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26.01.2009

CHALLENGES OF MULTI-POLAR WORLD

   

Gagik Ter-Harutyunyan

multipolar world (original)Amid the world system crisis the main ideological provisions are revaluated. As a result essential changes take place in political sphere and the most essential of those changes is the creation of multi-polar world order. The geopolitical outlines of this new system are very dim and the rules of the game are not laid down yet. This dictates terms to the international actors. They have to specify their political tactics and to produce basically new strategy.

The foregoing tendencies are reasonable. The political philosophy of the United States turned out to be plain and many countries reacted adequately on it. Today there are several centers of global power; their relations comply with the logic of new cold war and turn into military (local wars), diplomatic and informational conflicts. According to the analysts approach, the current economic crisis is also a geo-economic component of that war: energy products price deflation, “gas war” between Russia and Ukraine, decline in capacities and many other developments of that kind definitely touch on Russia, China, and this reminds the economic war against “social camp” during the cold war.

It is also significant that today contradictions are deepening not only between traditional opponents (the USA- the RF, the USA- the CPR, the USA-Islamic countries) but also implicitly between the EU and the USA. E.g. some official circles in the EU regard the disapproval of “Treaty of Lisbon” on a referendum in Ireland (it had to substitute the rejected Euroconstitution) in 2008 as a result of Pentagon and CIA activity (there was even unofficial investigation pursued on this matter).

There are different characteristics of political developments in circumstances concerned. But there is one issue that political analysts are concurrent. The formation of multi-polar world contains many dangers and in this context the growth of possibility of new wars outbreak is inevitable.

The pessimistic scenarios. The culture of political forecasts is more cultivated in the USA and on this matter it is significant that there was a report on danger of expansion of mass destruction weapons (they had in their minds North Korea and Iran) that the US special services presented to the Senate in 2008. It is interesting that the report contained not only observations on the difficult situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan but it also touched on the problems which may cause political instability in Europe. In other report made by internal security service, there was said that in the coming five years the United States may be attacked by WMD. The report “Global trends – 2025” by National Intelligence Council, which also contains some troublous signs, needs special analysis.

Russian analysts are not optimistic either. Some of them stand on the opinion that the state of war has been sustainable since September 11, and it is difficult not to agree with this point of view. Others think that this crisis may cause large-scale nuclear war. It is significant that in 2008 the USA and Russia reconsidered their military doctrines; the EU, Great Britain and China also introduce military reforms.

The above mentioned forecasts seem to be reasonable. Unlike two-polar world (the USA – the USSR), there are no “deterrent mechanisms” formed in multi-polar world, there are no treaties on the restriction of strategic weapons and this increases the possibility of large-scale (or even nuclear) war.

Middle East (ME). In recent years (especially in 2003-2007) ME was considered as “risk” zone, where the relations between the USA, its ally Israel and Iran were escalated because of the nuclear program of Iran and developments around Iraq. At present (in spite of the new conflict between Palestine and Israel which broke out in December 2008) there is an impression that all sides reached some non-official agreements which deescalated situation and reduced the possibility of nuclear war in ME. This is evidenced by passive behavior of “Hezbollah” and particularly by the fact that on January 11 of this year Ali Khomeini prohibited the citizens of Iran to take part in current war and terrorist attacks against Israel. On the assumption of those tendencies the following scenario should not be ruled out: strange as it may seem today but there is possibility that in future, in case when Iraq is parted, Israel, Iran and Kurdish state formations may become strongholds of the USA in the region.

Today “the nuclear dominance” has shifted to the angle of India – Pakistan relations. As it was aptly mentioned by one political analyst “if a huge number of nuclear missiles which were at disposal of the USA and the USSR in the years of cold war played deterrent role, because in case of war both states could be destroyed, then the restricted amount of nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan have opposite effect. The absence of mutual agreement and fear of enemy’s attack increases the possibility of using missiles”.

Pakistan – India confrontation. When on August 19, 2008, the president of Pakistan Pervaz Musharraf resigned under the pressure of opposition, the international community was mainly occupied by the war in South Ossetia between Russia and Georgia and other political developments were pushed to the sidelines. Meanwhile from the point of view of classical geopolitics Central Asia is key region and superstates always were keen to control that part of Eurasia. Without going into historical details it should be remembered that Afghanistan was the first aim of the USA after the attacks on September 11th. It is significant that in 2001 political technology, which can be conditionally called “positive result from negative processes” (positive reaction on negative action), was realized. Taking terrorist attacks on September 11th (negative process) as a basis, the US (and NATO) transformed it into a big geopolitical conquest and established military presence in Central Asia, in the neighbour of the RF and the CPR (positive result). In the past the same technology was used, e.g. in 1941 when they used Purl Harbor to enter World War II. In this political conception informational factor is of great importance, and this allows some analysts to regard it as a component of “informational wars of third generation”.

Apropos of the resignation of Musharraf, which took place under internal and external constraint, we can state, based on the analyses of information flows that the controllability of Pakistan, which was not on a high level, has even reduced. According to some versions this trend coincides with the programs of Great Britain and the USA, aiming to destabilize the region (on the basis of conception of controllable chaos) and as a result to try to weaken their major opponent, China.

In the frame of the foregoing version the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in November, 2008, which are supposed to be organized by Pakistani government and mainly by Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) (it is regarded as the most powerful special service in the region)1, show that there is such strategy. As a result the relations between India and Pakistan became extremely tense; troops were concentrated on the border; and mass media started to discuss the possibility of nuclear war. It is significant that in 1997-2001 the best military and analytical specialists of the USA worked out the following documents “Asia – 2025” and “Joint vision – 2020”, which contained the scenarios of possible nuclear confrontation between Pakistan and India.

“New order in South Asia” scenario. In 2010 Pakistan is in deep economic crisis. Its economy recesses, the inability of government brings to instability, some tribes rebel, Islamic radicals become active, invade and take over the control of Indian state of Kashmir. India, which due to the collaboration with the USA is in advance of China and becomes the leader of that region, demands Pakistani government to subdue radicals and withdraw them from Kashmir but weakened Pakistani government is not to comply with the demand. India brings additional troops into the state. Pakistan demands to withdraw Indian troops, China supports that demand and begins to concentrate their troops on the border with India. The USA involves and demands China to safeguard neutrality. The conflict reaches its climax when India being afraid of WMD engagement on behalf of Pakistan conducts missile attacks on WMD posts and terrorist camps (according to other scenario that conflict emerges after Pakistani missile crashes the plane carrying Indian ministers and high-ranked officers in the sky over Kashmir) and as a consequence in 2020 Pakistan as a state does not exist any more. Meanwhile India turns into undeniable regional leader and all Asian countries and firstly Iran make overture to India.

The foregoing scenario is the most advantageous from the point of view of the US interests. In consequence of war their main opponent China is pushed to the sidelines and the US strategic partners India and Iran turns into the leaders of Asia. The US has established new higher level of cooperation with India in recent years (particularly in the nuclear sphere). As it was mentioned above the US use new strategy towards Iran, which can bring to partnership relations between these two countries.

Some conclusions. It should be mentioned that there are also some American scenarios which state the dominance of China and which suppose the displacement of the US from South Asian and Asian-Pacific region (the so called “Mighty China” scenario). On the assumption of modern tendencies it may be supposed that this scenario is more realistic than “New order in South Asia”. At the same time, in multi-polar system the US is “the first among equal” and their successively implemented strategy may strongly affect any process which seems to be natural.

By the way, the possibility of opposite scenarios should not be excluded either. Zbigniew Brzezinsky, the adviser of new U.S. President B. Obama, suggested the U.S. and China to create “big two” (“G2”), which will be able to handle main global problems. But it remains an open question how China would react on that suggestion.

1Not only Indian government but also some independent observers are of the opinion that terrorist attacks were very well developed and technically supported, particularly they had electronic ground navigation systems. It should also be mentioned that specialists, who are addressed to the issues of special services, agree that “Taliban” and bin Laden are the products of joint-activity of ISI and CIA


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