New World Order And Small Regions

The book provides a comprehensive understanding of the unfolding geopolitical changes in the South Caucasus in the age of increased great power competition across Eurasia. Recent research on the geopolitics of the South Caucasus focuses either on interstate relations among Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia or on each of regional actor’s (Russia, Turkey and Iran) ties with the region’s one or all three states. Little attempt has been made to see the region’s shifting geopolitical importance from a global perspective: growing US-China rivalry and shifting balance of power in Eurasia; recalibration of the US’ military and diplomatic vision in western Eurasia to adjust to the Chinese challenge. The book argues, from a theoretical point of view, that the increased competition in the region fits into the global pattern of unfolding great power competition, when military and economic calculations drive regional powers to increase their influence on immediate neighborhoods sidelining the collective West from the negotiating table and the emerging new security architecture.

The age of Western hegemony is over. Whether or not America itself is declining, the post-war liberal world order underpinned by US military, economic and ideological primacy and supported by global institutions serving its power and purpose, is coming to an end. But what will take its place? A Chinese world order? A re-constituted form of American hegemony? A regionalized system of global cooperation, including major and emerging powers? In this timely and provocative book, Amitav Acharya offers an incisive answer to this fundamental question. While the US will remain a major force in world affairs, he argues that it has lost the ability to shape world order after its own interests and image. As a result, the US will be one of a number of anchors including emerging powers, regional forces, and a concert of the old and new powers shaping a new world order. Rejecting labels such as multipolar, apolar, or G-Zero, Acharya likens the emerging system to a multiplex theatre, offering a choice of plots (ideas), directors (power), and action (leadership) under one roof. Finally, he reflects on the policies that the US, emerging powers and regional actors must pursue to promote stability in this decentred but interdependent, multiplex world. Written by a leading scholar of the international relations of the non-Western world, and rising above partisan punditry, this book represents a major contribution to debates over the post-American era.

The introduction, “Power Structure in the New World Order (Argument of the Book),” highlights the main theme around which the study revolves, namely the “new world order.” It presents the hypothesis of the study regarding this new order, along with several questions including: what are the factors that indicate the coming of a new world order?; what are the most influential forces in that order?; how is that order structured?; and what are the most important and influential factors in the world order? The introduction also presents the main premise of the book — that the United States of America may be considered the dominant pole in the new world order, and that the world will continue to exist in an American age that is expected to extend for at least a further five decades. The qualitative supremacy of the United States of America has proven inescapable according to the data, statistics and information presented in this book, as well as the scales and variables of comparison adopted by the author in terms of economics, military advancement, energy resources, transportation, education, culture, and technological progress. According to these standards, the structure of the new world order may be described as a hierarchy, with the United States of America alone at the top, followed by a second tier comprising Russia, China and the European Union, a third tier consisting of Japan, India and Brazil, followed by the rest of world. The introduction to this book may be considered a basic foundation for the analysis presented in the following seven chapters, which examine the emergence, current status, and future of the new world order in its various dimensions. Under the heading, “The New World Order: Features and Concepts,” the first chapter of Al-Suwaidi’s new book presents a theoretical paradigm for the concept of the new world order in its various dimensions. It presents two main themes: the first deals with concepts relating to the world order, drawing on literature that examines the evolution of the world order from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to the present day. It also presents various different views and arguments concerning the nature of the world order, and the distribution of power within it. The first theme also explores the political, military, economic, cultural, educational, technological and energy-related dimensions of the world order, and their importance in determining the relative powers of actors in the new world order. Moreover it explains how the United States of America has succeeded in utilizing all these tools to achieve its ends, and how it leads this world order according to a universal strategic vision aimed at maintaining US supremacy vis-à-vis other major powers. The first theme also presents an objective assessment of the different frameworks which are employed in analyzing the concept of the new world order. The second theme of this chapter discusses the main features of the new world order, which play a significant role in the interactions that occur within it, and which define it with regard to previous historical eras of the global system. Chapter II, “Factors Influencing the Structure of the New World Order,” examines the factors and patterns of influence and interaction within the world order. These factors include: relations among civilizations, relative power in international relations, economic factors, military superiority, technological development, levels of knowledge, challenges and variables, and the behavior of major powers. Chapter III, “The World Order: Decisive Historic Junctures,” aims to draw a comprehensive analytical map to help in understanding the historical transformations of the world order and, ultimately, the nature of contemporary global realities. The historical review presented in this chapter features an element that may make it unique; it tackles the historical evolution of the world order from the emergence of the Ottoman state in the East through the ages of the Spanish, Portuguese and other empires of the West. It is an effort to present a balanced, scholarly chronicle of the world order, without neglecting the influence of the East on international relations throughout history. Chapter IV, “The Economy, Trade and Energy in the New World Order,” focuses on the role of economic factors in deciding the structure of the new world order and the hierarchy of powers within it. It reveals that despite the spectacular rise of the Chinese economy during the past two decades, it is still about half that of the United States, and China still falls within the ranks of developing countries in terms of its average GDP per capita. While the US economy is characterized by flexibility and high reliance on innovation and internal forces for growth, China depends on foreign investment and employing low-cost labor in export-oriented industries. This could make China more vulnerable to adverse economic shocks in the future. The author also expects that developments in the energy sector will greatly affect the ranking of powers in the new world order. The United States of America will increasingly become self-dependent in terms of energy, utilizing its various innovations in the field of shale gas and oil extraction, and its gradual shift toward unconventional energy sources from the western hemisphere (the Americas), giving it a strong comparative advantage in the future. Chapter V, “Public Opinion Regarding the New World Order: A Sample Survey of UAE Citizens,” resents the findings of a public opinion survey in the UAE concerning the new world order. The survey focuses on nationality, age, gender and educational level as explanatory variables of differences in public opinion toward the new world order. In Chapter VI, “Prospective Structural Changes and their Consequences for the New World Order,” the author discusses the potential structural, strategic changes in the new world order in the coming five decades; stressing that unipolarity will have a variety of impacts on the world. The author anticipates that US influence in international financial institutions will increase, and that over the next decade Washington will reduce its dependence on oil from regions plagued by risk and instability – such as the Middle East – and that this will affect US policy in such regions. In Chapter VII, “The New World Order: Future Outlook,” the author confirms that the new world order will be characterized by a number of features that will be important determinants of the ranking of world powers in the future, including the growing importance of technologically advanced and nonconventional systems of production and communication to replace decaying conventional systems, and an increasing reliance on genetic engineering, cloning and nanotechnology in finding solutions to key issues such as achieving food and water security, narrowing down the energy resource gap, achieving breakthroughs in medicine and further developing human capabilities. Other features also include increasing pressure on the capitalist system to develop in order to sustain itself. In the Conclusion to the book, the author suggests that the Arab region is a central arena in the world and the focus of a variety of conflicts that are of direct relevance to the “prospects for the American age.” The author cites the Syrian crisis and the recent events in some Arab countries that have toppled long-standing political regimes dating back to periods prior to the development of the new world order, such as in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia. The author believes that, in light of the obstacles to development faced by many Arab states, it is difficult to say that the near future will herald improvements in these countries’ circumstances, particularly in light of the worsening internal crises in major Arab countries like Egypt, Syria and Iraq, and the strategic expansion of regional non-Arab powers to fill the void left by the declining regional role of conventional Arab powers. This comes alongside increasing influence for Israel, which is now in the most advantageous strategic position since its creation due to the absence of any significant resistance from Arab countries, which are preoccupied with internal crises or threats emanating from neighboring states. The conclusion also claims that economics will not simply be a factor in the calculation of states’ roles and positions in the new world order, but rather the central engine of change for small and mid-sized powers in the new world order.

Weak or failed states - where no government is in control - are the source of many of the world's most serious problems, from poverty, AIDS and drugs to terrorism. What can be done to help? The problem of weak states and the need for state-building has existed for many years, but it has been urgent since September 11 and Afghanistan and Iraq. The formation of proper public institutions, such as an honest police force, uncorrupted courts, functioning schools and medical services and a strong civil service, is fraught with difficulties. We know how to help with resources, people and technology across borders, but state building requires methods that are not easily transported. The ability to create healthy states from nothing has suddenly risen to the top of the world agenda. State building has become a crucial matter of global security. In this hugely important book, Francis Fukuyama explains the concept of state-building and discusses the problems and causes of state weakness and its national and international effects.

This book provides a critical examination of the foreign policy choices of one typical small state, New Zealand, as it faces the changing global balance of power. New Zealand’s foreign policy challenges are similar with those faced by many other small states in the world today and are ideally suited to help inform theoretical debates on the role of small states in the changing international system. The book analyses how a small state such as New Zealand is adjusting to the changing geopolitical, geo-economic, environment. The book includes perspectives from some of New Zealand's leading as well as emerging commentators on New Zealand foreign policy.

This book develops the idea that since decolonisation, regional patterns of security have become more prominent in international politics. The authors combine an operational theory of regional security with an empirical application across the whole of the international system. Individual chapters cover Africa, the Balkans, CIS Europe, East Asia, EU Europe, the Middle East, North America, South America, and South Asia. The main focus is on the post-Cold War period, but the history of each regional security complex is traced back to its beginnings. By relating the regional dynamics of security to current debates about the global power structure, the authors unfold a distinctive interpretation of post-Cold War international security, avoiding both the extreme oversimplifications of the unipolar view, and the extreme deterritorialisations of many globalist visions of a new world disorder. Their framework brings out the radical diversity of security dynamics in different parts of the world.

Regions. How they emerge and how they are dramatically changing the appearance of the present 'world of states' and its related forms of governance from local to global levels is analysed in this monograph. But what are regions? Regions can be small or huge. They can be part of a single state, be composed out of different states or stretched out across borders. They can be important recognized economic, social or cultural entities or they can be largely ignored by the people who live on a region's territory. They can be well-defined with clear cut boundaries as is the case in so-called 'constitutional regions' or they can be fuzzy as for instance in cross-border regions. In sum, they are not a natural kind and defining regions is not a simple task. Luk Van Langenhove advances the concept of region building as an alternative to the construction of regions with three issues of region building being explored: - Why are regions built in a world of states? - How do region building processes take place? - How are regions transforming the present world order? Crossing disciplinary boundaries, this book is an exercise in theorizing regions and brings together under one conceptual framework, different processes and concepts such as regional integration, devolution, federalism, and separatism and refines the social constructionist view on regions

For more than a century, no US adversary or coalition of adversaries - not Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or the Soviet Union - has ever reached sixty percent of US GDP. China is the sole exception, and it is fast emerging into a global superpower that could rival, if not eclipse, the United States. What does China want, does it have a grand strategy to achieve it, and what should the United States do about it? In The Long Game, Rush Doshi draws from a rich base of Chinese primary sources, including decades worth of party documents, leaked materials, memoirs by party leaders, and a careful analysis of China's conduct to provide a history of China's grand strategy since the end of the Cold War. Taking readers behind the Party's closed doors, he uncovers Beijing's long, methodical game to displace America from its hegemonic position in both the East Asia regional and global orders through three sequential "strategies of displacement." Beginning in the 1980s, China focused for two decades on "hiding capabilities and biding time." After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, it became more assertive regionally, following a policy of "actively accomplishing something." Finally, in the aftermath populist elections of 2016, China shifted to an even more aggressive strategy for undermining US hegemony, adopting the phrase "great changes unseen in century." After charting how China's long game has evolved, Doshi offers a comprehensive yet asymmetric plan for an effective US response. Ironically, his proposed approach takes a page from Beijing's own strategic playbook to undermine China's ambitions and strengthen American order without competing dollar-for-dollar, ship-for-ship, or loan-for-loan.

Foreword, by Lloyd N. Cutler