I wanted to draw everyone’s attention to this paper which sets out an analysis of what the geopolitics of the next few decades will likely be:
Three Worlds: the West, East and South and the competition to shape global order
Among the many impacts of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the most consequential may be in pushing the world in the direction of Three Worlds—the global West, the global East and the global South. One is led by the United States and Europe, the second by China and Russia, and the third by an amorphous grouping of non-western developing nations. These Three Worlds are not blocs or coherent negotiating groups, but loose, constructed and evolving global factions. This article makes four arguments. First, the Three Worlds system has the makings of a fairly durable pattern of global order, shaping struggles over rules and institutions. Second, the Three Worlds system will encourage a ‘creative’ politics of global order-building. The global West and global East will have incentives to compete for the support and cooperation of the global South. Third, there are deep principles of world order that provide a foundation for the Three Worlds competition. Finally, if the global West is to remain at the center of world order in the decades ahead, it will need to accommodate both the global East and the global South, and adapt itself to a more pluralistic world. But in the competition with the global East for the support of the global South, it has the advantage. The global South’s critique of the global West is not that it offers the wrong pathway to modernity, but that it has not lived up to its principles or shared sufficiently the material fruits of liberal modernity.
I find this a fascinating idea because it’s basically the return of the Three Worlds from the Cold War, except this time the Third World has more hard power on its side. And yes, if you read the paper then you’ll know I was being a bit clickbait-y with the thread title since it argues that what the future will be is likely not to be enduring blocs like in the Cold War but much looser groupings with plenty of intermeshed connections and situational realignments between the different factions (i.e., a country may align with one faction for one issue but with another for a different one).
I like the paper’s comparison to the three estates of pre-Revolutionary France. While an individual aristocrat, for example, might disagree with what the rest of his peers are doing, you can still talk about the interests of the aristocracy as a whole and what they are likely to do in aggregate as a class.
I make four arguments about this Three Worlds system. First, it has the makings of a fairly durable form of global order. Going forward, world order may be defined by the struggle between these three groupings, but no one will ‘win’ this struggle. This is because each of these groupings carries with it deeply held political ideas and projects, rooted in its global position and developmental circumstances, that will not disappear any time soon. Each, in effect, has its own set of conceptions about how modernity will and should unfold.
So basically that’s just how things are likely going to be. Personally, barring something unforeseen, the biggest future shakeup of this system will probably be the rise of India. If India manages to do what China did then that’ll disrupt any status quo that emerges in the meantime. India will probably present itself as the champion of the global South just like China is now, but it’ll be its own thing distinct from the real South.
At least the paper has some optimism for the future. While wars will happen, norms will hopefully emerge that limit the potential for total destruction.
I don’t really agree with the paper’s assertion that the global West stands for democracy while the global East stands for illiberalism and autocracy. I mean, China works with democracies all the time while the US has supported some of the most savage autocrats of recent history. But it’s a neat story to explain the contest between West and East for the masses (see the democracy vs communism angle from the last great global rivalry).
The main axis of the struggle over world order runs between the global West and the global East. These two groupings each have a superpower and a coalition of great powers to drive their agendas. The global South is weaker. It is not led by an established great power. No state in the global South has a permanent seat or veto in the UN Security Council. It is an amorphous and diverse coalition of states with a wide range of ideologies and agendas . . .
Nonetheless, the global South is not without its capacities. After all, it is where most of humanity resides. Specifically, as a global grouping of states, the global South has at least two types of capacities to assert itself in world order struggles. One is simply its ability—in various regional and global configurations—to join larger coalitions linked to the global West or global East. It is a sort of ‘swing grouping’, available to join other states in ways that tilt world politics in one direction or the other. Both China and the global East and the US and the global West acknowledge and act upon this situation . . .
Second, and relatedly, states from the global South can also confer ‘legitimacy’ on moves by one or the other superpower bloc. This is not to say that the countries from the global South necessarily hold more enlightened views about the proper organization of world order. As one scholar has put it, ‘for both analytical and political purposes, it is important not to simplify or romanticize the idea of the global South’. But the global South can act as a sort of third party—a global audience—that can weigh in to help shape global narratives about what passes for proper and acceptable behaviour in world politics. As global powers, the United States and China both have an incentive to shape global public opinion. The Chinese have called this ‘narrative power’, a strategy to increase their standing on the world stage by promoting pro-Chinese narratives and critical opinion about their rivals.
It’s nice that the Third World won’t simply be the battleground for the superpowers this time around.
If this analysis is correct, both the global West and the global East will have incentives to widen their coalitions, reaching out to swing states in the global South. How might this competition evolve over time, and how might it have an impact on the evolution of global rules and institutions? We might expect at least three impacts.
First, China and the United States will increasingly look to build alliances with key states outside their orbit. As noted earlier, neither superpower has the ‘critical mass’ to shape and dominate the global system by relying only on states inside their orbit. The contrary is the case. Both the United States and China have reason to worry that the other side will build the bigger global coalition. Therefore, both states will increasingly seek to cultivate strategic partners in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East . . .
What is America’s nightmare coalition, and what is China’s? For the United States, it would be for the global East and global South to combine in a way that left the global West on the outside, weaker and smaller in its global position. For China, the nightmare coalition would be for the West and the global South to swing into alignment. For the reasons detailed in this article, neither scenario is likely to happen completely, or any time soon. The Three Worlds system of global politics is likely to be with us for the foreseeable future. But this Three Worlds system will generate incentives and patterns of conflict and cooperation that could shape and reshape the rules and institutions of global order.
I hope medical technology improves greatly because I want to see how things shake out at the end of the century. Sometimes I like to watch Youtube videos that project GDP into like 2100 or read stuff like Goldman Sachs’ prediction of the biggest economies in the world by 2075.
They’re an amusing diversion but if some of the predictions come to pass then the geopolitics of the future will be quite different from now. Forget China and India being the top two and the US being # 3 in economic size, the Philippines is going to have a larger economy than France in 50 years? Mexico will have a bigger economy than Japan?
Wild stuff. I really want to see if this happens.