority is the long-overdue dismantling of Nato. As matters now stand, Nato is held responsible for a mindless expansion to the East which has led to the war in Ukraine. Undaunted, the foreign ministers of Nato countries and some from the Indo-Pacific have recently reunited in Brussels and have decided to change the organisation's European focus into a global one. This can only mean that Nato members could be involved in far-away military conflicts in the South China Sea in the future. Such an outcome was predictable ever since the US decided to use Nato in its quest for maintaining its global hegemon status. 

The war happening now in Ukraine, however, has proved beyond a doubt that the Russian army is much less powerful than the Red Army during the Cold War era and cannot conceivably represent a credible conventional military threat for Europe. It follows, therefore, that enrolling new Nato members has been done through deception, with the hidden agenda of expanding the US military-industrial complex's customer base.

The preference for unipolarity springs from the fact that American military and political elites consistently draw the wrong conclusions from their study of history. To give but one example, soon after the US became a nation-state, its elites emulated not the philosophers of the Enlightenment, but those of Ancient Greece. As a result, those elites decided that their democratic system of government was fully compatible with the institution of slavery. Consequently, they kept slavery going for more than 50 years after all other European nations outlawed it, one after the other. The result of such a skewed reading of History was the American Civil War of the 1860's, which made tens of thousands of victims and almost jeopardised the unity of the country. (It was rather fortunate for the US that Abraham Lincoln did not attend an Ivy League university or have a classical education)

Closer to our own times, American pundits became infatuated with the study of the Roman Empire, identifying with Rome as the foremost military power in ancient times. These type of studies increased in intensity after the fall of communism and were used to provide the historical arguments in order to maintain America's unipolarity well past its due date, like in the case of the 19th century slavery issue. We are all familiar with the results of this flawed reading of Roman history, and so are the Serbs, the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Syrians and now the Ukrainians.

The US is also fully engaged in preventing China from replacing it as world hegemon, an effort that could result in war in the Indo-Pacific. The lens through which American policymakers interpret China's rise is that of the "Thucydides Trap", which also forms the basis of US foreign policy. Again, the study of Ancient Greek historical thought has led some otherwise highly educated Harvard historians to import ideas from the infancy of humanity into a mature and highly complex society which the United States is today. Considered one of history's deadliest patterns, it almost mandates that countries involved in such a "Trap" must go to war with each other. Sadly, it has not occurred to American historians and pundits that the two rather small city-states of Ancient Greece - Athens and Sparta - can by no means be a model for the enmity that exists between the US on one side and China on the other, today.

For its part, China has time and again assured the US that while it disagrees with American unipolarity, it does not intend to substitute itself in its stead. Rather, the Chinese preference is for a 19th century European type of multipolarity, revamped to suit the management of global affairs in the 21st century. To be more precise, China seems to be in favour of an institution like an enlarged G7 - which is to include both established and emerging economic and military powers - that would take over the management of global affairs from the United States. Unfortunately, the ancient model of Thucydides Trap still exercises a strong fascination over the minds of American policymakers, a fact that could have catastrophic practical consequences. 

For the United States, another emergency is an overhaul of its diplomatic service, which has to include the sacking of all neoconservatives who are lurking in the hierarchy of the State Department. The neoconservatives are the foremost supporters and enablers of American unipolarity, which saw the US dragged into needless wars and nation-building fiascos in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and now in Ukraine, all with disastrous consequences. Given their propensity to push for the wrong foreign policy measures and initiatives, such people should not be allowed nowhere near the State Department or its embassies abroad. Instead, the US should start a major education program for top State Department bureaucrats and diplomats, aimed at making them understand the finer points of multipolarity and how it is to be implemented and operated in practice.

One of the biggest headaches in the Western world during modern times has also been the presence of Catholics in positions of leadership in major European countries or in the US. Indeed, practically all modern times' crusades were led by Catholic leaders, from Napoleon and Hitler to Tony Blair, or Boris Johnson and Joe Biden today. There is currently an unholy alliance between neoconservative bureaucrats in the State and Defence Departments and Catholic political leaders like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Boris Johnson, who have joined forces to unleash the latest crusade on Russia via Ukraine. The US cannot reinvent itself with Catholic leaders in control of its foreign policy and neoconservatives in charge of its diplomatic service.

There is a great need also of an overhaul of the American military-industrial complex, and of limiting its access to federal legislators and administration officials alike. During the Obama administration, some initial efforts were made to trim the US defence budget by some 10 percent. The defence budget is the lifeline of this complex, which unfortunately has been amply funded by both the Trump and Biden administrations. Consequently, its representatives have a vested interest in expanding the US military, in the expansion of Nato and what is commonly called the "forever wars", which have become a fixture of US involvement abroad.

Being a highly secure country positioned between two oceans, the US should have reduced the size of its military significantly after the fall of communism. Again, only the Obama administration started a process of downsizing the American military, a commendable effort that wasn't followed through by the next two presidents. Unfortunately, having an oversized military and a huge defence budget is bound to ignite ever larger conflicts abroad to justify the expense. This is in part what we are witnessing in Ukraine, and an explanation for the push to paint China as a US strategic competitor, to prepare for war with it.

Finally, there are other urgent measures that have to be taken in order to make the American economy more performant and less dependent on global supply chains, as well as make American society fairer and more egalitarian. However, not being a specialist in these fields, I would not attempt to recommend solutions, but just to highlight the need to fix these problems. Like the military and diplomatic fields, the West has to find the appropriate remedies to its ills and reinvent itself if it is to survive and thrive in the future. As Americans are bound to find out, there is life after unipolarity after all.

The US is about to Cancel Itself

 After initiating bombing campaigns over the last 23 years in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, and fomenting "color revolutions" in Eastern Europe, American politicians have lost the moral authority necessary to lecture the Kremlin about its military actions in Ukraine.

The average European or American TV viewer can naturally be excused for believing that Russia, and especially its president Vladimir Putin, bears the blame for what is happening in Ukraine. After all, citizens of Western countries are being bombarded on a daily basis with sickening images of buildings in ruins, crying women with babies, with the occasional cat or dog being thrown into the mix for good measure. To top it all off, Putin's latest actions in Ukraine are being presented as the acts of a madman, a bloodthirsty dictator, whose expected downfall justifies the adoption by Western countries of the harshest possible sanctions ever devised. The objective is clear: Russian people have to suffer for supporting their president, until they take to the streets to bring down those responsible.

The sorry spectacle of Russian bombs falling over Ukrainian cities and of millions of refugees heading towards the borders cannot obscure the fact that the heaviest responsibility for these horrors belongs to the neoconservative-dominated US foreign policy establishment. As known, they are now the main backers of the Zelensky regime, the ones writing his speeches and the ones opening doors for him in the West.

The harshness of the sanctions against Russia is the result of applying woke ideology to the field of international relations. Indeed, these sanctions are not meant to lead the Ukrainian conflict to a resolution, or the Russians to the negotiating table, far from it. The true goal of American neoconservatives is, astoundingly enough, to "cancel" Russia both as a country and as a menace to America's status as sole hegemon left after the demise of the bipolar world.

Taken together, the US' actions directed over the past few years against Russia and especially against China can only be explained by the desire of American foreign policy circles to keep America on top, at the expense of all other military and economic powers, established or emerging ones. To this end, crippling entire economies and vast geographical areas of the world and reigniting the spectre of war in Europe seem a small price to pay for the initiators of American unipolarity in world affairs.

There is currently talk in Washington about hegemonic transition and the Thucydides trap which, if not carefully managed, could finally erupt into an all-out war between the US with its NATO allies, on the one hand, and Russia & China on the other. This time around, however, the leadership of the would-be hegemon supposed to replace the US, namely China, is a hell of a lot smarter than American policymakers ever were. To be sure, China deserves a much more important role in world affairs than is currently the case. To their credit, however, the Chinese do not want to replace the US as the world's sole hegemon, but instead prefer to see the world run in multipolar fashion, by a kind of revamped G7 in which nobody is at the head of the table, but where all major participants share into decisionmaking concerning global affairs. 

In the first decade of this century, the US hoped that they could enlist Russia to organise a Washington-operated balance of power aimed at containing China's rise. American policymakers sensed, rather correctly, that no policy of containment towards China can be successful without having Russia on board. This was the main reason why , between 2009 and 2012, the Obama administration tried to mend fences with Moscow during the so-called reset. Fortunately, the Russians felt the danger of being used for the wrong ends and refused the US's overtures, siding over the last decade with China instead. As Russia refused to come on board, America's architects of unilateralism in international affairs, the neocons, have supported the 2014 upheavals in Ukraine and practically took over the political management of that country in order to turn it against Russia. What we are now witnessing is Russia's military reaction to the threat on its western borders. Regardless of how strident the Biden administration is now in framing the resulting competition as a fight between democracies and autocracies, from an IR point of view the strategy is shallow and is backfiring.

Coming back to the sanctions regime and NATO's posturing in the media, these have only proved to the Western public and to the new allies in Eastern Europe how ineffective the US has become in managing global affairs, especially in Europe. As much as American neocons would like to treat Putin like Saddam and Russia like Iraq and sanction them out of existence, the truth of the matter is that the use of the financial A-bomb (cutting out Russia from SWIFT) and of the financial H-bomb (freezing its central bank reserves in Western banks) is hugely counterproductive and can be fully met by the Russians -if pushed too far- with real atomic and hydrogen bombs. 

Now everyone would agree that this is not the type of global leadership with which the world could put up for long. America's extreme tactics call into question the current arrangements in global affairs: the fact that most commercial transactions are conducted in US dollars, and that all countries have to obey US diktats or else. In fact, all the US has succeeded in doing by interfering in Ukrainian internal affairs since 2014, and by supporting the war against Russia, has been to speed up its own demise as the sole world hegemon. By "cancelling" Russia, the US has initiated the process of cancelling itself. 

On Russia's Global Importance

 Over the last 30 years, Western officialdom's policies concerning Russia have grown increasingly irrational. Europeans tend to forget that long before the US or the Ukraine ever existed, Russia was always there in their hour of need. Unfortunately, after the latest events, Russia might not be there for us any longer.

For me as an historian, the only Slavic state that deserves all the respect and consideration of social scientists is the Russian state.

Unfortunately, the European Slavs proved an absolutely incredible inability to create solid states that would last over time and prosper. Neither the Serbs, nor the Czechs, nor the Slovaks or even the Poles have proved to Europe or the world that they have the attributes necessary to live in peace with each other, to build well-organized or consolidated state structures (see Ukraine).

To be sure, the Poles disappeared for 200 years from modern history, reappearing as a state only since 1918. Federal Yugoslavia disappeared after only 70 years, Czechoslovakia around the same time. Most of the time, these branches of the Slavic people became the victims of their stronger neighbours - Turks, Germans, Russians or Austrians - because of this inability to build solid state structures.

Please compare the European Slavs now with the Russians, who have a millenary history of existence as a state, although their central position in Eurasia is an extremely difficult one geopolitically. During the Middle Ages, they managed to defeat both the Mongol invaders and the Tartars, not to mention the Turks. In modern times, they colonized Siberia as far as the Pacific and came to expand their territories in the west to the borders of Romania or Poland. All this time, Russia has overall been a factor of stability in Europe, being a reliable ally of both the Germans and the Western powers - England and France, but also the United States - in the first half of the twentieth century.

Nowadays most of the European Slavs have joined the NATO umbrella and are barking like puppies at the big dog, Russia, which has done nothing to antagonize them in recent decades, on the contrary. The Russians have instead been busy rebuilding their economy and developing their agriculture. From an importer of wheat during communism - according to Gorbachev they used to purchase it with gold bullion at one point - they became one of the biggest exporters of grain.

Russia has always been run by the secret services, whether we are talking about Tsarist Ohrana, the Soviet KGB or now the FSB. This is one of the secrets of the Russian state's longevity and stability, since the Russians are not at all convinced that professional politicians or Western-type democracy could ensure their survival as a state. They were willing to give it a go during the nineties, but the experiment failed miserably and was never going to be repeated.

Of course, the West would prefer Russia to be run by an alcoholic like Yeltsin or someone like that. But the Russians - who have recovered economically from the disaster of the 1990s under Vladimir Putin, have paid off their outstanding debts, rebuilt their army and amassed important financial reserves for the first time in their recent history - have other options. In fact, this is the fundamental reason why Putin is not liked by leaders in the West, the rest is just propaganda.

In terms of international relations, Russia cannot agree to a unipolar world  ruled exclusively by Washington, just as China does not agree. The Russians' preference for a multi-polar world, in which they have a say, is hundreds of years old. They were the ones who put an end to the French hegemonic plans in 1814, they were also instrumental in the fight against German hegemony that caused two world wars last century. 

Russia had peacefully and voluntarily given up, without armed conflict, the bi-polar world that appeared after 1945, but it cannot agree not to participate at all in global decision-making. This approach is an extremely dangerous neoconservative utopia, which could trigger World War III, even a nuclear one. Unfortunately, since the inhabitants of the Anglosphere  are not Russians, I don't think they will peacefully give up their plans for a unipolar world that the American neoconservatives have been trying to impose globally for 25 years now ...