Linear logic tells us that even the ongoing military and diplomatic confrontation between Russia and the United States over the so-called “Ukrainian issue” will be the last military alarm of European origin in the history of international politics, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev.
Over the past decades, one of Europe’s most striking obsessions has been to reclaim the essential features of being a “central zone” to international politics and the global economy. Every year, as the European powers became entangled in their problems, the likelihood of such a development of history has looked less tangible — Asia has become the centre, not only of production progress, but also of consumption, the main centre of innovation and a source of news which is significant for the whole world. Led by China’s fantastic economic growth, which has boosted its global influence, since the beginning of the last decade, Asia has not only been at the forefront of our imagination, but also left no doubt that we will allow historians of the future to define call this the “Asian century”.
Moreover, over the past two decades, Asia and Europe have acquired stable connotations in the popular scientific discussion, respectively connoting progress and backwardness, future and past, in which the Old World has played the role of a fading corner of the globe. This general confidence could not be shaken even by the coronavirus pandemic, which has been raging for the past two years and, as everyone knows, is of Asian provenance. Since it was the countries of the region that were widely believed to be most successful in countering this new threat, the events associated with the pandemic upheavals not only did not reduce expectations for Asia, but even strengthened them. While the Western countries, including Russia, experienced the pandemic as a tragedy, the peoples and governments of Asia coped with it quite cheerfully, although they turned to means and methods that would hardly have been accepted in Europe, Russia or America.
Accordingly, the attention of the main world powers also shifted. The United States has repeatedly proclaimed the Asia-Pacific area as its main priority, although it has done so in a rather traditional way, declaring China its main adversary in the struggle for the right to have privileged access to the benefits of the global economy.
Europe, which has long had extensive trade and investment ties with the Asian countries, is talking about a more active presence in regional international politics. Even Russia, albeit with great reluctance, has been pursuing its “pivot to the East“ policy for 10 years; its stated goal has been to derive new opportunities from the rapid growth of its neighbours in the Pacific region.
The main strategic military threats have also shifted. The conflict between China and the United States over control of major trade routes and the world’s resources, brewing on the horizon, extends far beyond the old problems with Europe. Essentially, the conflict that we see is poised to be the main nerve of world politics in the coming decades, and everything related to its hypothetical probability becomes much more important than any problems and troubles in other parts of the world. In other words, linear logic tells us that even the ongoing military and diplomatic confrontation between Russia and the United States over the so-called “Ukrainian issue” will be the last military alarm of European origin in the history of international politics. This seems to become a very comforting argument for many — especially given that the duration of the expected struggle between the economic giants on opposite sides of the Pacific is expected to be very long.
However, now we live in a different reality — the acute phase of the clash of interests between Moscow and Washington will most likely last for quite a long time and, under certain circumstances, is fraught with an escalation that threatens to put all of humanity on the brink of global catastrophe. Meanwhile, the Asian countries still remain passive observers — history seems to have turned back, and the fate of the world is again being determined by relations between the old European powers. At the same time, although America is not, even to a greater extent than Russia, a European country, its entire history of foreign policy, stable ties and interests is connected with this part of the world.
What is happening now is a continuation of the historical conflict between the “old” East and West, which arose at the dawn of the Enlightenment and developed most vividly over the past century. The conflict in Europe and over the European international order, no matter what substantive issues it ends with, is the most convincing argument in favour of the hypothesis, if not about the “return”, then about the “continuation” of history, the most important actors of which were identified in the era when Asia did not play any independent significance in world affairs. Even if China is now playing a very important role in how confidently Russia is behaving, it is not becoming an active participant in the drama unfolding before our eyes.
This leads to at least three important questions. First, did international politics become truly coherent after the leading Asian countries not only achieved sovereignty, but also took an important place in world affairs? Second, how genuinely important are the problems and processes connected with Asia in the solution of the most important issue of war and peace on a global scale? And, finally, how prepared are the Asian countries themselves for their place in world affairs when their century finally arrives? We cannot say how much the current European crisis is capable of slowing down the onset of the “Asian century” in international politics. But it would also be frivolous to rule out that, after all, much of the phenomenon of Asia’s central role was due to the opportunities that its countries have taken from economic globalisation.
The way the Asian countries, including China, react to what is happening in Europe shows that the multipolar world is not yet unified. The degree of understanding of the situation and the real interest of Asian countries in the peaceful resolution of European diplomatic differences is clearly lower than what we would expect if a similar situation arose there.
However, such a reaction is, we have to admit, natural amid conditions when the strongest military potential is concentrated in the hands of the “old” world powers, and the Asians are so far only able to make a promise to participate in a game that has occupied states for thousands of years, where stakes were made between life and death. Even if the countries of Asia wanted to solve problems in relations between Russia and the West at the level of the entire international community, their military capabilities are not convincing. Like it or not, even if the current conflict is the last “European” war alarm, we do not know when its significance for the fate of mankind will become less than a similar phenomenon in the Asian part of the world.
Equally, we do not know how a similar conflict would be resolved in Asia. China’s caution about the Taiwan issue seems to last indefinitely. The rest of the Asian countries, in principle, cannot yet create a threat that would deserve the attention of the other countries of the world, comparable to that is now being paid to European affairs. The only factor that makes possible conflicts in Asia relatively predictable is the direct or indirect involvement of the United States. We still do not know the countries of Asia as real powers whose behaviour deserves serious attention. They do not yet know themselves in this capacity.
