THE MULTIPOLAR REALITIES, MIDDLE EAST AND NEWS TICKER GENOCIDE (Part 1)
Executive Director, Noravank Scientific Educational Foundation, Yerevan
who advises the president to again send a big
American land army into Asia or into the Middle
East or Africa should have his head examined.”
Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defense (2006-2011)
Today hardly anyone would contest the fact that scrambling for spheres of influence on the world-scale, which started at the end of 20th century with monopole domination, now transforms into a multi-vector persistent standoff. It takes place by some new rules (sometimes no rules) of multipolar world order that have not been fully established yet and hence, are still more than vague [1]. This new order is first of all characterized by the circumstance that the United States remains the world leader, but no longer is the hegemon. Interestingly, some even predict breakdown of the superpower, among which are not only somewhat opinionated characters, such as Paul C. Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration (one of the fathers of Reaganomics) and Gerald Celente, Director of the Trends Research Institute, but also some renowned university professors (see, for example [2]). Another worrisome signal is persecution of dissidents like J. Assange and E. Snowden, who made stands against total informational control. Actions against such people (due to which even a “prisoner of conscience” emerged, Private B. Manning) once again actualized the ingenious works of George Orwell.
However, if one prescinds from predictions and follows the more realistic wording of Fareed Zakaria, in the post-American World strengthening of other geopolitical actors has significantly changed and continues to change the balance of powers in the world arena [3]. Processes occurring against this backdrop have significantly reduced the level of global security, especially as far as the nuclear area is concerned. The observed trend differs from assumptions previously made by some experts that multi-polarity would lead to global stabilization, as it happened, for example, in the era of bipolar Cold War. However, it cannot be ruled out that after a “transition period” of the multicenter world evolvement something like a Peace of Westphalia would be concluded and relative stability would follow.
The logic of “new times” is most vividly reflected in developments in the “New Middle East” (NME), a sizable segment of Eurasia and Africa from Morocco to Pakistan. The USA made a decision to reduce their military presence in this region – they withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, which is related to the shortage of economic resources. At the same time military retreat is accompanied with increasing activity by European and regional partners and intensification of some traditional, and most of all, non-traditional political methods. One way or another, it has to be noted that military/political upheavals of the recent years lead to destabilization of the NME. Moreover, these developments resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe, which can be well classified as genocide.
Currently there is a wide range of interpretations of the political processes in the conditions of “new times”. We believe that such multitude of interpretations contributes to a more adequate comprehension of realities and therefore, we would like to share our perception of these problems as well. However, for more or less proper discussion of these complicated issues, we will first attempt to briefly present some characteristic traits of the multipolar world.
“This multipolar world”
The meanings of political terms change over time and this is the case with “multi-polarity”. The content of this notion has considerably expanded, first of all because the word “multi” now encompasses not only nation-states, but also non-government structures (this new world has been quite vividly described by Parag Khanna [4]). These structures can be conditionally divided into following categories.
The role transnational corporations (TNC) has increased in the world economy, with their financial and organizational capabilities on a par with and sometimes even exceeding those of developed states. Previously the TNCs were directly or indirectly associated to one country or another, but now some of them act quite independently, based exclusively on their own interests.
According to some Swiss researchers1 the core of TNCs consists of 147 corporations that combined with their partners and subsidiaries control 60% of the total world GDP. Characteristically, this consortium is dominated not by production companies, but by financial corporations, such as Barclays, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch & Co Inc., etc. Under such circumstances it is no surprise that the “super TNCs” are quite capable of dictating their conditions to the governments of nation states. The developments in the system of “government – finance sector” relationships fully correspond to the concept of “post-democratic” society described by the English sociologist Colin Crouch as domination of oligarchy in the government system and erosion of democratic norms in the Western societies [5].
The second category consists of international non-government organizations (NGOs), the number of which has significantly increased over the past decade, mostly due to their replication in countries. The influence of these network-mode operating organizations has respectively increased: for example, the “color revolutions” in ex-Soviet republics and Middle East were implemented with direct contribution from some NGOs. In the past the NGOs, as well as TNCs were perceived solely as tools in the political arsenal of superpowers. Some countries (particularly Russia) attempted to legislatively constrain the influence of these NGOs in their domestic political affairs. Notice that such actions became possible only after establishment of the multipolar form, since in the past NGOs enjoyed kind of a “sacred cows” status and even criticizing them was considered an encroachment on fundamentals of democracy.
However, over the time NGOs began transforming. The mosaic of information flows leaves an impression that some strengthened NGOs (especially those with ideological orientation) have started acting a lot more independently. Currently they take contracts not only from specific government structures, but service political and financial groups (e.g. TNCs) both inside and outside their countries, as well as act autonomously at their own discretion. To a large extent this is because part of the NGOs are ideology-driven, following the concepts of M. Bettati and B. Kouchner on necessity to “protect human rights despite national sovereignty”, which in 2005 became an international legal norm in the form of the UN resolution “Responsibility to Protect.”2 It is well known that treating any idea as a cure-all is fraught with unpredictable outcomes, and the consequences of NGO actions in the Middle East vividly demonstrate this.
Various religious/confessional structures, both traditional and relatively recently formed (often as different types of sects) also have to be included in the category of non-government organizations. Such structures, conditionally speaking, have been using network management methods since long ago, and their role steadily increases not only in the public life, but also in international politics. In particular, the political standoff in the Middle East took the shape of a fierce confrontation between representatives of various Sunni and Shia sects, Islamists and Anti-Islamists, and in this background of intolerance the Christian communities of the region were pushed to the brink of extinction.
In the epoch of multi-stage informational revolution the large media, Internet corporations and the like have to be included in the group of influential non-government actors. The virtual social networks had gained special prominence, in particular, playing important role in the Middle East revolutions. Total “facebookization” of the entire planet has a serious influence on the societies of all countries [6]. It has to be noted that monopolization of resources takes place also in information sphere and for instance, control over the print media is concentrated in the hands of five media giants3. All these structures conduct global informational politics, something that rather than being a supplementary and stimulating process to the politics, is defined by RAND Corporation experts as a political genre in its own right – Noopolitik4, in full accordance with the concept of second generation informational warfare [7].
The information flows currently form the system of values and mentality of the whole world community more than ever. Unsurprisingly, big players of this sphere pursue also their own interests, to an extent ignoring the state interests and even more so, the public ones. Typically, the information space was previously dominated by western media. However, due to the “multipolar trends” today the media from other countries, first of all Russia and China, try to compete with them. As a result, even the global “newspeak” has been somewhat changing. For example, in the comments on Syria along with such cliché as “opposition” or, as a last resort, “rebels”, more adequate definitions like “militants” and “mercenaries” are occasionally used.
And finally, the role of terrorist and other criminal structures has increased in international developments. These structures have always maintained ambiguous and complicated relations with intelligence services of various countries and were considered their instruments of sorts in shadow politics. However with the changed situation some of them escaped the control and play their own games, which admittedly, happened both in the past and during the recent developments in Syria.
Because of the large number of “variables”, intricacies of conflicts and collaborations taking place in parallel, the world order that is being formed represents a lot more complicated system than it used to be during the era of bipolar or monopole world orders. As some commentators note, in a way the world has regressed into pre-Westphalia epoch, albeit adjusted for Internet and weapons of mass destruction. Such situation objectively makes it difficult to comprehend and conceptualize the quickly changing characteristics of the surrounding world. Naturally, this makes it harder to respond appropriately to such changes. In the current conditions likelihood of making mistakes increases, even for the USA – the most “intellectualized” power, the policies of which are formed to a certain extent in a substrate consisting of a multitude of high-class think tanks, universities and scientific centers. In this context it is understandable that in their studies the US military experts emphasize the importance of strengthening the government institutions5. However, in some specific cases collisions of a different nature may take place; for instance, strengthening of the national military-industrial complex may lead to creation of so-called “states within a state” [8, p. 196].
The combination of all these factors leads to crises felt not only in economy, but also in all areas of public and international life. Understandably, today one may often come across eschatological interpretations of the processes occurring around the world. All of this is most vividly and dramatically exhibited in the Middle East developments.
“Clear skies over the whole Middle East”
It appears that the multitude of motives and final objectives is a characteristic trait of processes in the Middle East. If all known publications on this issue are to be summarized based on the dominant attributes, then the following versions will emerge, that in no way contradict to each other, but rather are mutually supplemental.
The version of “Arab spring”. The main thesis of this version is that socio-economic, demographic, ethnic and religious/confessional problems accumulated into a critical mass in the countries of the region. This resulted in mass protests with demands of reforms, modernization and democratization in accordance with the modern notions.
There is no doubt that in the Middle East problems were more than abundant. This issue has been discussed in many fundamental works6, and yet another proof of it is the Revolting Index7, where among the top 16 countries five are Arab states. Yet nothing special happened to date in many other countries, which are a lot more “advanced” in revolutionary sense according to the same rating list. Perhaps, the Arab societies would have selected the evolutionary development path if these objective domestic circumstances were not aggravated by some external factors, such as launching the known technologies of color revolutions, this time with an accentuation on “Friday prayers”. Organizations like April 6 Youth Movement and the one with “Kefaya” (Enough!) moniker (remember “Kmara” in Georgia) played an important role in this. In addition, the protest movement made use of such effective tools of informational operations as social media and blogosphere8. For instance, already in June 2010 Wael Ghonim, Head of Google Middle East and North Africa opened an anti-Mubarak page in Facebook, where daily visits at some point reached half a million. It cannot be ruled out that in this particular case action came not so much from the USA and its allies, but from independently operating “democratizing” NGOs together with giant media, which enthusiastically commented on the events and in every possible way encouraged Tahrir Square rally participants.
A conclusion can be made from all of this that it is hard to imagine a revolutionary movement without objective prerequisites, but in the modern world it is equally hard to imagine mass public movements without external resource contributions, whether from states or new entities of the multipolar order. That is not to mention direct military interventions, such as in the case with Libya. But this brings us closer to the version of geopolitical motives in these events.
The version of “Geopolitics”. According to this approach the revolutionary movements were not necessarily initiated for modernization of Arab countries and their integration in the global community (as in fact, just the opposite thing happened), but for achieving certain geopolitical objectives. Such statement of issue is logical and not too original, because at least in the last decades (or by some opinions – in the last hundred years) externally instigated revolutions pursued exactly such objectives. However, previously these final goals were relatively clear and hence, needed no special deciphering. In case of the processes in the Arab world the plot is much more complicated, especially given the prior history of the issue and specifically the American intervention in Iraq in 2003.
To get better insights into all of this, we shall try to assess some intermediate results of the so-called Middle Eastern turbulence.
1 http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html#.UfALvsCGiJd.
2 http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/responsibility.shtml
3 http://analitika-forex.ru/forum/5-1200.
4 Arquilla J., Rontfeldt D., The Emergence of Noopolitik: Toward an American Information Strategy, RAND Corporation, 1999, http://www.washprofile.org/en/node/943.
5 http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2008/joe2008_jfcom.htm.
6 See, for example, the recently published digest «Ближний Восток, Арабское пробуждение и Россия: что дальше?». Сборник статей/Отв. редакторы: В.В. Наумкин, В.В. Попов, В.А. Кузнецов/ИВ РАН; Факультет мировой политики и ИСАА МГУ им. М.В. Ломоносова. - М.: ИВ РАН, 2012.
7 http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2011/02/25/introducing-the-revolting-index/?KEYWORDS=azerbaijan.
8 Арутюнян Г., Гриняев С. , Революции оптом: достраивание нового миропорядка и сценарии глобального управления. http://noravank.am/rus/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=5617.
References
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2. Дерлугьян Г., Внезапны, но иногда предсказуемы. Эксперт, #29(859), с.60, 2013.
3. Zakaria F. The post-American World. - N.Y.-L. : W.W.Norton, 2008.
4. Параг Ханна, Второй мир. – М.: Изд-во «Европа», 2010.
5. Крауч, К., «Пост - демократия». – М.: Издательский дом Государственного университета – Высшей школы экономики, 2010. Колин Крауч, Странная не - смерть неолиберализма. – М.: Издательский дом «Дело», 2012.
6. Арутюнян Г., Интернет структуры в контексте «постдемократии» и информационной безопасности. 21-й Век, #4(16), с.3, 2010.
7. Гриняев С., Поле битвы – киберпространство. – Минск: Харвест, 2004.
8. Арутюнян Г., Распад «системы» и формирование будущего. – Ереван: НОФ «Нораванк», 2011.
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