0.6 The end of the west  (Page 12/19)

One could suggest a fourth, though it may be implicit: “What are the normative reference points that will shape their interaction?”

Kissinger cautioned that the view in Washington that America was impervious and could prevail in future “by the example of its virtues and good works…would turn innocence into indulgence.” He argued that the emerging international system was “far more complex than any previously encountered by American diplomacy” and that achieving geopolitical equilibrium was essential for the pursuit of Washington’s historic goals of disarmament, nonproliferation and human rights. In the aftermath of 9/11 (and related acts of terrorism around the world), and in the midst of the challenges of Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea and Iran, this counsel has evident merit.

Kissinger argued that the post-Cold War world showed many similarities to 19th century Europe and that something like the system crafted at the Congress of Vienna might evolve in the 21st century, “in which a balance of power is reinforced by a shared sense of [democratic] values.” Reliance on fortune was, however, not sufficient: Metternich could found his legitimate order on the doctrine of limits already shared by the imperial courts; no similar opportunity was to hand today. He argued that the United States should try “to buttress equilibrium with moral consensus. … But it dare not neglect the analysis of the balance of power. For moral consensus becomes self-defeating when it destroys the equilibrium.”

If a system based on moral consensus about legitimacy could not be achieved, the only alternative was one based on a balance of power. Kissinger suggested that Bismarck’s approach was the indicated one: “…to prevent challenges from arising by establishing close relations with as many parties as possible, by building overlapping alliance systems, and by using the resulting influence to moderate the claims of the contenders.”

Taking stock of the moment and thinking about the future

The past two decades, encompassing the early knowledge (or digital) era, have brought global challenges of a scale similar to those wrought in Europe when the industrial revolution replaced kinship with class as the primary social building block and industry supplanted agriculture and maritime trade as the most effective means of adding economic value. However, the creation of a global economy has not been underpinned with a global polity able to address market failure and deliver the common public goods which markets cannot provide. We cannot correct this, as there is no consensus on the norms that would underpin such a polity. The asymmetry guarantees volatility, normative clashes and occasional turbulence.

Today’s global economy has its tap root in Western history, but owes its accidents to the emergence of multinational corporations over the past forty years, the ready availability of information on global demographics and market conditions around the world, the opening up of markets in Eurasia and China after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the commercialisation of the information technologies and systems developed in the defence industries in the 1980s, which accelerated the confluence of communications, computing and entertainment, and the adoption of digital technologies by financial institutions in the 1990s to create integrated global markets.