A Renewal of Multipolarity
A Concert of the World
As promised, following are my thoughts on a possible geopolitical realignment of the world. I write with great authority but, in truth, all of this is a hunch so please take it as such.
Again, I have used an inordinate number of words to explain my hunches and, again, I apologize for this but it is a big topic. Get an even bigger mug of coffee and I hope this gives you a historical basis for imagining your own view of the world soon to come.
As the song writer said, “It is easy if you try”.
Drivers of History
Geopolitics is essentially the story of trade and commerce between tribes and nations whose relative power waxes and wanes. As a result, history is the story of the fights and deals to secure mineral resources, narrow strips of land and water bodies of varying sizes. Trade creates empires and impediments to trade create colonies. No one wants to be a colony.
For hundreds, if not thousands, of years, traders and explorers have pulled their boats over the isthmus of Corinth, the jungles of Panama and the sands of the Sinai. Pirates have patrolled the Straits of Molucca and Gibraltar. The Dardanelles and Sea of Marmara have been hotly contested by the Byzantines, the Medo-Persians, the Ottoman Turks and the Russians.
The exploration of Canada and the United States was driven largely by rumours that this or that river “ends in a large salty lake”. It drove Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle to the Caribbean as surely as it brought Alexander Mackenzie to the Arctic and then the Pacific Oceans. The entirety of the fur trade – the raison d'être of Canadian existence through the first two centuries of European settlement – was based on the ability of traders both European and native to navigate the vast reaches of Rupert’s Land along east-west river systems.
The early infrastructure projects across the world largely involved the use of water to enrich the soil or speed transportation. One of the big American political fights of the 19th century involved the use of public funds to build an inland seaway. Abraham Lincoln is famous for his handling of the Civil War but perhaps as importantly, he was also a major proponent of the first transcontinental railway and inland river transportation through locks and canals. In fact, he remains the only US president to hold a patent – a device to lift flatboats off river sandbars.
Apart from transportation, human history is the story of the constant search for metals and the technologies that accompany their use. Metals such as copper, copper plus tin (bronze), iron and steel drove the development of war and the spin off domestic benefits. Metals such as silver and gold drove the development of monetary systems necessary to finance the development of war. The story of human flourishing is the story of human adaptation to geography and the use of mineral resources.
The interactions between people groups, the interplay of different worldviews, the existence of remarkable individual people who exercise outsized influence on their people group, the variability of climate and its impacts on epidemiology are secondary influences on the tide of history.
Policemen, Multipolarity and Spheres of Influence
Until recently, the world has never had a designated policeman. Regions of the world have had imperial forces but none were powerful enough to be a policeman. The Greeks did not exert suzerainty over the Medo-Persians. The Romans never conquered the Parthians. The Mongols never captured Europe. The Ottomans fought more wars internally than they did externally. The English, French, Germans, Italians and Scandinavians fought each other regularly but never with a long-term result that allowed one country to police the others. Napoleon died alone on a cold, windswept island in the south Atlantic. Hitler took his own life alone in a room below ground level.
Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna reconvened to reconfigure Europe in the wake of Napoleon’s defeat. The Great Powers of Austro-Hungary, England, Germany, and Russia were permanent members of the council and France, of course, was shut out of the discussions. Except it wasn’t.
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord,1st Prince of Benevento, then Prince of Talleyrand, had been the Bishop of Autun before entering the diplomatic corps of France. He was a flexible “man for all seasons” and when Napoleon was arrested in 1814 and sent to Elba, Talleyrand effortlessly became an agent of King Louis XVIII. As a self appointed “guide” to the Council of Vienna, Talleyrand was able to blunt the worst penalties being prepared against France.
Where is today’s Talleyrand? Perhaps the unipolar world has destroyed the art of statesmanship. Perhaps more Talleyrands will arise in a differently configured world.
An interesting observation with relevance to Europe and the geopolitical importance of history is that in 1555, the Peace of Augsburg became the reset position of Europe. Following the turmoil of the 30 Year’s War, Westphalia changed a few country names but essentially reset everything to Augsburg. Do the national boundaries of today’s Europe look much different from those of 1555? Other than changes due to the unification of Germany and Italy, not really. It means nothing really, it’s just interesting.
Unipolarity, Brzezinski and the End of History
Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the armed nations of the world recognized spheres of influence with multiple poles of hierarchic power. Between the end of World War 2 and 1992, the Soviet Union and the United States continued the ideological wars of the first half of the century using multiple proxy wars to gain influence around the world.
In 1992, everything changed. With the collapse of Soviet communism, ideological victory was proclaimed in the west, history was declared dead, and the world was the playground of a single hegemon – the United States. One can debate the benevolence of the hegemon, but, benevolent or not, the hegemon became the international policeman. Francis Fukuyama argued the unipolar case of the American neoliberal/neoconservatives and Samuel Huntingdon argued the case of the multipolar conservatives. Thirty years later, Huntingdon seems to have won.
Great Britain did not begin to lose its imperial status as a result of the Crimean War as some argue. It did, however, pass its imperial crown to the United States following the Second World War. The British exchequer was essentially bankrupted by that war and was unable to maintain an empire upon which the sun never set. By owning the British debt, the Americans received the imperial baton. The American policy in the period of detente was established in the Brezinski Doctrine (aka Carter Doctrine).
It was Brzezinski’s view that the Soviet/Russian character was the determining element of their foreign policy. Unlike Fukuyama, Brzezinski did not think that the fall of the Soviet Union was the end of Russian influence. The character of the people would continue to make that country a force requiring control. The propagandizing of his view is so successful that, today, anyone disagreeing with it is immediately deemed to be a “Putin puppet”.
The logical outcome of the Brzezinski geostrategic doctrine is that containing Russia means controlling the countries along its border. This has created violence in the countries of Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Ukraine. These problems stem from trying to usher an increasing number of Russia-adjacent countries into NATO while denying NATO admission to Russia itself.
The stated goal of this doctrine as practiced by the Biden administration was to weaken Russia through proxy war and destroy its economy through sanctions. The removal of Putin, it was argued would allow the vastness of Russia to be halved and quartered into western controlled “countries” that would offer up their resources to the West. None of this occurred and instead of being weakened, Russia has become economically and socially stronger at the cost of over one million Ukrainian lives and likely the loss of twenty percent of the Ukraine landmass. Between February 2022 and November 5, 2024, the ascendancy of the neoconservatives started to reverse. The ascendancy has now become descendancy with breathtaking speed.
Mr. Biden has gone from the US presidency and with him, the Brzezinski Doctrine and the neoconservatives who left a trail of destruction in other people’s countries. What is going to happen next? At this point things become personal speculation and perhaps bordering on wishful thinking.
Ukraine is the Lynchpin
The neoconservative colour revolutions of the past thirty years have mostly failed to do more than kill innocent people in far-away countries. In 2014, the most recent, successful attempt at a colour revolution displaced the duly elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Mr. Yanukovych was deemed too Russia-leaning because he was from eastern Ukraine, and he favoured a financial arrangement with Russia that was better for Ukraine than a counteroffer from the European Union. We know that the EuroMaidan event which removed Mr. Yanukovych was orchestrated by the neoconservative dominated US State Department because State Department officials admitted to it.
In my view, the animating principles behind today’s Russia-Ukraine war are based in history and not megalomania. This view is shared by Professors Jeffery Sachs and John Mearsheimer, both of whom were directly involved in the development of Ukraine following 1992. Both have been ghosted by the legacy media. Both have, nevertheless, spoken eloquently about the unfolding tragedy of Ukraine.
The media tell us that Putin is a revanchist Stalinist intent on taking over Europe and the Russians are happy to throw bodies at conflicts to overpower hapless adversaries such as the innocent Ukrainians. Other than commentary based on interpretations of Mr. Putin’s personality, I have yet to find evidence for any of this. Here is some relevant history.
In 1787, Catherine the Great expanded her empire from Kiev to the Crimea by displacing the Tatar remnants of the Golden Horde and sailing down the Dnieper River. She claimed for Russia what is now the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Odessa and called it Novorossiya. She populated the rich, fertile and formerly barren “border lands” with Russian serfs who were given the land to incent their immigration. This part of Ukraine has always been ethnically Russian.
Ukrainian nationalism started in Galicia as a romantic outpouring of folk ballads and poetry in the mid 19th century, but a separate, independent Ukraine was not realized until 1994 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The Holodomor of 1932/33 was a forced starvation of Ukrainian kulaks and peasants who wouldn’t comply with Stalin’s policy of collectivization. The Holodomor Museum in Kiev’s Constitution Square puts the number of dead at seven million. While there was starvation in other parts of the Soviet Union during that time, none of the other regions were starved with intent.
During the worst of the Holodomor of Ukraine, western newsmen refused to report on the enormous death toll. Walter Duranty of the New York Times was given a Pulitzer Prize for denying the widespread famine and death. Gareth Jones, Rhea Clyman and Malcom Muggeridge were among the very few who reported the situation accurately. It would be fair to say that their careers suffered for their honesty. Most of what you are told in the traditional press is not true.
When Hitler’s army entered Ukraine in Operation Barbarossa in 1942, Ukrainians volunteered to fight the ethnic Russians and right the wrong of ten years before. The savagery of the Ukrainian Nazis was so fierce that German SS officers were appalled.
A significant portion of today’s Ukrainian army, the Azov Battalion, is composed of soldiers who follow the tenets of Stepan Bandera, a Nazi sympathizer from World War II and they unapologetically adorn their uniforms with Nazi symbolism.
The Crimean Peninsula, central to Russian history was given to Ukraine in 1954 by the Central Committee of the Soviet Union to, ironically, commemorate the three hundredth anniversary of the union of Ukraine with Russia via the Treaty of Pereyaslav. The treaty brought Russian protection to the Zaporyzhzhian Cossacks under hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was a complicated time.
Since the late 1990s, based on promises made during the unification of Germany, the Russians have been warning the West that NATO expansion into Ukraine would not be tolerated. William Burns, as ambassador to Russia, made this point explicitly with respect to Ukraine with his “Nyet, means nyet” memo of 2008.
In the seven years between the EuroMaidan revolt and the Russian invasion in 2021, the Ukrainian military bombarded the Donbas region resulting in 14,000 deaths, mostly civilian.
In April 2021, shortly after the outset of the war, Ukraine and Russia signed a Heads of Agreement to end the war on condition of Ukraine making a constitutional declaration of neutrality and returning civil rights to the people of Donbas. In exchange Russia would withdraw its army from Ukraine. Other than Crimea, all occupied regions of Ukraine would be returned. Emissaries from the United States and Great Britain convinced the Ukrainian government to tear up the treaty and keep fighting with western support. Partial copies of the agreement have been made public and third-party mediators have confirmed the terms of the agreement.
Russians and Ukrainians are honourable, hardworking people with a very oppressive, mostly shared history. This has made them very hardy and very good fighters. Therein lies the tragedy.
A Multipolar Future
In my view, largely because of the war in Ukraine, the world is no longer unipolar. American hegemony has been destroyed by the revelation that NATO is a hollow shell whose atrophy has destroyed its force and creativity. This may come as a stunning revelation but how else to explain the ten to one ratio favouring the Russians in shells and missiles fired at the enemy. Why can’t the Ukrainians fly their F-16s? Why did the Ukrainian offensive of 2023 result in zero ground taken and a horrible death toll? They don’t have an air defense system, and the Russians do. NATO agrees that it cannot match Russian war production. This is not speculation.
What is replacing the rules-based, unipolar world order? It is a work in progress, but I believe we will see a multipolar world order with a limited number of senior participants (China, Russia, United States, India) who voluntarily renounce the rigidity of military alliances. It is legitimate to ask why Russia should be included in the list of Great Powers. The answer lies in the fact that Russia is, by a significant margin, the largest country in the world by area and has the most up-to-date and largest inventory of nuclear weapons. Such things count.
A Return to the Concert of Europe
Following the Congress of Vienna, the European Great Powers established a system known as the Concert of Europe that for the next hundred years provided a flexible buffer to resolve inter-country frictions. It was later expanded to deal with other social and economic problems in a collaborative way. For the most part, the Concert worked and only broke down when countries started to sign mutual defense pacts. The resulting rigidity of European response to military threats destroyed the key strength of the Concert approach. Why did they do this?
Beginning in the early 1900s, Russia borrowed heavily from France to rebuild its military following the embarrassment of the 1905 Russo-Japanese War. France agreed on condition that Russia sign an alliance to prevent Germany from invading as they had in 1870 and continued to threaten via the Schlieffen Plan. Austro-Hungary, beset with problems in the Balkans, appealed to Germany for support to “discipline” the Serbs. Germany responded with a request for a military alliance to counter the France-Russia threat. England refused to commit to an alliance but was deeply unhappy with Germany’s attempts to build a larger navy and finally gave France a verbal agreement for support.
I believe that new geopolitical building blocks of today will be based on a “Concert of the World” approach allowing countries the flexibility to create purpose-built concerts to take on a multitude of problems. For example, if Somali pirates are raiding Red Sea shipping, perhaps a concert of countries animated by the threat, will work together to resolve the issue and then, as with the first concert mechanism, dissolve itself when the problem is remedied. It seems unlikely to me that, in the future, an issue like this will be resolved by US carpet bombing of Mogadishu.
Will the United Nations continue to exist? The ostensible purpose of the United Nations is to resolve world problems. With a stellar track record in corruption and a spotty record in problem resolution, I think the bloated bureaucracy of the United Nations will be eliminated and with it, the US rules-based order.
Coupled with this return to 19th century diplomacy will be a return to the notion of spheres of influence. Are the historical issues of Ukraine and Russia material to the citizens of the United States? Clearly not. Why protect the eastern boundary of Ukraine while opening the southern boundary of your own country?
I believe that the Great Powers will assign to themselves mutually agreed-upon spheres of influence. Inequities within spheres will be dealt with by affected countries creating a specific concert to redress the issue. World-wide policing by a self-elected hegemon will be a thing of the past.
Countries will certainly maintain sovereignty over economic and social policy but international tribunals such as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and the World Trade Organization may be reduced to rule-setting while frictions and issues will be resolved through the concert process. Given the debacle of institutional cheating on almost all rules and accepted economic levers, it seems unlikely that the rigid institutions of the late 20th century will be maintained.
Specifics
If this look into the near future is accepted as reasonable translation of the crystal ball, what would it mean for today? It means that Presidents Trump, Putin, Xi and Modi have a lot more to negotiate than the boundaries of Ukraine and the disposition of Taiwan. They will discuss the Middle East and how to achieve longer periods of peace by resolving the demands of the Arab Palestinians and the uncertain status of minority groups in what was once Syria.
Expanding the Ukraine discussions to include more intractable problems appears to be a step backward. But perhaps such an enlargement will allow more optionality for finding solutions. Perhaps more degrees of freedom in the negotiations will make problem solving easier and not harder. Based on the recent readouts from discussions between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump, this would seem to be the case.
Countries which are not defined as Great Powers will have a role to play in the new multipolar world but likely as non-aligned actors. The concert protocol will prosper in the absence of alliances and the ability to fight for issues specific to a particular country will be enhanced when alliance options are maximized. European countries, Canada and larger global south nations will be second-tier in terms of spheres of influence but, with greater fluidity and alliance options, will come increased power to affect necessary geopolitical change.
European Union
The European Union (EU) will make very little sense in such a newly constituted world. If the US pulls out of NATO and sanctions the EU with trade tariffs it is difficult to see the organization continuing. The EU has essentially announced its own irrelevance by declaring the participation of the German political party, AfD, to be unacceptable in governance. When the leading presidential candidate in Romania is declared persona non grata even though he won a plurality in an election cancelled by the EU for highly dubious reasons and the leading French presidential candidate is thrown into jail, the demise of that Potemkin bureaucracy would seem imminent. The question remains whether the EU will maintain a trade association within Europe or disappear completely. Only time will tell.
Canada
In the case of Canada, I think the shift to a multipolar world, the strategic importance of Canada’s northern regions, and the country’s low population will necessitate a closer economic union with or perhaps total absorption into the United States. President Trump was not kidding about the 51st state. He was looking downrange at the new world that he sees developing and is drawing obvious conclusions. We Canadians will whine, snivel and cavil but soon enough we will accept the obvious. With a constitution that is inadequate to a federation of provinces with options, the Laurentian stranglehold over the West will be broken.
Even our own Liberal Captain Canada, he who calls the Alberta premier a traitor for meeting with US officials to soften the blow of tariffs, has agreed to “negotiate a comprehensive agreement for economic and military cooperation with the US when the election is over”. This confirms my view that our choice of Prime Minister is largely irrelevant. Mr. Trump will get what he wants which is to follow a long train of history.
During the Revolutionary War of Independence, attempts were made to woo the citizens of Quebec into the American embrace,
“You are a small people, compared to those who with open arms invite you into a fellowship. A moment's reflection should convince you which will be most for your interest and happiness.”
Another attempt was made to bundle Canada into the US in 1814. The British North America Act was written in 1867 out of fear that, with a large army idled at the end of the Civil War, Canada would be taken without compensation. By giving the Canada statehood, Britain hoped for a negotiation over price at least.
Unless its constitution is opened and amended for the new geopolitical realities, Canada is unlikely to survive in its present form. It remains to be seen, of course, but I think that the anger in Alberta towards the Laurentian government of Canada is near boiling and this will be the first province to pull the pin on confederation. Without Alberta’s $14 billion in transfer payments, will the federal government pay Quebec directly? Without the payments, Quebec will leave. With the payments Ontario will leave.
Ukraine
Ukraine can not survive in its current form. The remnants of Novorossiya that are not occupied will soon be recovered by Russia, the Zelensky government will be voted out of office and Ukraine will join Austria and become constitutionally neutral. It will be argued that the 2022 vote by the four breakaway oblasts to join Russia was not legitimate but, in fact, the vote followed UN guidance and was patterned off the Western-sanctioned vote that created Kosovo out of Serbia. That vote also followed the rules-based order so why not the Ukrainian vote?
The outstanding questions are whether Ukraine will have a port on the Black Sea, who will rebuild the country, will those Ukrainians who emigrated return, and what is to become of the millions of widows and fatherless children? Ukraine is a perfect model of the wreckage of the unipolar world with its “rules-based” order.
Palestinians
In the Middle East, Turkey will not be allowed to recreate the Ottoman Empire, Syria will not be controlled by its current Al Quaeda affiliate and Israel will give up its pretensions south of Damascus. The Palestinian Arabs will find a new homeland, but it will not be adjacent to Israel. Nor will Gaza be given to the Israelis in my view. The track record of Palestinians in other countries (Jordan and Egypt) has not been good given their attempts to overthrow the governments of their hosts so options for them are limited.
Given the slaughter on October 7, 2023, I don’t see a long-term future for Hamas. It is in no one’s interest for the continued operation of their tunnel system or for the continued presence of the United Nations in that part of the world. The mess will be unwound by multiparty negotiations that may be restricted to the Great Powers
As mad as President Trump’s “Singapore on the Mediterranean” scheme was, it might be the most realistic alternative. Remember that the Palestinian’s were given billions of aid dollars to build that dream and instead built three hundred miles of tunnels. I don’t see them being given a mulligan on this. It is heartening to see that the Palestinians are protesting the continued political influence of Hamas and, if this spreads, the options for their future will brighten as more Middle Eastern countries may be open to housing/integrating them.
Israel and Iran
The issue of Iran will be one that is decided by the larger envelope of issues discussed by the four Great Powers. Ever since the presidency of George W. Bush, Iran has been “two weeks away from getting the bomb”. Twenty years later and still no bomb, I don’t think Iran wants to have the bomb. This Great Powers negotiation will have the added benefit of binding the power of Israel to determine US foreign policy in that part of the world. Israel, too, will become a second-tier state with its power coming from the concert alliances it develops rather than the hammer it holds over the US Congress via the financial pressure of various lobbying groups. Ultimately I believe Iran will be welcomed back into the family of nations and the grip of the mullahs may be loosened. With four, non-aligned Great Powers negotiating, second-tier countries like Iran have reduced geopolitical power to make alliances pitting Russia against the US or China against Russia etc.
BRICS
The power of the BRICS nations will diminish immediately and almost completely when the world becomes multipolar with a concert mechanism. The constant fight to avoid the hegemonic sanctions of the unipolar policeman will end. The US, with by far the strongest and largest economy, will continue to enjoy reserve currency status for so long as it stops inflating away the finances of other countries using that currency.
With China, Russia and India given Great Power status, their participation in trade groups will be less pronounced. This is not to say that the global south nations will not form other trade groups and participate more fully in international trade. Such trade will be encouraged and likely begin to blossom but they will not be formed with the intention of carving wealth away from other nations other than through competition.
China
If China is given Great Power status, its trade policies will certainly become less predatory and more fair. They will stop stealing trade secrets and maintaining a low currency exchange. In return, they will be able to reabsorb Taiwan on their schedule. As a Great Power, they will be allocated a sphere of influence in the Far East but its current efforts outside of that area will be restricted. China will not be meddling directly in the western hemisphere without first gaining the approval of the other Great Powers.
Russia
Russia will continue to be a smallish economy with outsized power. With security over its borders, it will turn to building its “hewer of wood and drawer of water” economy and will likely continue to attempt self-sufficiency in all aspects of its economy. It will certainly continue to be an energy giant exporting oil and gas both east and west. In a perfect world, it will negotiate a radical reduction in nuclear weapons with the other Great Powers. I think there is a 50% probability of that happening. Given the size of the country, its sphere of influence will be limited to a skin of nations on its enormous border.
United States
If my pipe dream comes to anything like fruition, then the Golden Age of the United States will occur. The strength of the US economy is so dynamic that the economic and financial problems of today will be quickly resolved driven by the American genius for innovation and creativity. If the excesses of its administrative state are finally tamed, as currently seems likely, the savings from not being the world’s policeman will supercharge the US economy. Canadians may become desperate to get into the US for that reason. Paradoxically, participating on a Board with other Great Powers, will unlock the latent power of the US. Being the world’s policeman is an anchor to domestic economic and social development.
Conclusion
Will any of this transpire? Am I being overly romantic in a desire to return to the 19th century concert apparatus of geopolitical problem solving? Perhaps, but the neoconservative experiment with “world policeman” has been expensive in lives lost and economic opportunities foregone. If I am right, the world will be in great need of a new generation of Talleyrands. Diplomacy will again be a thing.
I have made declarations that appear much more solid than they really are. What I have attempted to do is create what is now called a “steel man” of what might be. In truth there are hundreds of combinations and permutations of what could be. That is what makes the future interesting. It is impossible to see “through the glass darkly”, but it is great fun to speculate. And that is what this essay has been.
We are due for a change, and I have hopes that this change will appear on the sunlit uplands rather than gloomy valleys of our geopolitical horizon.
We Boomers may not have screwed things up for good after all. I can live with that.