Has Strengthened

By Joshua Walker

Today the Eurozone crisis continues to threaten the concept of the “West” as people all around the world watch European economies pass the bottleneck. Crisis in Europe reinforces the idea of the “Fall of the West”– yet Turkey, a historic member of the West, is included in the discussions about the “Rise of the Rest.” Turkey’s strategic location is one explanation for why Turkey is seen as a part of “the Rest” as well as the “West,” yet the paradoxes inherent in this Muslim-majority, capitalist, secular democracy are precisely why Turkey is critical beyond its geography at the crossroads of civilization.

A key ally of the United States, long-standing member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a candidate for membership in the European Union (EU), Turkey has strong ties to the West and to the East in a volatile but strategic region of the world. Ironically, only in the last decade has modern Turkey assumed the confidence and trappings of a geopolitically pivotal player. At no time since their days at the helm of the Ottoman Empire have the Turks been as actively involved as they are in the Middle East today. In return, the Middle East seems receptive to Turkish activism in the region. As a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council from 2008-2010, a G-20 founding member since 2008, and holder of the post of Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) since 2005, Turkey’s global rise is unprecedented. Turkey’s newly discovered role in global politics and its subsequent foreign policy has its benefits, but also challenges that need to be assessed.

No longer confined to being simply an American geostrategic “barrier,” “bridge,” or “bulwark,” Turkey represents an exemplary model of a Muslim-majority, secular, and democratic nation within its dynamic geopolitical neighborhood. The nation’s broadened awareness and appreciation for the positive role that it can casino online play in Europe, the Middle East, Russia, Central Asia, and beyond has caused Turkish leaders to realize the country’s full potential as a versatile and increasingly powerful international actor. This newfound activism and confidence in Turkey’s own regional policies has directly impacted Turkey’s relationship with its traditional allies in the West and has significant implications for policymakers.

The “new” Turkey of the 21^st century has far more tools at its disposal to push its agenda as a leading regional power. The tremendous success of Turkey’s private sector has opened a world of possibility not known to any previous generation of Turks. The spread of Turkish businesses, construction, hospitals, hotels, and schools throughout its neighborhood is part and parcel of its regional leverage. Having sought the role of regional mediator over the last decade, Turkey’s litmus test of leadership comes in its own neighborhood — beginning with how Ankara deals with authoritarian regimes like Assad’s in Syria, which still enjoys support from Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran. Ankara is not alone, however, since Washington shares almost all of Turkey’s long-term strategic interests when it comes to its immediate neighborhood.

Particularly in light of the events in the Middle East, where both Turkey and the West want to see stability, there are a host of possible areas for cooperation. Ankara’s emphasis on the importance of economic interdependency in the globalizing world, and the need to build strong linkages with all regional states regardless of former Cold War mentalities or hostile Western policies towards these neighbors, can be a guiding principle if taken as complimentary with and not competitive with the West. Ankara’s new foreign policy envisions a Turkey that would transform itself into a global actor — rather than a regional or junior partner to the West.

Turkey’s emergence in the 21^st century has been in the making for the last century, but most significantly the last decade. Balancing Ankara’s historically close relationships with the West, both in its “strategic alliance” with Washington and its ongoing process with Brussels, amidst the realities of its neighborhood is no simple task.  Key to this is managing the interdependency between a democratizing and often polarized domestic political scene and Ankara’s ambitious foreign policy vision.

The changes in Turkish foreign policy cannot be attributed to a single factor; rather, a number of domestic and international considerations have propelled this phenomenon. Turkey has the economic and political potential to be a trans-regional actor that promotes peace, prosperity, and stability — or an inwardly focused state whose domestic turbulence inflames problems abroad. Therefore, understanding Turkey on its own terms, and assessing its potential impact globally and regionally as it determines its own future between the “rest” and the West, is of critical importance.

Joshua W. Walker is a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

By Daniel Twining

At the end of this year, the U.S. National Intelligence Council will release Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, its latest report forecasting the future of an international system being remade by the ascendance of emerging powers and the erosion of the Western liberal order.  As with most exercises in strategic forecasting after the global financial crisis, the draft report’s focus on an emergent multipolarity and the “rise of the rest” obscures the continuing strengths and staying power of American leadership in the international system.  In fact, some of the key drivers of strategic change in the period through 2030 – including demography, access to energy resources, and leadership in innovation – actually reinforce rather than undermine American resilience in a changing world.

China may have the largest economy in 2030, given a population four times larger than that of the United States.  But even if China manages the daunting economic and political transitions that lie before it, the country will still not enjoy the basket of strengths the United States will continue to possess.  In 2030, these will include:

• A geographical position in which the United States, uniquely among the great powers, is not threatened by any serious challenger in its neighborhood;
• An abundance of natural resources: the United States has the most arable land of any country on earth, is rich in natural resources, and promises to emerge as a largely self-sufficient energy superpower thanks to both offshore oil and shale gas deposits;
• A domestic economy that is best understood as North American in scale, given integrated capital, labor, and energy markets, and whose prowess in innovation, manufacturing, technology, and services may prove surprisingly resilient as emerging economies bump into developmental bottlenecks;
• An economy which is more intimately tied to the economies of Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the Persian Gulf than any of these centers of economic and financial power are to each other (taking into account not only trade but capital flows, international use of the dollar, and the role of the U.S. Treasury bond market as a haven for global savings);
• An ethnically diverse, pluralistic society open to immigration, favorable demographics, a superior higher education system, and a culture of opportunity that should continue to attract talent from around the world in ways that maintain the United States’ innovation edge;
• A large lead in comprehensive national power across casino the economic-military-technological-natural resources spectrum that will be difficult for rising powers to match, even if countries like China ultimately do surpass the United States in individual components of national power like gross domestic product or military spending;
• A continuing ability to produce “followership”, without which there can be no leadership.  As the scholar David Kang notes, while many countries grudgingly admire China’s economic accomplishments, neither China nor any other potential U.S. rival has demonstrated the ability to produce the ranks of followers the United States takes for granted with its far-ranging set of global alliances and partnerships;
• The central role in a liberal international order originally built around American power, interests, and beliefs, with substantial components of that order increasingly embraced by other established powers and rising powers like India. As journalist Pramit Pal Chaudhuri notes, “India wants to modify the present world order [to secure greater status within it] but never to overthrow it.”

Despite all the hype over their ascent, “the rest” are not a unified geopolitical bloc – they are riven by rivalries which will make competition among emerging powers more intense than that between the developed and developing worlds.  And even as power diffuses across the international system, it will also diffuse within societies as a middle class explosion in China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and elsewhere transforms politics within them, potentially reinforcing rather than undermining Western interests.

Finally, raw calculations of relative economic power mislead analysts to believe that the ascent of emerging powers is necessarily a zero-sum loss for the West.  In fact, the entrance of billions of new consumers into the world economy has enormously benefited the United States and Europe – through cheaper imports, growing markets for trade and investment, and a greater stake for aspiring economies in sustaining an open international economy.

Strategically, the West is arguably in a better – not worse – position as the capabilities and strategic horizons of emerging powers expand in ways that potentially empower them to help provide global public goods.  Washington certainly has high hopes for partnership with emerging giants like India and Brazil – to the point that European strategist Mark Leonard worries that the U.S. tilt toward these “post-colonial superpowers” undermines the transatlantic alliance.

In short, despite the fad for declinism, the United States is positioned to remain the pacesetter among the great powers through 2030 – if its leaders can get the country’s fiscal house in order.  America certainly has its problems.  But whose problems would Americans rather have – China’s?

By Claudio Lilienfeld

In the age of the Internet, key questions abound about how emerging powers such as India and China will affect and reflect the global rise in information availability and flows, and what impact that will have on commerce, politics, and culture. Most presume the battle lines are being drawn along the lines of democracy versus authority, but the reality is much more complicated.

All countries globally grapple with balancing the benefits of the Internet (vital commerce, inclusive economic opportunity, cultural vibrancy, and political expression) with global and local challenges (national security, privacy, protecting the vulnerable, and respecting cultural norms). The biggest question is whether the “rest” will favor the principles of openness as the best guarantors of national interest, seeing them as universal rather than simply as an imposition of the West.

One critical factor in the direction countries take will be whether they recognize and choose to harness the enormous economic benefits of open platforms and the free flow of information. New data are emerging regularly that casino spiele show that when countries commit to unfettered movement of information across the nbso online casino reviews Internet — except where necessary to achieve a legitimate, limited government objective – they are supporting increased exports, domestic jobs and innovation, and contributing to the strength of the entire global economic trading system.

A recent McKinsey report found that the Internet accounted for 3.4 percent of GDP in 13 countries examined.  And virtually every entity globally – business, government, university, cultural institution, or NGO – relies on the Internet to power its business, work, research, and communications, or aspires to do so.

Ultimately, global trends, including economic and geopolitical power shifts reflecting the “rise of the rest,” are poised to ride on the back of an open Internet — which can serve both as a catalyst and a vehicle for propelling these shifts.

Claudio Lilienfeld is Senior Policy Manager for the Asia-Pacific at Google.

By Andrew Phillips

Secretary of State Clinton’s recognition of the dawning ‘Indo-Pacific’ age and the U.S. Navy’s recalibration of its ‘two ocean’ focus (from a Pacific/Atlantic to an Indo-Pacific focus) together signify Washington’s growing appreciation of the Indian Ocean Region’s (IOR’s) rising strategic importance.  As the region commands greater attention from Washington down to 2030 and beyond, America may be tempted to pursue regional order-building practices comparable to those that earlier enabled it to integrate first its defeated Axis enemies and then later the Asian ‘tiger economies’ and (to a lesser extent) China into a global liberal order.  Nevertheless, the scope for doing so will be radically constrained in the IOR — not merely by America’s declining relative power, but also by the region’s distinct historical legacies, which differ fundamentally from those that have shaped America’s grand strategy elsewhere.

In both Western Europe and East Asia, the liberal international order has for decades been locally anchored through long-term alliance systems centered around U.S. partnerships with key regional powers (Germany and Japan respectively).  Conversely, in the IOR, regional enthusiasm for non-alignment retarded the development of an effective IOR collective security system in the immediate post-war decades. Undeniably, the Cold War and later the ‘war on terror’ spawned fragile alliances of convenience linking America to various regional partners, most notably Pakistan.

But American power within the IOR remains blunted to this day by the absence of a local client of comparable strategic weight to either Germany or Japan. This absence has in turn stymied the emergence of alliance systems comparable to those that have dampened local security rivalries elsewhere. The result has been to deny the IOR – home to 11 of the world’s 20 most fragile states – the geopolitical stability it needs to fully integrate into the global liberal order.

Comprising 36 littoral and 14 adjacent hinterland states (collective population: 2.6 billion) and now rapidly emerging as both an epicenter of nbso online casino reviews both global trade and great power rivalry, the IOR’s successful integration into the liberal order constitutes a vital U.S. interest. The region’s distinctive historical legacies and contemporary material limits on U.S. power nevertheless preclude a simple replication of the practices that have undergirded liberal order-building efforts in Europe and East Asia since 1945. Instead, three imperatives must guide U.S. order-building in the IOR in an increasingly post-unipolar and post-Western world:

Cultivate Partners, Not Clients: As the world’s first and third most populous democracies, India and Indonesia (the latter also the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country) could potentially play a decisive role in consolidating a post-Western but still recognizably liberal global order in the 21^st  century. The United States should therefore continue to pro-actively nurture their peaceful rise and seek out opportunities for bilateral and trilateral cooperation. At the same time, Washington must recognize that the legacy of non-alignment remains particularly firmly entrenched in New Delhi and Jakarta, and that aspirations to form a democratic entente to offset growing Chinese influence will almost certainly be disappointed.  A shared commitment to democracy will surely lubricate increased cooperation between the U.S., India and Indonesia. But any partnership between them will increasingly be one of equals, more negotiated, more ad hoc and less reliable as a foundation for regional order than the institutionalised patron-client ties with ‘pivot’ states that long underwrote U.S. grand strategy in Europe and East Asia.

Preserve and Extend Existing Friendships: Washington’s relationships with established allies including Japan and Australia (the last constituting a pivotal connector linking the Pacific and Indian Ocean theaters) must be recognized and more fully utilized as indispensably versatile assets for consolidating regional stability, not merely in the Asia-Pacific but also in the IOR.  On this point, the success of the Tsunami Core Group (comprising Australia, the U.S., Japan and also India) in coordinating humanitarian assistance and disaster relief following the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami provides especially compelling evidence that existing ‘hub and spokes’ alliances can be leveraged to reach out to major local powers in the IOR for the purpose of strengthening regional order.

Encourage ‘Bottom-Up’ Regional Order-Building: The host of governance challenges now afflicting the IOR, ranging from transnational terrorism and piracy through to state failure, has already stimulated ‘bottom-up’ order-building through the formation of various sub-regional ad hoc ‘coalitions of the willing’ (e.g., the various multinational anti-piracy taskforces now deployed off the Horn of Africa). Given the region’s historical failure to develop coherent institutions for regional cooperation from the ‘top down,’ Washington should prioritize supporting and participating in these more modest initiatives wherever possible. This is not simply because of their intrinsic functional value in addressing regional challenges. Rather, it is also because in the absence of a decades-long history of institutionalized U.S. power and partnership with local ‘pivot states,’ encouraging informal and issue-specific practices of security cooperation may offer one of the few immediately viable means of stabilizing a region that will be increasingly critical for the maintenance of global order in the nascent post-Western century.

Andrew Phillips is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Strategy in the School of Political Science at the University of Queensland and the author of War, Religion and Empire – The Transformation of International Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

By Walter Lohman

The “rise of the rest” presents the United States with its two principal manifestations in China and India.  There are no two relationships more important to American success in securing its interest in the emerging global environment and shaping a new order.

The official U.S. relationship with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is fundamentally a poor one, and will long remain so.  The U.S. and China have conflicting national interests and governing ideologies.  The challenge is to manage the conflicts in ways that minimize the impact on each country and others in the international system.

Take two examples the Chinese have described as “core interests.”

On Taiwan, the U.S. and PRC are diametrically opposed.  The PRC believes Taiwan a part of its territory; the U.S. position is that the status of its sovereignty is unsettled.  The PRC reserves the prerogative to use force to settle the question; the U.S. is ambiguously committed to Taiwan’s defense.  The PRC holds up the 1982 U.S.-China Communiqué as requiring the U.S. to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan; the U.S. holds that the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) mandates it supply Taiwan arms necessary for it to “maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.”

Add to this the restraints imposed by Reagan’s Six Assurances, particularly the policy of not pressuring or mediating between the parties across the Straits, not consulting with the PRC on arms sales to Taiwan, and not altering the terms of the TRA, and neither side has any room for compromise.  The best officials can do is state their positions and agree to disagree.  There is no way to reconcile the positions.   The only thing that will change this state of affairs is a 180-degree change in Taiwan’s disposition toward its sovereignty, and that means much more than the thaw that has occurred in cross-Straits relations since 2008.

There is a similar direct conflict concerning the South China Sea.  The Chinese have two alternative bases for the rights they claim in these waters, one historical and one legal.  Under either of them, they lay claim to rights over all of the land and most of the sea.  Land claims there are not America’s concern, but claims, direct or derivative, over the sea are in direct conflict with historic American interest in the freedom of the seas.

Protecting U.S. interests vis-à-vis the PRC means maintaining a highly capable forward deployed military, tending American alliances and keeping allies capable, and asserting its rights and prerogatives physically as well as diplomatically.  It means maintaining a consistent, persistent set of policies.  It means keeping lines of communications active, but being completely comfortable with achieving nothing in terms of bilateral relations.  Flexibility is a one way street for the Chinese.  Staying firm and managing any fallout is the best approach.

The rise of India represents the opposite challenge. The basics of the U.S.-India relationship are good.  The U.S. and India have mostly coincident, and few diametrically opposed, interests, and very similar governing ideologies.  The challenge here is managing casino online the relationship in a way that maximizes its opportunities.

Two examples illustrate the convergence of U.S.-India interests.

First, China.  American concerns about Chinese military modernization and intentions in the Western Pacific roughly mirror Indian concerns about Chinese capabilities and intentions in its own neighborhood. The PRC’s active challenge to India’s northern borders and its sponsorship of Pakistan tie together India’s two greatest security threats.  Indeed, many in New Delhi believe they see Chinese encirclement in Chinese outreach to their neighbors.

The PRC achieving its territorial ambitions east of its territorial seas and along the Indian border simultaneously is unlikely.  By the same token, leaving it unchallenged on one could result in increased pressure on the other.  The U.S. and India have an obvious mutual interest in restraining Chinese ambition in both areas in order to prevent realization of it in either.

Both countries’ relationships with China are complex.  Both have economic interests, investment and trade, and interests in the international economic system at stake.  The Indians have an imperative similar to America’s to manage conflicting interests in a way that minimizes their impact on bilateral relations, economics and the international system.

Second, terrorism.  Long before the attacks of 9/11, India was a tragic victim of terrorism, suffering literally thousands of incidents a year.  Since 9/11, the U.S. has become much more sensitive to India’s predicament and a set of common interests it had not previously recognized.

This is most stark in their converging views on Pakistan.  Whereas once the American policy establishment reflexively viewed India as one side of an India-Pakistan problem, that dynamic has receded in priority as a result of India’s forbearance and Pakistan’s slide into near state failure.  India today is largely seen by the U.S. as a partner in counter-terrorism solutions; Pakistan is seen as essentially an undeclared state sponsor of terrorism, ambivalent about the very proposition of counterterrorism and its choice of security allies.

Common interests on counterterrorism are also apparent in the U.S. and Indian perspectives on Afghanistan.  Both have an interest in a stable and peaceful Afghanistan, free from the grip of the Taliban.  The U.S. is, of course, leader of the international coalition to help ensure this, although its sense of urgency is diffused across thousands of miles.  India is one of Afghanistan’s largest aid donors, and its interest is much closer to home.

Whereas in U.S.-China relations, ideology acts as an accelerant on conflicting interests, in the U.S.-India relationship, ideology is a salve for underperformance.  Despite differences in approaches to developments in the Middle East, market disappointments in India, or deliberate political shots at Indian immigration to the U.S., common values offer the U.S.-India relationship an underlying confidence that sustains it through the criticism.  Flexibility and patience are assets in U.S.-India relations as there is an inherent sense of inevitability about the relationship.

The way the United States manages these vastly different relationships will not only enable it to secure its direct interests — it will shape the impact from “the rise of the rest.”  In short, a world in which common U.S.-India aspirations are met and Chinese ambition restrained will be a better place.  Achieving this requires two very different approaches.

Walter Lohman is Director of Asian Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

By Indrani Bagchi

As American power meets new claimants for a place at the top table, we are no longer looking at a single narrative that was almost a mantra for how nations conducted themselves. In the rise of the rest we are witnessing new ideas of the the exercise of power and different notions of how the world is structured.

More than any other power, it is in the rise of China and India that we find the tussle of two compellingly different narratives. Of particular interest is how the two developing giants exercise power as regional hegemons.

China is following a path to power wholly its own. China is much less likely to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states. This could mean that states can have their own models of economy or government without risking a diminution of Chinese patronage. In return, though, Beijing will demand that smaller, less powerful states explicitly recognize China’s primacy.

Leaving aside India, China has resolved its land border disputes with almost all its neighbors. That has not stopped it from aggressively pursuing expansionist territorial ambitions either in the South China Sea, or with pliant nations on its borders, like Myanmar and  Laos. Buoyed by impressive economic and military growth, China has picked fights with the Philippines, Japan and Vietnam over sovereignty issues.

As India has grown, its primary foreign policy has centered around what it calls a “peaceful periphery.”  From the Maldives to Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, India has encouraged liberal democracy, however imperfect that might be.

Two factors have and will continue to temper India’s support for such an international order. First, India’s security concerns will trump many other issues. In Myanmar, India engaged the military government in favor of holding out for justice for Aung San Suu Kyi because it can only work with the Myanmar military to counter many northeast insurgencies, many of whose leaders live in the neighboring country.

Second, India has not shied away from involving itself in the domestic politics of a neighboring country if its stability is crucial for India. In nbso online casino reviews the Maldives, India supported the new government after a controversial transfer of power in February – because the Maldives is the bridgehead for New Delhi’s Indian Ocean strategy. India has quietly but forcefully opposed Nepal’s Maoists online casino from fashioning a left-wing authoritarian state on its doorstep, all the while encouraging Nepal’s political parties to choose democratic forms of governance.

A third factor, often unarticulated is China. China’s activities along India’s periphery, often encouraged by India’s neighbors as insurance against Indian hegemony, have alarmed New Delhi to the extent that in many cases, India is willing to compromise on the fundamental principles of liberal democracy that it itself lives by.  On the other hand, China’s own boorish behavior in its neighborhood has propelled some towards a sympathetic India.

As “others” like India and China rise, some trends are clearly visible. We might be returning to the old balance-of-power paradigm here, which makes it particularly interesting. India will weigh in with the principles of a Western international order, except that it wants to be in the tent. China is already in the tent, but clearly an outsider. Beijing will take decisions based less on what kind of world it wants to see and more on open self-interest, bordering on mercantilism.

With some exceptions, China has been fairly successful until now. India, meanwhile, is in the midst of serious policy crisis — making it rather like a deer caught in the headlights, leading many to ask whether some Chinese characteristics might not be more attractive.

In the end, the India story of a pluralistic, liberal democracy, is much more attractive. But the Chinese model appears more efficient.

Indrani Bagchi is Diplomatic Editor of the Times of India.

By John Lee

The economic rise of countries outside the post-WWII Western alliance provides a potential challenge to the pre-existing liberal order — for the simple reason that these emerging powers had little role in the creation of the liberal order. American leverage and influence must be understood within the context of the global liberal order. Any successful challenge or dilution of this order will weaken America’s global role and leadership. Although we cannot predict the future, we can point to important and difficult-to-alter domestic and structural factors that will significantly influence how these emerging powers view the future global liberal order, and their place within it.

As the two most populous nations, there is understandable attention to the re-emergence of China and India. It is widely assumed that authoritarian China will have far more difficulty integrating into the liberal order than democratic India.

This assumption is correct, but nevertheless poorly analyzed or understood. It is well known that the international liberal order is characterized by rules-based competition, dispute resolution processes and open economic and trading systems. Less well understood are the implications of such an order.

No liberal system can function effectively without the significant separation of political, economic, legal and administrative agency and agents. Governments genuinely committed to a liberal system of rules and competition use the tools of state to uphold the agreed rules of the game, most notably when it comes to protecting the agreed rights of their citizens against their own officials. In economic activity, they voluntarily give up much of their capacity to intervene in legitimate competition between firms, engineer economic outcomes, and determine the winners and losers in the hurly-burly of global economic competition. Conflating economic, political and foreign policy goals should be the exception rather than the norm.

This is the problem with the seductive belief that authoritarian China will be increasingly ‘integrated’ into the liberal order and emerge as a defender of such an order. China is moving in the opposite direction of what ‘responsible stakeholders’ in a liberal order ought to be doing.

The country’s failings in protecting the fundamental rights of its best online casino own citizens and in subjecting the Communist Party (CCP) to the ‘rule of law’ are well known. When it comes to economics, its state-dominated political economy is deliberately designed to ensure that the CCP retains an interventionist and decisive role in engineering economic outcomes through support for and protection of its state-owned-enterprises – domestically and increasingly internationally.

It is clear that the separation of economic, legal, judicial and administrative agency from politics would necessarily entail the dilution of the CCP’s relevance, standing and therefore power. The structure of the Chinese political-economy – and the CCP’s mindset – is instructive. And if this mindset will be as difficult to alter as I suspect it might, the prospects of authoritarian China emerging as a constructive player in a global liberal order are slim.

India is also emerging from a socialist past, albeit a softer and democratic one. However, the separation of political, judicial and economic power is already established in India, albeit imperfectly enforced. Moreover, the driving forces behind India’s economic emergence are the private rather than state sector. This means that New Delhi has no option but to increasingly relinquish its control over the economy and society for India too continue its rise.

Indeed, the domestic habit of separating economic and foreign policy from regime objectives is already well-grounded in India and is likely to continue. Although India will continue to have significant disagreements with America over important foreign policy issues, the nature of India’s rise is far more conducive to it emerging as a constructive contributor (if not defender) of the global liberal order.

The analysis of domestic structures, which give rise to government habits and behavior, can be applied to other emerging giants such as Brazil and Indonesia. Both are young democracies. But the natures of their political economies are less established than in China or India.

The entrenching of agreed limits on the government’s role over the economy, bureaucracy and courts in these countries will bode well for their willingness and ability to rise as effective contributors to any future liberal order – and make it more difficult for countries such as China to resist, challenge or alter key aspects of the existing liberal order. But their emergence as authoritarian economic powers will mean the weakening of the global liberal order, and reduce America’s capacity to exercise leadership and influence in a future time.

Dr. John Lee is the Michael Hintze Fellow and Associate Professor at the Centre for International Security Studies, Sydney University, and a scholar at the Hudson Institute.

By Richard S. Williamson

The international system remains relatively unchanged since Western allies, led by the United States, created the post-World War II international architecture to contain communism and create conditions for prosperity and peace – especially their prosperity and peace.  Now we face a different reality: Western powers are experiencing economic crisis, China and India are on pace to rank among the top three economies by 2050, and rising economies will potentially rival the G-8 in the decades to come.  In spite of these recalibrations to the world’s economic equilibrium, most rising powers continue to participate in multilateral organizations as outsiders or, at best, marginal actors.  If multilateral institutions no longer correspond to the reality of international affairs, how will this impact their influence in the decades to come?

The United States has benefited from the array of international multilateral institutions.  They can provide a broad acceptance, or legitimacy, for actions.  They provide a means for buy-in and burden-sharing.  The dialogue, deliberations, and debate, while often cumbersome and time-consuming, can result in better informed and improved decisions.  And it is my experience serving in ambassadorships to United Nations bodies in New York, Vienna, and Geneva that usually the United States can prevail on matters important to it if we put in the time, diplomacy, and encouragement required.  When a vital national interest is at stake, as was at play in Kosovo and Iraq, the United States can and will circumvent the encumbrances of the UN.

Furthermore, multilateral institutions have a reach that enables them to play a critical role in norm-setting, whether in international civil aviation or counter-terrorism.

Combined, these elements provide a measure of predictability which benefits the less mighty and the mighty.  The practices, processes, and procedures of multilateral institutions provide comfort to the less strong that the mighty will take into account past practices, norms, and others’ perspectives.  The great elephant will not trample the grass willy nilly.  Yes, the United States and others reserve the casino online right to act unilaterally when they must in their vital national self-interest, but that will be the exception.  Normal events will be handled within the guardrails established and accepted.  The less mighty feel less need to form alliances to oppose or constrain the mighty.  Both sides of that equation benefit.

But as the power within these institutions increasingly fails to reflect power in the real world, they will lose legitimacy.  Respect and adherence to these institutions and their restraints will weaken and circumvention practices will increase.

So far China and other rising economies are not engaging in a direct assault or an open rejection of the established architecture.  But they are keeping their options open.

In spite of posturing CBS collaborates domestically and internationally with universities and institutions within research and education CBS offers an extensive Summer University Programme – with over 50 courses and almost 1700 students the CBS Summer University Programme is one of the biggest of its kindCBS is triple crown accredited which means that we are among 58 business best-driving-school.com worldwide who have been quality assured. by rising powers, many experts have speculated that as rising powers like China gain more influence, they will not overturn the current system’s rules and principles, but instead seek to gain more authority within the existing order.

Another potential course of action for a rising power is to engage with the existing international system while seeking over time to revise the architecture.

In response to calls for China to become a responsible stakeholder, Bates Gill and Michael Schiffer have pointed out that Beijing may reasonably conclude that the international community is populated by irresponsible stakeholders – and that there is little advantage in acquiescing to existing structures unless they are adapted to fit China’s policy preferences.

Rising powers may seek to design new arrangements that take account of their growing interests, just as Washington helped create the United Nations after it walked away from the League of Nations after World War I.  Over time incremental actions could make the current architecture obsolete – a more dramatic outcome than a mere bending of norms.

There are indications that incremental institutional changes already are underway; note the creation of new energy institutions by states dissatisfied by existing regimes.

The United States is not in decline.  But our traditional allies in Europe face an ongoing economic and political crisis, less appetite to meet their obligations in NATO, and less capacity to meet other responsibilities.  Meanwhile, with the rapid rise of China and other dynamic economies such as India, Brazil, and Turkey, the relative preeminence of the United States is changing.  New ways and means will develop to account for these newer influential voices and their interests.

That’s the reality.  How we think through these developments, and our willingness to lead in shaping the changing world, will determine our own capacity to project our power, protect our interests, and advance our values.

Ambassador Richard S. Williamson served in various senior positions in the Reagan White House and the State Department and he has served in four ambassadorships.  He currently is a Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

From the draft Global Trends 2030 report:

Most of the emerging economies weathered the 2008 financial crisis well. In the coming decade, we will probably witness not only relative economic gains by China, India, and Brazil, but also the increasing importance of emerging regional players such as Colombia, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, South Korea, and Turkey. However, developing countries will face their own challenges, especially in continuing the momentum behind their rapid growth.

The health of the global economy will be increasingly linked to how well the developing world does—more so than the traditional West. The developing world already provides more than 50 percent of global growth and 40 percent of global investment. Its contribution to global investment growth is more than 70 percent. China’s contribution is now one and a half times the US contribution. In the World Bank’s baseline modeling of future economic multipolarity, China—despite a slowing of its economic growth—will contribute about one-third of global growth by 2025, far more than any other economy. The world economy no longer depends on US consumers but on investment growth in emerging countries.

Nevertheless, China will face stiff hurdles to achieving that goal in the 2030 timeframe. The country’s population will start aging rapidly….  China has averaged 10-percent real growth during the past three decades; by 2020 the economy will probably be expanding by only 5 percent, according to several private sector forecasts….  China faces the prospect of being trapped in middle-income status—of its per capita income not continuing to Eco- school-delays.com needs to get more regional, establishing more localised, relevant, mobile casino information and support to aid time pressed teachers, Eco-coordinators and others. increase to the level of the world’s advanced economies. Many Latin American countries faced a similar situation in the 1980s and were unable to avoid the trap because of income inequality and their inability to restructure their economies….

An economically difficult transition could mean an equally difficult political one in the case of China.  Slower per capita growth will increase the difficulty  of meeting rising expectations, potentially sparking discontent. A political crisis would make it harder for China to meet its economic goals. A prolonged political and economic crisis could cause China to turn inward, blaming external forces for its problems at home.

Although the leadership and much of the middle class are now wedded to globalization because of China’s startling success over the past 30 years, suspicion of the outside world lingers and, similar to historical cases elsewhere, could reemerge as a powerful political force if Chinese economic development stalls….