Which new world order: unipolar? bipolar? multipolar? non-polar?

Towards the end of the George W. Bush Administration, a series of essays by Richard Haass, former Head of Policy Planning of the State Department of the Bush Administration, now Head of the Council on Foreign Relations, marked a breathtaking change in the  analysis of America’s national interest in one or the other  conceivable structures of world order. Beginning with America’s self-assessment as the anchor of a unipolar world (Richard Haass, “The Case for Integration,” National Interest online, January 9, 2005), he then  shifted the focus to a multi-polar model to be used actively by Washington in a “Palmerstonian moment” (Richard Haass, “The Palmerstonian Moment,” National Interest online, February 1, 2008), and finally arrived at the preference for a non-polar world that would ultimately be in America’s own best interest (Richard Haass,  “What follows American Dominion?” Financial Times, April 16, 2008).

I. Thinking and Rethinking on Unipolarity, Bipolarity, Multipolarity,

Today, world opinion is essentially unanimous about the end of unipolar or bipolar ideology of the Neo-conservative spectrum. Multi-polarity appears to many as the obvious alternative to both.  But before mistaking the multi-polar alternative for a scientific certainty, it is worthwhile to retrace the thinking and rethinking of an acknowledged pragmatic voice of the Bush Administration about the sequence of changing world-views between 2005 and 2008.

Not much needs to be said about the passage from unipolar to multi-polar analysis. Unipolarity was empirically refuted by the failure of the US-led “coalition of the willing” in the Iraq war. The interesting aspect is the post-Iraq war, search for realist alternative by the Head of Policy Planning of the State Department of the Bush Administration. Almost inevitably, one might say, the search resulted in finding the classical balance of power prescription of the 18^th and 19^th centuries applied to the perceived situation of the 21^st century. Of course, it seemed attractive for an US Statesman to be the “balancer” of such as system like Metternich, Palmerston or Bismark in their times.  The history of those older balance of power plays shows however, that multi-polarity is a structure that can easily turn against the “balancer” if other players feel threatened by his influence and coalesce against him.

This risk became immediately apparent in 2008 when neo-conservatives called for a “league of democracies” that would have challenged Chinese and Russian “autocracies” to enter a new bipolar competition of systems. Russian and Chinese political scientists quickly scrambled to counter the universalist dissemination of Western values by asserting Confucian values  (Xiang Lanxin, “What Prospects for Normative Foreign Policy in the New Multipolar World?” Paper presented at the 29th session of the CEPS/IISS/DCAF/GCSP European Security Forum, Brussels, May 26, 2008) values of the Russian Orthodox Church (Andrey Makarychev, “Rebranding Russia, Norms, Politics and Power,” CEPS Working Document No. 283, February 2008). Such a league would also have to get by without India, the world’s largest democracy. Despite bilateral territorial conflicts, an influential segment of the Indian political establishment feels greater cultural proximity to China than to the West, or at least to its neo-conservative form based on a violent, utopian idealism (Radha Kumar, “What Prospects for Normative Foreign Policy?” Paper presented at the 29 th session of the CEPS/IISS/DCAF/GCSP European Security Forum, Brussels, May 26,2008).

Both realists and idealists in the traditional sense had difficulties suppressing their dismay at how the Neo-conservative rhetoric of a bipolar conflict between democracy and autocracy misled Georgia into military action in South Ossetia in August 2008, inviting massive Russian intervention and certain Georgian defeat. Since the US was unable to come to the rescue of Georgia, the final effect of the bellicose rhetoric was to evidence the powerlessness of its authors. Richard Haass’s words remained unheard. Barbara Tuchman’s “March of Folly” came to mind.

The fundamental problem of multi-polarity is that it only gains attraction as the negation of unipolarity, as resistance to an existing empire or hegemonic state. This was the case with the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the universal claim of the Holy Roman Empire and established the international system of sovereign nation-states that henceforward bore its name. It was once again the case with De Gaulle’s sensational recognition of China in 1964, which he intended not only as a negation of the bipolar system but also of Anglo-Saxon hegemony West of the Iron Curtain.

The Westphalian system is the only historical example of a multi-polar world order  successfully established and maintained over a prolonged period of time. But this says nothing about its suitability as a positive strategy for preserving the peace between states. While the European states in the system endeavored to shape domestic peace, domestic economic developments and social coexistence in a more or less beneficial way, they regarded the international system as area in which they were free to  choose between diplomacy and war. They used this freedom with gusto, and mostly with the aim to expand their own power, state territory and access to economic resources at the expense of other states in the system or colonies not possessing statehood. The predominant state practice was in keeping with Hobbesian political theory,   in which Hobbes’ Leviathan ensures order within the states but in which the law of the jungle governs relations between states.  

Respected realists such as Henry Kissinger and Richard Haass have praised the European pentarchy (Great Britain, Russia, France, Prussia and Austria) as an exemplary world order, but in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there were no fewer than 52 wars among the five members, not to mention wars with other states or in territories outside Europe not recognized as states. It appears doubtful that the willingness to switch alliances at any time, which Lord Palmerston saw as in Great Britain’s national interest, really contributed to preserving peace and the balance of power (see Graph 1)

In order to avoid wars at least part of the time, every system based on a balance of power requires statesmen of extraordinary analytic faculty, such as Palmerston, Bismarck and Kissinger. As soon as these statesmen “leave the ship” – in the figure of Bismarck in  Punch’s 1890 cartoon -, the system threatens to collapse. This is why the rest of the world could not find much comfort in Richard Haass’ plea for a “Palmerstonian moment” on the part of the US, not even as an alternative for the uni-polarity associated with the political adventure  of the Iraq war.

This is especially true of the EU, which has no foreign policymaking authority of its own, despite the name given its “Common Foreign and Security Policy”. Even after the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon, it can make no decisions concerning war or peace without the approval of its member states. Germany will always remain the biggest hurdle, since any German consent for military missions needs prior democratic legitimization by the Bundestag.  Hence the EU  cannot keep up with China, India, Russia and other power centers organized as nation-states. As a consequence, Richard Haass believed that NATO was losing its value for the US and that changing alliances like in Palmerton’s day were preferable. The EU is not even included on most lists of a multi-polar global pentarchy in the twenty-first century, least of all Kissinger’s. The most dramatic implication of Richard Haass’  “Palmerstonian Moment” was that the pentarchy had moved from Europe to the Pacific region, and that the majority of the five power centers  was henceforth constituted by three Asian states—China, India and Japan (Graph 2).

II. Beyond polarity

This does not mean, however, that a multipolar world order along the lines of a globalized Westphalian system had won the day. For the very nations considered by proponents of realism as the three new Asian power centers are also the driving force behind a renaissance of multilateralism and are pursuing a forward-looking strategy of functional integration in  Asia. The more unilaterally the Bush Administration has acted, the more China has championed multilateralism  (see Henrik Schmiegelow, “Asia’s International Order,” Internationale Politik (IP) Global Edition, Fall 2007, p. 17-22). The North Korean nuclear crisis marked the first time China voted in favor of sanctions in the UN Security Council—targeting a neighbor that has long been considered its charge. In the six-way negotiations on denuclearizing the North Korean end of  the “axis of evil”, Washington began relying on China to work out a solution. It is therefore no surprise that Richard Haass highlighted the North Korean settlement when he moved on to argue in favor of a non-polar world  in the last article of the series cited above. 

Like other Asian states, especially members of ASEAN,  Japan and China have closely observed Europe’s experience in functional integration. They have drawn their own conclusions from evidence of both the strengths and the weaknesses of the European model.  And they started a process with a sequence suitable to Asia (see our post “Is Asia’s Integration less Functional than Europe’s?”). As in Europe, the functional integration of Asia produces such large advantages for one-time warring parties that there is no reasonable cost-benefit relationship to justify wars. It is the best example of today’s opportunity for  a world order surmounting the risks of the Westphalian system.

Moreover, it is an example that cannot be criticized as an outgrowth of Euro-centrism or an aggressive expansion of western values. Fortunately, cost-benefit analysis can be performed using trans-cultural math. The integration of the Chinese national economy into the world economy, especially the supply chains between Chinese, American and Japanese companies, suggests that the Chinese see no contradiction of such a process to Confucian norms. Russia, which thus far has profited mainly from rich natural resource deposits and is much less integrated into the world economy than China, is already feeling challenged to learn lessons from this example. After 2006, Russia’s renewed power led to Putin’s deliberately sharp-edged foreign policy, but a “Medvedev moment” was supposed to convey a somewhat softer image of this reemerging power. The new president was quoted as saying that, in the end, Russia will not earn the world’s respect “through strength but through responsible action” (Nikolai Petro, “Seizing the Medvedev Moment,” International Herald Tribune, March 14, 2008). Unfortunately, the “moment” seemed abruptly suspended in the “bipolar” derailment of Georgia’s South Ossetian adventure. But eventually, cultural relativism will not stand in opposition to a functional understanding of national  interests in Russia either, however nationalist the tradition of the Russian-Orthodox Church be.  Much depends on the West’s recovery of its own capacity of functional calculation of interests in relation to Russia.

As we shall discuss in our next post, the global economic meltdown of 2008/2009, the worst since the Great Depression contributed to a new awareness of the world having no other choice than working as a problem solving community.

How Should the Atlantic Community View the Asian Community?

Before the recent Asia issue of Internationale Politik, the emerging Asian community did not receive much attention in the Atlantic Community. Inversely, European integration as inspired by American functionalism has attracted intense Asian interest for decades. The imbalance of attention is not in the Atlantic community’s own best interest. Here are six proposals to reduce the Atlantic deficit.

The first concerns political theory. The postwar international order was inspired by American idealism: Atlantic Community, United Nations, Bretton Woods system, Europe’s integration. Asia’s integration should therefore appear familiar and welcome, if not to political realists, at least to idealists. Instead, today’s contending Hobbesians and Lockeans agree on one thing: discounting Asian integration. Realists consider functional integration unrealistic anywhere, be it in Europe or Asia. European idealists perceive Asia as divided by power politics, cultural diversity or nationalism, and therefore incapable of applying the European pattern. Both schools should prepare themselves for refutation by Asian evidence.

Second, we need to revisit functionalist integration theory. If its (American) founding fathers could see the Asian evidence today, they would classify it as an advanced stage in the promotion of peace and prosperity between former enemy nation states through mutually advantageous exchange of goods, capital, services, infrastructures and information. Like Europe’s nation states, most ASEAN and ASEAN+3 states are former enemy states. The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, on the brink of war over Borneo, thought better of it and, prodded by Singapore and Thailand, instead became cofounders of ASEAN in 1967. Today, China and Vietnam are linking their portions of the “Asian highway” at Lao Cai, theater of their bloody war for influence in South East Asia in 1979. However, the Asian case of functional integration exhibits a sequence of trade integration and institution-building strikingly different from the European case. Asia’s integration began with a classic functionalist pattern: enterprise-driven flows of foreign direct investment and trade despite tariff barriers. By 1997 already, intraregional trade accounted for 51 percent, close to Europe’s 62 percent. Asia’s economic institution building began only in 1997 in reaction to the Asian financial crisis. By contrast, Jean Monnet’s Europe needed first neo-functionalist strategy, i.e. the building of supranational institutions, before two-thirds of Europe’s trade finally flowed into the bed prepared by the customs union, the single market, and the currency union. This difference is certainly not a sign of dysfunctional weakness in Asia’s pattern of integration.

Third, we must realize what the Asian community may mean for the world economy and the international system. With Japan, it includes the second largest mature economy after the US, with China and India, the biggest emerging economies. American Palmerstonians have globalized the model of Europe’s 19th century balance-of-power pentarchy: US, Russia, China, India and Japan. Europe has disappeared in the process. Asia emerged with the majority of the players. American idealists may focus on the peaceful, autonomous spread of democracy in Asia and the free trade opportunities in ASEAN’s project to create an Asian trade zone of 3 bn people with an annual production of $ 9.000 bn. In the US subprime crisis, investors considered Asia’s emerging markets for the first time as “safe haven”, one sign this crisis may be a turning point for the world. Eminent economists discuss an Asian monetary regime. America continues to wield the greatest power and wealth for the foreseeable future, but it can no longer manage the world order alone, not even with Europe’s undivided support.

Fourth, ideological rearmament such as Robert Kagan’s vision of a struggle of Western liberalism against Chinese and Russian autocracies or Edouard Balladur‘s plea for a “union occidentale” circling the wagons against Asia’s rise is certain to feed the media’s hunger for big words. The convergence of neo-conservative and Gaullist paranoia is striking. But like all paranoia, it is full of risks and empty of solutions. The Atlantic Community should heed the lessons of the Iraq war and return to a more rational path.

Fifth, the Atlantic and Asian communities’ interests overlap functionally. For any of the most pressing multilateral issues, from climate change to non-proliferation, Asia’s contribution is indispensable. Foreign Minister Steinmeier’s call for partnership should be heard.

Sixth, the Asian case contains useful lessons. Asia’s functional integration avoids the contention between idealism and realism. It is the result of political and entrepreneurial decisions with strategic pragmatism. Europeans dismissing pragmatism as opportunism err. According to Kant, the necessity to decide exceeds the possibility to know. This makes strategic pragmatism ethically superior to dogmatism. As a philosophy, pragmatism was developed in America by Charles Peirce, William James and John Dewey. Today’s Asia stands out by strategic practice of that philosophy: Setting ambitious goals, but without ideological bombast, working with long-term horizons, but always ready for trial and error. Inspired by America’s best philosophy, Europe should learn from Asia.

Why Europeans discount Asia’s integration, wrongly

On the rare occasions that Europeans think about Asia’s integration, they seem to suffer from amnesia. Forgetting the impediments, setbacks, and crises that Europe had to overcome in the course of its own integration, they do not see much chance of success for functional integration and community-building in Asia. Rivalries between the great powers are said to be too great, nationalism too sensitive, cultural differences too large, ideological rifts too deep, markets too controlled, monetary cooperation too implausible, and competition for energy sources and raw materials too intense.

What many Europeans forget is that in 1945 few would have held out much hope for something like the Coal and Steel Community, which was established just six years later. And after the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, few figured that the French would consent to the United Kingdom entering the European Community (EC) in 1973. After all, had de Gaulle not resolved to bind Germany to France in the European Economic Community in order to counterbalance the Anglo-Saxon powers?

Few recall today that the project of forming a currency union seemed dead after the Werner Plan foundered on French mercantilism in the 1970s.1 Then it would have been unimaginable that a socialist president of France, François Mitterand, —fearing German preponderance in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall—would become the driving force behind a European currency union. His motive, to wrest the Bundesbank’s monetary policy hegemony from united Germany, has also been forgotten, in Germany the more so since German industry benefited hugely from the introduction of the Euro.

Europe’s loss of memory concerning its own experience of successful integration may also be understandable in view of present anxieties. Once again, with Nicolas Sarkozy, France has a rather mercantilist president, and he expresses dissatisfaction with a European Central Bank which, though led by a Frenchman, “outbundesbanks the Bundesbank” in the view of most anglo-saxon economists. Belgium, a founding member of the European Community as well as host to the “capital” of the European Union, threatens to disintegrate on the basis of language. “New Europe” seems driven by very old instincts of nationalism. “Idealism is mugged by reality”, a British realist writes triumphantly, though just a little worried. No wonder the rest of the world is seen through this prism, too.

But as confirmed by eminent Asian authors in the November 2007 issue of Internationale Politik, the trend is going in the opposite direction in Asia, where functional integration and community-building are understood as a strategy for the future. What had to be initiated in Europe with the political theory of idealism is in Asia the result of political and economic decisions inspired by strategic pragmatism. European idealist with a dogmatic frame of mind wrongly mistake strategic pragmatism as opportunism. As explained in more detail in our first post and in our web site www.schmiegelowpartners.com, pragmatism was developed as a philosophy by Charles Peirce, William James and John Dewey in the late 19th and early 20th century. But in more recent decades, the most impressive patterns of strategic pragmatism can be found in Asia. Since according to Kant, the necessity to decide excedes the capacity to know, strategic pragmatism is ethically superior to dogmatism.

Seeking the “win-win situations” described in Internationale Politik by both ASEAN’s former Secretary General Ong Keng Yong and China’s former Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, such strategic pragmatism has created impressive results over time.
The economic, sociocultural, and security policy ties of East and Southeast Asia described by Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda and the President of the Japan Foundation, Kazuo Ogura, are strikingly reminiscent of the functionalist and neofunctionalist strategies of the European Community’s founding fathers, albeit in a different sequence. Whoever thinks Asian monetary cooperation is inconceivable should carefully read Kuroda’s essay. Building on ASEAN, ASEAN+3, and the East Asian Summits (EAS), the method of community-building established by the ASEAN states links the political, economic, and ecological objectives explained by Ong Keng Yong. It does so with an impressively realistic sense of the balance of power among Asia’s great powers. The fact that the heads of government of India, Australia, and New Zealand have been invited to the EAS since 2005 demonstrates a pragmatic usage of the geographical term “East Asia”. The network of asymmetrically overlapping regional organizations is developing as dynamically in Asia as in earlier phases of European integration.

Kazuo Ogura’s analysis of the historical commonalities of Asian cultures, their displacement by Western modernization in the form of colonialism, and their resurgence now casts doubt on the assertion by Western observers that the very lack of a shared culture prevents Asia from becoming a community. Yusuf Wanandi’s idea of an East Asian Community sharing the responsibilities of global governance is a strong indication that the concept of a forward-looking policy that Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, expounds once more in the same Asia issue of Internationale Politik as a way to manage the global challenges of the future will find receptive partners in Asia.

Read more at our web site or download the article “The Road to an Asian Community” by Michele Schmiegelow and Henrik Schmiegelow offered on our site or at www.internationalepolitik.de.

Asia is shaping the International Order

If the western community of values is complaining today about the decline of the international order, it has two cognitive problems. One is with itself and one is with that part of the globe it senses, with mixed feelings, will shape the economics of the 21st century—Asia. The West’s problem is a crisis of classical American idealism. It had inspired the international order after World War II: the United Nations, the financial system of Bretton Woods, the functional integration of Europe, and the determination to overcome colonialism as demonstrated in the U.S. rejection of Great Britain’s and France’s intervention during the Suez crisis.
Of course, political realism never yielded entirely as a countervailing doctrine among the elites of America and Europe. Under Nixon it even determined American foreign policy for the first time. But when Henry Kissinger played the “China card” in the then-bipolar play of forces, he remained committed to the maintenance of international order, especially arms control policy with the Soviet Union. Despite various differences, the same was true for the Reagan and George Bush administrations.
The rupture came in the George W. Bush administration, with its mix between balance-of-power policies and the belligerent idealism of the neoconservatives. In 2003 this mix discharged in the Iraq war. Robert Kagan interpreted idealistic America as a “dangerous nation.” To Europeans, who until then had been putting Kant’s paradigm of democratic peace into practice in Europe, realism suddenly suggests itself as an antidote to dangerous idealism. The western community of values is no longer always of one mind even in the international order it created and for that reason speaks of its decline.
All the while, Asia is showing the world that the international order’s decline or continued development is not a matter for the West alone to decide. At the multilateral level the West already knows that it depends on and is even pressed by Asian involvement, particularly by China, India, and Japan . The West’s greatest cognitive challenge, however, is the process of functional integration and regional community building in Asia, which is becoming an ever more attractive pattern of international order for half of the world’s population and the most dynamic part of the global economy. To the extent that western elites are aware of this process at all, most of them do not believe anything can come of it. Political realists consider functional integration unrealistic in both Europe and Asia. European idealists perceive Asia as molded by balance-of-power politics, cultural diversity, or nationalism, and therefore do not think the region capable of applying the European pattern. Both realists and idealists of the West have to prepare themselves for an uncomfortable refutation of their somewhat condescending assumptions by Asia’s strategic pragmatism and transcultural values.

Read more at our website or download the article “Asia’s International Order” here.

What is Strategic Pragmatism?

We coined this concept in 1989 when writing our book “Strategic Pragmatism: Japanese Lessons in Economic Theory”

In terms of philosophy of science we are indebted to Karl Popper’s critical rationalism, which approaches any problem solving with the insight of human cognition being fallible. From this insight follows the necessity of seeking solutions to problems with what we call “strategic pragmatism”. The pragmatism we advocate is a philosophy developed by Charles Pierce and John Dewey, which considers theory to be in the service of practice and not the other way around. This philosophy eschews dogmatism. It reflects the awareness that all human knowledge is always just temporary. It demands readiness to act across the cleavages of dogmatic dissension, but also to correct and adjust one’s own action as soon as dysfunctions are recognizable.

A distinctive mark of Strategic Pragmatism is its focus on echeloned time horizons for what can be achieved short term with immediate impact based on the newest and best available knowledge, what requires more structured development over the medium term with constantly adjusted knowledge, and what can only be set as a long-term target involving fundamental reform or innovation, but with still high degrees of scientific uncertainty. If a goal is not immediately attainable, this does not necessarily justify the conclusion that it is impossible to attain. Strategic Pragmatism distinguishes itself from static dogmatism by its intensive focus on each phase of the time horizon.

Visit our website if you want to read more about examples of Strategic Pragmatism in the following areas:

• Foreign policy
• Economic policy
• Business strategies
• Environmental strategies
• Location strategies
• Development policy
• Legal transformation policy

We are pleased to see that many others have come to use the term for the last ten years though rarely in the full sense of the philosophical concept as we defined it almost twenty years ago. Once more, Strategic Pragmatism as we define it requires of policy makers:

1. Awareness of the fallibility of one’s own judgment
2. Eschewing dogmatism of any kind
3. Readiness to correct and adjust one’s own action as soon as dysfunctions are recognizable
4. Focus on echeloned time horizons: short / medium / long
5. Using newest and best available knowledge in the short term
6. Seeking more structure development over the medium term with constantly adjusted knowledge
7. Long term targets even though it means working under scientific uncertainty

Some people confuse Strategic Pragmatism with unprincipled “muddling through”. That is wrong for two reasons:

1. Strategic Pragmatism is based on critical rationalism, that is the universally accepted standard of science.
2. Strategic Pragmatism as we define it is not unprincipled, but guided by transcultural ethical standards (if you want to learn more about this, read “Preventing the Clash of Civilizations: A Peace Strategy for the Twenty-First Century” or the chapter ‘Cultures, Power, Economics and Civilisation’ in “Democracy in Asia“).

This post is intended to explain our method in our work as Analysts & Policy Advisors. It may also clarify some of the misunderstandings of the term Strategic Pragmatism that may have arisen from its use by others in the past 10 years.

Don’t hesitate to comment or offer any constructive criticism.

Henrik and Michèle Schmiegelow (Schmiegelow Partner GbR)

About us

Having retired from public service, we (Henrik & Michèle Schmiegelow) have founded Schmiegelow Partners in response to demand for international policy analysis and advice from both public and private sectors. Our aim is to make 25 years of experience in public service and academic research available for international policy analysis and advice.

We have created this Blog to offer a forum of discussion about policy analysis in the following areas:

1. Foreign policy
2. Economic policy, focusing on German, Japanese and US patterns
3. Business strategies
4. Environmental policy
5. International Legal policy

More about us:

Henrik Schmiegelow: former German Ambassador to Japan, Head of Policy Planning and Foreign Policy Advisor of German Presidents von Weizsäcker, Herzog and Rau.

Michèle Schmiegelow: Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

In our previous work for the German Foreign Office, the President’s Office, the University of Louvain and the Global Economic Strategy Center asbl, Blanmont, respectively, we have each focused on issues of foreign policy, economic policy, business strategies, development and transformation policies, environmental protection, and location policies. As a method, we have developed “Strategic Pragmatism” guided by transcultural ethical standards.

To learn more about us and our ideas, we kindly invite you to visit our website where you will find an explanation of our method and a list of all our previous publications and previous advisory work.

Please feel free to comment or contact us directly (info@schmiegelowpartners.com) for any question you may have.

Enjoy your reading,

Henrik & Michèle Schmiegelow