George Friedman
The evolution of geopolitics
is cyclical. Powers rise, fall and shift. Changes occur in every generation in
an unending ballet. However, the period between 1989 and 1991 was unique in
that a long cycle of human history spanning hundreds of years ended, and with
it a shorter cycle also came to a close. The world is still reverberating from
the events of that period.
On Dec. 25, 1991, an epoch
ended. On that day the Soviet Union collapsed, and for the first time in almost
500 years no European power was a global power, meaning no European state
integrated economic, military and political power on a global scale. What began
in 1492 with Europe smashing its way into the world and creating a global
imperial system had ended. For five centuries, one European power or another
had dominated the world, whether Portugal, Spain, France, England or the Soviet
Union. Even the lesser European powers at the time had some degree of global
influence.
After 1991 the only global
power left was the United States, which produced about 25 percent of the
world's gross domestic product (GDP) each year and dominated the oceans. Never
before had the United States been the dominant global power. Prior to World War
II, American power had been growing from its place at the margins of the
international system, but it was emerging on a multipolar stage. After World
War II, it found itself in a bipolar world, facing off with the Soviet Union in
a struggle in which American victory was hardly a foregone conclusion.
The United States has been the
unchallenged global power for 20 years, but its ascendancy has left it
off-balance for most of this time, and imbalance has been the fundamental
characteristic of the global system in the past generation. Unprepared
institutionally or psychologically for its position, the United States has
swung from an excessive optimism in the 1990s that held that significant
conflict was at an end to the wars against militant Islam after 9/11, wars that
the United States could not avoid but also could not integrate into a
multilayered global strategy. When the only global power becomes obsessed with
a single region, the entire world is unbalanced. Imbalance remains the defining
characteristic of the global system today.
While the collapse of the
Soviet Union ended the European epoch, it also was the end of the era that
began in 1945, and it was accompanied by a cluster of events that tend to
accompany generational shifts. The 1989-1991 period marked the end of the
Japanese economic miracle, the first time the world had marveled at an Asian
power's sustained growth rate as the same power's financial system crumbled.
The end of the Japanese miracle and the economic problem of integrating East
and West Germany both changed the way the global economy worked. The 1991
Maastricht Treaty set the stage for Europe's attempt at integration and was the
framework for Europe in the post-Cold War world. Tiananmen Square set the
course for China in the next 20 years and was the Chinese answer to a
collapsing Soviet empire. It created a structure that allowed for economic
development but assured the dominance of the Communist Party. Saddam Hussein's
invasion of Kuwait was designed to change the balance of power in the Persian
Gulf after the Iraq-Iran war and tested the United States' willingness to go to
war after the Cold War.
In 1989-1991 the world changed
the way it worked, whether measured in centuries or generations. It was an
extraordinary period whose significance is only now emerging. It locked into
place a long-term changing of the guard, where North America replaced Europe as
the center of the international system. But generations come and go, and we are
now in the middle of the first generational shift since the collapse of the
European powers, a shift that began in 2008 but is only now working itself out
in detail.
What happened in 2008 was one
of the financial panics that the global capitalist system periodically suffers.
As is frequently the case, these panics first generate political crises within
nations, followed by changes in the relations among nations. Of these changes,
three in particular are of importance, two of which are directly linked to the
2008 crisis. The first is the European financial crisis and its transformation
into a political crisis. The second is the Chinese export crisis and its
consequences. The third, indirectly linked to 2008, is the shift in the balance
of power in the Middle East in favor of Iran.
The European Crisis
The European crisis represents
the single most significant event that followed from the financial collapse of
2008. The vision of the European Union was that an institution that would bind
France and Germany together would make the wars that had raged in Europe since
1871 impossible. The vision also assumed that economic integration would both
join France and Germany together and create the foundations of a prosperous
Europe. Within the context of Maastricht as it evolved, the European vision
assumed that the European Union would become a way to democratize and integrate
the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe into a single framework.
However, embedded in the idea
of the European Union was the idea that Europe could at some point transcend
nationalism and emerge as a United States of Europe, a single political
federation with a constitution and a unified foreign and domestic policy. It
would move from a free trade zone to a unified economic system to a single
currency and then to further political integration built around the European
Parliament, allowing Europe to emerge as a single country.
Long before this happened, of
course, people began to speak of Europe as if it were a single entity.
Regardless of the modesty of formal proposals, there was a powerful vision of
an integrated European polity. There were two foundations for it. One was the
apparent economic and social benefits of a united Europe. The other was that
this was the only way that Europe could make its influence felt in the
international system. Individually, the European states were not global
players, but collectively they had the ability to become just that. In the
post-Cold War world, where the United States was the sole and unfettered global
power, this was an attractive opportunity.
The European vision was
smashed in the aftermath of 2008, when the fundamental instability of the
European experiment revealed itself. That vision was built around Germany, the
world's second-largest exporter, but Europe's periphery remained too weak to
weather the crisis. It was not so much this particular crisis; Europe was not
built to withstand any financial crisis. Sooner or later one would come and the
unity of Europe would be severely strained as each nation, driven by different
economic and social realities, maneuvered in its own interest rather than in
the interest of Europe.
There is no question that the
Europe of 2012 operates in a very different way than it did in 2007. There is
an expectation in some parts that Europe will, in due course, return to its old
post-Cold War state, but that is unlikely. The underlying contradictions of the
European enterprise are now revealed, and while some European entity will
likely survive, it probably will not resemble the Europe envisioned by
Maastricht, let alone the grander visions of a United States of Europe. Thus,
the only potential counterweight to the United States will not emerge in this
generation.
China and the Asian Model
China was similarly struck by
the 2008 crisis. Apart from the inevitably cyclical nature of all economies,
the Asian model, as seen in Japan and then in 1997 in East and Southeast Asia,
provides for prolonged growth followed by profound financial dislocation.
Indeed, growth rates do not indicate economic health. Just as it was for
Europe, the 2008 financial crisis was the trigger for China.
China's core problem is that
more than a billion people live in households earning less than $6 a day, and
the majority of those earn less than $3 a day. Social tensions aside, the
economic consequence is that China's large industrial plant outstrips Chinese
consumer demand. As a result, China must export. However, the recessions after
2008 cut heavily into China's exports, severely affecting GDP growth and
threatening the stability of the political system. China confronted the problem
with a massive surge in bank lending, driving new investment and supporting GDP
growth but also fueling rampant inflation. Inflation created upward pressure on
labor costs until China began to lose its main competitive advantage over other
countries.
For a generation, Chinese
growth has been the engine of the global economic system, just as Japan was in
the previous generation. China is not collapsing any more than Japan did.
However, it is changing its behavior, and with it the behavior of the
international system.
Looking Ahead
If we look at the
international system as having three major economic engines, two of them --
Europe and China -- are changing their behavior to be less assertive and less
influential in the international system. The events of 2008 did not create
these changes; they merely triggered processes that revealed the underlying
weaknesses of these two entities.
Somewhat outside the main
processes of the international system, the Middle East is undergoing a
fundamental shift in its balance of power. The driver in this is not the crisis
of 2008 but the consequences of the U.S. was in the region and their
termination. With the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, Iran has emerged as the major
conventional power in the Persian Gulf and the major influence over Iraq. In
addition, with the continued survival of the al Assad regime in Syria through
the support of Iran, there is the potential for Iranian influence to stretch
from western Afghanistan to the Mediterranean Sea. Even if the al Assad regime
fell, Iran would still be well-positioned to assert its claims for primacy in
the Persian Gulf.
Just as the processes
unleashed in 1989-1991 defined the next 20 years, so, too, will the processes
that are being generated now dominate the next generation. Still powerful but
acutely off-balance in its domestic and foreign policies, the United States is
confronting a changing world without yet having a clear understanding of how to
deal with this world or, for that matter, how the shifts in the global system
will affect it. For the United States strategically, the fragmentation of
Europe, the transformation of global production in the wake of the Chinese
economy's climax, and the dramatically increased power of Iran appear as
abstract events not directly affecting the United States.
Each of these events will
create dangers and opportunities for the United States that it is unprepared to
manage. The fragmentation of Europe raises the question of the future of
Germany and its relationship with Russia. The movement of production to
low-wage countries will create booms in countries hitherto regarded as beyond
help (as China was in 1980) and potential zones of instability created by rapid
and uneven growth. And, of course, the idea that the Iranian issue can be
managed through sanctions is a form of denial rather than a strategy.
Three major areas of the world
are in flux: Europe, China and the Persian Gulf. Every country in the world
will have to devise a strategy to deal with the new reality, just as 1989-1991
required new strategies. The most important country, the United States, had no
strategy after 1991 and has no strategy today. This is the single most
important reality of the world. Like the Spaniards, who, in the generation
after Columbus' voyage, lacked a clear sense of the reality they had created,
Americans have no clear sense of the world they find themselves in. This fact
continues to define how the world works.
Therefore, we next turn to
American strategy in the next 20 years and consider how it will reshape itself.
George Friedman, Stratfor, February
21, 2012
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