Changing world order

The end of the American century

philmullan Changing world order, Economic policy, Geopolitics, Rivalries, The longest depression

Many believe that the war in Ukraine will reverse or bring an end to globalisation. However, this is not the first time that globalisation has been declared dead. Obituaries were published after the financial crash of 2008, after the Brexit vote in 2016 and after the election of President Trump in 2016. Yet more obituaries were penned following the pandemic lockdowns and the accompanying disruption of global supply lines.

When a phenomenon is repeatedly declared dead, only to repeatedly survive, it should raise questions about the usefulness of the concept used to describe it. That certainly goes for the concept of globalisation. World economic developments simply do not follow an either / or, more-or-less logic of globalisation or de-globalisation.

In order to understand today’s economic developments, it is better to start not with globalisation, but with the idea that the world economy is always in flux – that the balance between international and national is always changing. We can therefore ask: which features in the world economy are likely to be magnified or sped up by Russia’s invasion and why? The most important impact will be the acceleration of the existing fragmentation within the world economy, both at the regional level and at the national level.

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The end of the age of globalisation

philmullan Changing world order, Covid-19, Rivalries, State intervention

The economic consequences of Russia’s bloody and despicable assault on Ukraine are very much a secondary consideration to the immediate human and geopolitical implications. And since the various national responses to the conflict are still so fluid, it is far too early to be able to identify the war’s precise longer-term economic effects. Nevertheless, it is possible to suggest tentatively what could unfold on the international economic front. While today’s military confrontation appears to revive US leadership of the old West, because of its dominant military capabilities, in the longer term it is likely to speed up the shift to a post-American world. The invasion could hasten the demise of the US-led economic order.

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Why China haunts America

philmullan Changing world order, Covid-19, Rivalries

The events of 2021 confirmed that the US political class sees containing China as its No1 foreign-policy goal. Indeed, China is now one of the few issues that publicly unites Republicans and Democrats. Treating China as the biggest external threat to America can no longer be regarded as a Trumpian aberration. The Joe Biden administration has been similarly focused on China, building on a theme that goes back at least to Barack Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ 10 years earlier.

America’s growing antagonism towards China owes less to the rise of a new power and to a rapidly changing world than to the domestically driven insecurities and drift afflicting the US elite – a situation with parallels in Britain and the other ageing Western powers.

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Why is America playing war games with China?

philmullan Changing world order, Politics, Rivalries

Aukus, the new security partnership between the US, Britain and Australia, is being widely viewed as a ‘paradigm shift in strategy and policy’ for the Asia-Pacific region.

The pact’s significance goes well beyond sharing various advanced military technologies, including nuclear-powered attack submarines. It amplifies three existing trends in international relations that have been building up for over a decade.

First, it continues America’s targeting of China. Second, it intensifies the militarising of America’s strategy towards China. And third, it accelerates the unravelling of friendly relations between Western nations. These three trends together threaten geopolitical stability and peace.

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The G7 is not all it’s cracked up to be

philmullan Changing world order, Politics, Rivalries

UK chancellor Rishi Sunak has hailed the Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers’ cross-border tax proposals as ‘truly historic’ and ‘seismic’. These proposals, which would establish a minimum global corporate tax, are to be targeted at multinational companies.

You can understand why Sunak was making noise about this. For years the largest international corporations, including the iconic Big Tech firms, have been adept at minimising their global tax bills. Making them stump up more lucre allows the UK government to pose as a global leader, and to give substance to its ill-defined ‘Global Britain’ slogan. No doubt there will be more of this from Boris Johnson this weekend, given it is Britain’s turn to host the G7.

Leaving aside the hyperbole from British ministers, what might the G7 tax agreement tell us about the state of international relations? In particular, does it represent the historic revival of ‘multilateral co-operation’, as many commentators have claimed? No, not really, is the short answer. Read the full article here.