Global Political Order

What are the fundamental building blocks of global politics? On the verge of 2023 I offer my perspective on Substack. Subscribe and stay tuned to the fundamentals of global politics.

Leave your mail address and my post will reach your mailbox.

Power projection and regional dynamics

Capabilities are key in geopolitics. On the base of the strength of its internal cohesion, a capital projects power towards the designated borders of the polity and beyond. Global politics takes place on the planet in concrete settings where power is projected onto specific areas. We understand power projection as concrete distribution of force and the perception of intent. In this way we could describe a doctrine by counting troops, equipment, and their placement, evaluate their force and range, and then add a consideration concerning their potential use. Hereby we come to a point, from where we can begin to reconstruct intent as a theater of conflict unravels. In a following post we shall examine what we call The Putin Doctrine in relation to current events in Ukraine. Dynamics between local powers are understood as regional dynamics. Such regional dynamics can be penetrated and dominated by global dynamics. In clusters of major and minor regional powers there are sustained tensions between entities, intensely so in East and South Asia. The relative proliferation, intensity, and endurance of conflicts in The Middle East can be sought explained by the absence of major regional powers where the proximity and proliferation of minor regional powers sustains tension. A quick way to count relative offensive capabilities is to divide military budget by number of security forces. A formula for precise assessment of military strength for a polity can be found here (link).

Distinction between powers

In the Global Polity Theory, we distinguish between 4 types of powers on the criteria of their strength relative to their surroundings:

1)    Superpower: a superpower is a great power with global reach. Such reach requires a large presence and substantial capabilities. A superpower sustains regional hegemony hence exercise total domination in its own region. USA is a superpower.

2)    Great power: a power is great, when all actors in the system must take potential grievances of such a power into account, while acting in the global system. A great power is a major regional power exercising domination on its territory. China and EU are great powers.

3)    Major regional power: a major regional power is a power with strong capabilities. A major regional power is striving for hegemony in its regional context. Major regional powers have larger capabilities than the surrounding powers in the region: U.K., Japan, Russia, India, Australia and Brazil are considered major regional powers.

4)    Minor regional powers: a minor regional power exercises influence beyond its borders and participate as a force projecting power within a regional dynamic. In the Middle East there are 5 minor regional powers: Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. In Maghreb there are 2: Algeria and Morocco.

The Geopolitical Pyramid

In terms of actual capabilities, powers differ to a large degree. Some are immensely strong in absolute terms, locally, regionally, or globally, while others may be weak in comparison, but relatively strong compared to their immediate surroundings. In the first tier of the pyramid, we find USA. Second tier are China and EU. Third tier are Russia, Brazil, India, U.K., Australia, and Japan. In the fourth tier we find minor regional powers: North Korea, Iran, South Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Mexico, Taiwan, South Korea, Morocco, Canada, Israel.

Global elite polities and global mass polities

The geopolitical pyramid gives an intuition of the distribution of power in the global polity. We see a difference in notation between I and O. China may have its challenges with its internal coherence, and China may not be an unproblematic administrative monolith, but its display of political unity differs from that of the security community we name EU. This entity is an anomaly. EU is an affiliation of polities. In the pyramid, EU is marked with an O to indicate that it is different to the other entities that are all marked I. There is a radical difference between the distribution of power in and from the EU and the distribution of power in and from other entities, but in many respects, the power of the EU is heavy in the global polity, not least due to its cultural and economic leverage, being the locus of origin of the west and the sheer size of its market. The relative strength of the EU creates tensions vis a vis its surroundings. We shall see how the projection from the EU have created a sphere of political instability around it while it has embarked on a slow process of integration into what we call a security community. The point is here that EU together with USA, U. K., Australia, and Japan (arguably Switzerland, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Uruguay could be counted in here) creates an elite in the global polity and thus sustains a line of division vis a vis the rest, namely China, Russia, Brazil, and India, at times referred to as the BRIC, forming the top of a mass of states, ‘The Rest’ (where South Africa and all other polities could arguably be counted as well). Although the elite has a lot of power, the mass is many and represents around 7 billion people. In terms of GDP per capita and political stability the entities in the global elite are much richer and more developed both militarily, politically and economically by a factor of at least 4 to 1. This difference and its auspices will all be clearer, when we get deeper into Global Polity Theory, but at this point it is important to grasp the polity division in the global polity, through which we come to explain the actions and aspirations of Russia, India, Brazil, and China, but also the doctrine of the EU, and, of course, the superpower.

Global political institutions

Geopolitics is basically regulated by four different institutions: balance of power, sovereignty, diplomacy, and war. Balancing between sovereign entities entails distribution of power between entities. Such distribution may be sought regulated through diplomacy and war. Balance of major powers creates macro-structures in the global political order expressed by the means they invoke relative to polarity of global polity. We speak of a fading unipolar moment (1991 – 2017) after bipolarity reigned during the standoff between USSR and USA (1949 – 1990). This period, often referred to as ‘The Cold War’, saw the rise of quite stable secondary institutions such as UN, WTO, WB/IMF but also a dominant military alliance, namely NATO. The domination of these secondary institutions and the strong alliance between countries in the EU, U.K., USA, Canada and Turkey forms a conglomerate of an enduring but very weak global political form.

Polarization

Tensions between elite and mass is growing undermining the global political order. Nowadays, we understand unipolarity to fade into multipolarity, with several nodes forming. Between two of these capitols the contour of a new axis is being formed, namely between Kremlin and Beijing. We shall come closer to what that may entail already in a few weeks in the post named: A Pragmatic Partnership. The undermined sovereignty of Kiev during the intra-state conflict in Ukraine, led to an invasion by Russia: as diplomacy was unable to mediate the conflict in Ukraine, it turned into war. Interestingly, the Ukraine, backed by NATO, managed to balance Russia on the battlefield. A stalemate has occurred along the frontline with scarce movement from both sides. We shall deal with this conflict zone in the post named The Ukraine Question already in a few weeks. Later, we shall come to discuss The Taiwan Question, as well. When China was recognized by the UN, Taiwan became unrecognized. Secondary institutions and alliances play a substantial role in the diplomacy of global politics.

The main issue

Since wars are few and diplomacy proliferate, the overarching issue on the agenda is sovereignty and the presence of state capacities, in a world where balance of power rules. The internal balance of entities, strengthening sovereignty and developing states to perform well, is in Global Polity Theory the main issue concerning global political stability. As explicated above, when sovereignty ceases, states may collapse into ‘civil war,’ as it was once called, but no longer, since there is nothing civil about these conflicts; they are rather as uncivil as conflict can get, stemming from intra-structural breakdown of tension between legitimacy and monopolization of violations. They are dominated by arbitrary molestation. We name these conflicts ‘intra-state conflict.’ They generate malice and spawn refugees and further havoc to its surroundings. An essential state capacity is the development of vehicles for distribution of force. In the extreme, development of weapons of mass destruction and their potential in the hands of actors including non-state actors is a top priority for the great powers to handle. Standoff between states and potential escalation of standoff between great powers could lead to use of weapons of mass destruction. This potential has regulated the frequency and frenzy of interstate conflict. Interstate wars are less frequent. The weakening of entities and the rise of intra-state conflict are the prevalent factors of global instability.

Struggling major powers

A vital part of power projection is internal coherence. Strong sovereignty is vital. When polity is in a struggle to keep itself together, battling infra- or intra-polity issues it needs to strengthen its coherence by increased legitimization and deployment of force. The one measure does not always enforce the other, hence building institutions to sustain viable power distribution in society is paramount in sustaining and developing state capacities. The imperative of strengthening polity through strengthening sovereignty and develop state capacities contains major obstacles. When major powers struggle to accumulate sufficient state capacities, they may spawn political instability. And here we are at the core of the matter, since most major powers do struggle with internal coherence: Russia, India, Brazil, China, the EU, and even USA have very different but notable challenges when it comes to strengthening sovereignty and developing state capacities. Polities demand stability and public services. We start by focusing on two major powers and their internal and external struggles: Russia and China. First, we address The Ukraine Question.