Month: November 2009

Looking out at dawn over the banks of the South Saskatchewan River from a hotel restaurant in Saskatoon,  the thin, reedy, late November light illuminates a grey-brown landscape impatient for the arrival of snow.

That blanket will obscure the detritus of a season passed and reveal in its place the essential patterns and forms which lie beneath.

Looking out over Canada, the USA, the UK and Europe after the first few months of the GD tour, I am left with a similarly expectant feeling.

I see a world waiting, impatiently, for change, for the renaissance in diplomatic institutions and practice which will permit to diplomacy to displace defence at the centre of international policy.

In the wake a few days in Boston and Washington, I very much hope that similar thoughts are on President Obama’s mind as he ponders the way forward in Afghanistan.

Keep fighting – only harder – or start talking with a view to ending, rather than extending the war?

It seems to me that the Nobel Committee, in selecting Obama as its 2009 Peace Prize winner, has sent a clear political indication of its preference in that debate.

That option would not involve escalation. Quite the contrary.

After Scheherazade, talk, and talk, and keep talking until they send the executioners home.

Nearing the end of the first phase of the book tour, then, I find myself more convinced than ever that the world is at a delicate moment, a strategic juncture in history which is likely to condition, and perhaps even determine the geopolitical shape of things to come.

I am referring to:

• power shift, in favour of the re-emerging Asia-Pacific region

• the coming into place of a new suite of global  challenges, distinct from the Cold War threat set in that most of these transnational issues are rooted in science and driven by technology

• the rise of heterpolarity as the basis for world order

In earlier writings I have had occasion to elaborate on the first two points; here I would like to dwell for a bit on the third.

Many observers have suggested that with the rapid passing of hegemonic American uni-polarity, the planet seems to be reverting to some kind of multi-polar dispensation.

Well… I don’t think so.

This is not the world of Metternich and Castlereigh, nor of Bismark, or Churchill, or Trueman.  Attempts to secure stability can no longer be ensconsced in the likes of  the Congress of Vienna or the Treaty of Versailles. In those days, the vectors of power (military, economic, territorial) were relatively easily measured and compared. Attempts at balancing the resulting calculation – however unsuccessful –  appeared to hold some promise.

As it happens, they didn’t, as centuries of endless war attest with some conviction.

Even moreso in the globalization age, this is kind of thinking is no longer of much relevance or utility.

Looking forward a decade or so, it seems clear that the trump card of the USA will be its hard, or military, power. The dynamic epicentre of the world economy, however, will have shifted to an increasingly integrated Asia.

Europe, with its peace, prosperity, social democracy and rich artistic and cultural heritage will lead in soft power, the power of attraction. For the post-Treaty of Lisbon EU, the trick will be to find effective ways to translate that soft power into practical influence, almost certainly through the implememtation of  innovative public diplomacy.

Brazil, too, will be a pole.

Russia, as well.

Other poles will emerge – Turkey? Iran? – and the sources of their power are all likely to be different as well.

Which is to say, heterogeneous.

Bombs and guns, generals and admirals won’t have a major role in finding a way towards development and security in this kind of a world. That enterprise will turn on dialogue, on cross-cultural communication, on knowledge-based problem solving and on complex balancing.

Calling all (guerrilla) diplomats…

So, then, back to the banks of the South Saskatchewan River. In the lead up to next Monday’s Foreign  Policy Camp in Vancouver, I have been thinking about what all of this might mean for Canadian strategy, institutions, policies and interests.

More on that soon.

Last night at the Brandenburg Gate I attended the commemorative ceremony organized to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, the re-unification of Germany and Europe,  and the end of the Cold War.

That is a lot to celebrate, but to call the event historic does not quite convey the emotion, the excitement, and the sheer exhilaration that was palpable in the streets. If the rain dampened the numbers, it could not douse the spirit of the evening.

Not even close.

Gorbachev and Genscher. Medvedev and Merkel. Sarkozy. Brown.  Walesa. Secretary Clinton introducing a videogram from President Obama.

Imagine. As a symbol of the new Europe, this was a breathtaking sight to behold.

Amidst the speeches, music, fireworks and mulled wine, I found myself thinking, what does all of this mean, and where might it be going?

For the past few hundred years, European statesmanship has been concerned mainly with balancing power, first on a multi-polar continent, then in a bipolar world. In the days of Metternich and Castlereagh, the then vectors of national power – armies, navies, economies, populations, territories – were carefully calculated and then balanced. Alliances were made and treaties entered into for purposes of expressing that balance, and so was world order fashioned.

When imbalances occurred, negotiations usually resumed. If they failed, more often than not it was conflict which decided the new order.

After the Cold War began, the balancing act continued, but this time it was predicated upon the possibility of the apocalypse, and the major players were the USA and the Soviet Union. The thinking was thermo-nuclear, and it was deterrence, containment, and the certainty of mutually assured destruction which resulted in a very heavily armed peace. This was a terrifying kind of stability, but still, the underlying dynamic was the same – because the sources of power were comparable and measureable, they could be balanced.

And so they were.

In the 21st century, none of this kind of thinking really works very well any more. The brief period of American uni-polarity flamed out in a violent starburst of shock and awe over Baghdad in 2004. But that did not, in my view, signal the much-heralded return to some kind of multipolarity. Why not? Because in the era of globalization, the principal vectors of power and influence are now both highly dispersed geographically, and, among and between themselves, fundamentally different in kind.

Unlike in the previous eras, the heterogenous nature of the competing poles renders them very difficult to compare, and even more difficult to balance.

The USA, for instance, will for the forseeable future be the world’s leading military power. Yet its economic and industrial hegemony is fading fast, a trend accelerated by the continuing financial crisis. Within a decade or two the mantle of economic leadership will have passed to the Asia-Pacific region generally, and to China in particular – with India not that far behind. Russia will be an energy and resource pole, a status complicated by its residual capacities as a former superpower. Brazil may also emerge as a pole, the exact nature of which remains unclear. So, too, with other countries and regions.

And Europe?

With its peace, prosperity, safe and liveable cities, social safety net,  excellent public infrastructure, rich historical heritage and thriving artistic and cultural life, Europa is very likely destined to lead the world in soft power, the power of attraction. In practice, then, the source of Europe’s strength and the basis of its comparative advantage will be in the demonstration effect, in the ability to project its success internationally.

The emergence of a hetero-polar world order will call for nuanced, and highly complex balancing between dynamic poles, and knowledge-driven problem solving to address common threats and challenges. Many of these, such as climate change, resource scarcity and pandemic disease, will be rooted in science and driven by technology.

Defence departments, although they have been allocated the lion’s share of resources, are, as instruments of international policy, both too sharp, and too dull to provide these kinds of services.

Diplomats, on the other hand, with their specialized cross-cultural, linguistic and political communications skills can, and indeed must connect.

So… As I was standing last night by the Brandenburg Gate, it occured to me that the translation Europe’s immense success into tangible, progressive influence vis-a-vis the other poles will depend, perhaps more than anything else, on the quality, agility and acuity of its diplomacy. If that idea catches on at the level of decision-makers and opinion-leaders within the European Union, it just might help to re-capture the public imagination – which lately appears to have been flagging as regards the integration project –  and in so doing assist in taking the entire process to a higher level.

In the face of such an outcome. we would all be more secure.