We are at a major transition point in world politics.
The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the ensuing escalation of conflict has generated worldwide outrage, not least in the United States, where the Israel-Palestinian issue has further inflamed the "culture wars" on university campuses. And the US presidential campaign involving a likely Biden-Trump rematch hasn’t even got into first gear.
In China, the economy is experiencing major turbulence at the same time that its foreign and defence minister have been purged in the last six months. And in Russia, President Vladimir Putin exudes confidence at his military gains. On December 14, Putin set out clear criteria for an end to the war in Ukraine, involving what he views as Ukraine’s denazification, demilitarisation, and neutrality.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. As late as the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 2022, an influential consensus still held sway on three points.
First, globalisation meant that large-scale interstate war in Europe was a thing of the past. Second, a mature liberal democracy such as the US was unlikely to experience another episode of substantial democratic backsliding. Third, the Communist Party of China had weathered the Covid storm and was riding high.
That consensus has encountered hard times in 2023.
After decades of claims globalisation had increased incentives for peaceful dispute resolution, we are about to enter the third year of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, the largest inter-state war on continental Europe since the end of World War 2.
Moreover, the war is not going as planned by the "globalisation has transformed international politics" script, which expects that aggressors will not succeed in resorting to military force.
The latest reports out of Ukraine make a compelling case that Ukraine’s six-month counter-offensive has stalled. The war is at a stalemate, with Russia controlling about 20% of annexed Ukrainian territory. However much we may be rooting for the Ukrainians against their Russian adversaries, Moscow continues to future-proof its gains in Ukraine. Russia’s presidential election in March will include voting in the occupied Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.
Also, the US liberal democratic political model is incurring a level of self-inflicted wounds that would have been unimaginable only a few short years ago.
Donald Trump is now the front-runner to be the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2024. Few would have given Trump much chance of a second successful presidential campaign after pro-Trump protesters overran the US Capitol building in Washington DC on January 6 2021, in a bid to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory.
Yet here we are. As Biden’s popularity slides, Trump holds a wide lead in the public opinion polls to be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.
Two recent columns in The Washington Post by Robert Kagan have even sparked a serious discussion on the inevitability of a Trump dictatorship. Right on cue, Trump is doubling down on his illiberal inclinations. During a town hall meeting on December 2, Trump was asked by Fox News host Sean Hannity whether, if elected president, he would inflict "retribution" against his political opponents, as a dictator would.
Trump responded: "No, no, no — other than Day 1. We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator."
Finally, the apparent success of the China’s zero-Covid policy from early 2020 to late 2022 has given the impression that Xi Jinping presides over a stable and confident leadership that is immune to petty slights. The abrupt disappearance of Foreign Minister Qin Gang in July and Defence Minister Li Shangfu in September suggests otherwise.
Neither is the US-China relationship, the most important bilateral relationship in world politics, doing well. When Biden referred to Xi as a "dictator" on two separate occasions in 2023, it was not meant as a compliment. Neither was it taken as such by Beijing, which made its displeasure known in no uncertain terms.
If we think things are bad with the Russian-Ukrainian problem and US domestic turmoil, it will pale in comparison with the effect that an even more unstable US-China relationship will have on New Zealand’s prosperity and security.
Having had a front-row seat to these developments over the past year, we are entitled to ask: if globalisation does not rule out war in Europe, heightened instability in the Middle East, and the US continuing to struggle with democratic backsliding, what’s to prevent a further deterioration in the year ahead? — Newsroom
- Nicholas Khoo is an Associate Professor in the politics programme at the University of Otago.
