The flurry of geopolitical activities, and the turbo-charged speed at which the reconfiguration of the international world order is taking place, signals the demise of Europe as a sphere of significant influence in world politics. In the same vein, the rapid changes in international relations are characterized by the reawakening of the Global South as a pole of power of great significance of the 21st century.
At the heart of what fuels the renaissance of the Global South is BRICS, a relatively subdued giant that seems to strategically elect to lie low instead of adopting an in-your-face approach that could reignite and unite the gradually disintegrating US-led G7 into a daringly adversarial posture at this point in time.
Since the end of World War II in 1945, the US-led Western hegemony has held incredible sway in global relations, buoyed by powerhouse institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and the propensity of the West to formulate disguised consensus at the international fora including the UN.
But as things stand, evidence abound to the effect that as the Western stranglehold on the world affairs gradually fades, so is the end glaringly nigh.
Two simultaneously unfolding events that are meandering in different directions can serve as case studies for the reconfiguration of the international world order at a speed unimaginable say, a mere decade ago.
First of the two events, in my view, is the war in Ukraine, sparked by what the Russian government spokesperson Dmitry Peskov describes as NATO’s arrogant and dangerous expansion eastward to Russia’s door-step. Moscow regards NATO’s expansion to the east – and the bloc’s indifference to engage in dialogue with Russia aimed at addressing what the Kremlin sees as threats to Russia’s national security and in fact the country’s existential threat.
The second is the much more divisive Israel’s genocide in Gaza or, as the Israelis call it, the war on Hamas, or euphemistically put: the Middle East conflict.
Western governments remain too embarrassed to call it out for what it is – a genocide – for fear of falling out of favour, or line, with Washington – the biggest backer of Israel’s annihilation of the Palestinian nation.
Not only is the US supplying sophisticated weaponry to Israel that is evidently decimating the Palestinian people across every inch of their rightful territories, Washington remains the biggest and boldest provider of diplomatic cover to the Jewish state that is increasingly becoming a pariah state nonetheless.
The Western electorate differs sharply with their self-serving governments on the Gaza genocide debacle. However, thanks to modern technological development, the agenda-setting role of the traditional media has been thankfully replaced by social media and the growing spectre of citizen journalism. The genocide can be captured live on billions of mobile phone handsets across the globe – uninterrupted. The narrative coining and agenda-setting impact of the mainstream international news networks has been replaced by unsanitized, raw reporting of ordinary citizens around the globe.
This scenario is the singular major cause of the schism between self-serving governments and unscrupulous politicians on the one hand and the vigilant electorate that continues to be exasperated by the naked double-standards of public office bearers of the 21st century.
In the heat, and midst, of the ringing international changes is the relegation of Europe to the periphery of global influence. Slowly but certainly discarded by its major source of influence and domination that is the US, Europe finds itself at sudden crossroads. An unsavoury cul-de-sac that marks the beginning of the end. That’s the way the cookie is crumbling. Fact.
The EU has to choose between moral uprightness in the form of truth and justice on the one hand and the collective profit-driven, immoral national interest of the bloc on the other. Having relied for too long on the US economically, militarily and otherwise, the EU discovers to its horror as the bloc wakes from long slumber that the US is capable of cutting the tail, so to speak.
The many differences of opinion between Washington and Brussels can be discerned in the desperate appeal by the EU to the Trump administration not to shut the door on Europe as the end of the Ukraine war is thrashed out by Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin of Russia.
The idea of deploying a European military force to Ukraine post-war so as to “guarantee” that Russia will never attack Ukraine again hinges on whether Washington can provide the backstop, as desperately begged by the UK, France and Germany.
This is a commitment Washington refuses to give. And surveys show that EU voters regard deployment of troops without Washington’s backstop as putting their military in harm’s way.
The EU also has a huge difference of opinion within the bloc itself – mainly between the more powerful Western European nations and their formerly Soviet territories of the Eastern Europe, led by Hungary and Slovakia.
Western European nations see themselves as the mainstay of the EU, without the throng of late-comers in the post-Soviet era. Tensions between these two factions have been simmering for a long while, but insistence of EU members such as Hungary and Slovakia to insist on normalization of relations with Russia is a microcosm of deep-seated differences in the world outlook.
But it is the rapidly emerging gap between Washington and Brussels that is more worrisome. Nothing characterizes this schism better that the hard-hitting tariffs that the Trump administration has unleashed without flinching on Europe – the entire Europe – the traditional ally.
The Trump tariffs, knowing no bounds and having no holy cows, have sent Europe into a tailspin. For once, the US is treating Europe as it treats the rest of us – with great unpredictability laced with subtle disdain.
To a large extent, Washington’s imposition of tariffs on the EU and the expressed intent to resolve the Ukraine war with or without Europe has caused the continent to rethink its global relations. Now, the EU’s strategy is to court key Global South countries such as South Africa and China, and carefully yet markedly speak out openly against some US foreign policy standpoints, such as on Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements.
This week’s resolution at the UN Security Council (UNSC) that sought to reign in Israel and was vetoed by the US further shone the light on the urgent need to reform the archaic UN system. Algeria’s permanent representative to the UN, Amar Bendjama, summed it well when he decried, effectively, the powerlessness of the UNSC, whose resolutions are binding in international law. He was referring to the body’s inability to halt the ongoing genocide in Gaza due to the problematic veto power that the US has used at least six times to block the sanctioning of Israel in recent times.
The shifting of the building blocks of the UN system, the unravelling Western hegemony, the unstoppable rise of the Global South are some of the examples of the scientific evidence of the emergence of a new international order that will certainly trigger reforms in our global governance system sooner than skeptics believe.
