As global alarm bells ring, a new world order is being forged — and it is a risky place

As the year draws to a close, I reflect, as we all do, on what has passed.

We all lost friends – too many, too soon – to Covid and other causes.

We witnessed the madness of war – in Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen and more – where ordinary people, caught in the crosshairs, lost most everything near and dear to them. We saw, at first hand, the hypocrisy of many, the soft underbelly of prejudice, and the exposure of a global political system – here and elsewhere – as woefully deficient.

The 1964 Zager and Evans song, In the year 2525, foretells the future, pointing to the technological advancement and other changes which depict a dystopian future in which humanity becomes reliant on technology and faces the potential consequences of its own actions, and predicts we are destined for a rough ride.

What is clear, though, is the decline of the Pax Americana – a victim of its own inherent paradoxes. We appear to be in, not for a clash of civilisations, but for an emerging polity that no one has yet been able to predict.

I look forward to witnessing it unfold, as the unreligious me observes the Quranic sura Al Asr: “by the declining day, Lo! man is a state of loss, Save those who believe and do good works, and exhort one another to truth and exhort one another to endurance.” Amen, as they say.

With the falling apart of the Pax Americana we are witness to the UN contributing to its dramatic failure – often as a result of indecision – either when member states can’t agree or when they selectively apply, or don’t apply, international norms to suit their interests,

After the devastation of World War 2, the contemporary global system – originating in 1945 with the inception of the UN – aspired to construct a rules-based international order. The idea was that via the establishment of international organisations and the definition of regulations, nations pledged to prevent conflicts, protect victims and shape a more peaceful global environment.

After World War 2, comprehensive human rights documents emerged aimed at fostering a peaceful international order by holding states accountable to these principles.

Paradoxically, the very architects of this system – Western nations – frequently fell short of these standards and, more significantly, exploited these institutions to fortify Western hegemony, setting the scene, despite well-founded intentions, for the relinquishing of the power so diligently acquired.

The often-missing ingredient, arising out of empathy and generosity, shows that true and lasting power – bestowed on the powerful by others – cannot be sidestepped. Overlooking this leads to the essence of the power paradox: The misinterpretation of what initially led to empowerment paves the way to an eventual decline from power.

If one looks back to the onset of the Vietnam War, the initial fractures in American (and Western) hegemony can be seen to emerge, accelerated over time by its response to the “war on terror”. What has become increasingly clear is that the US can no longer dictate terms in a multipolar world through unilateral actions, military or otherwise; such actions only bring devastation and disrupt potential alternative frameworks. Moreover, the appetite among American voters for intervention appears to have diminished along with the demise of the US’s unipolar moment.

Francis Fukuyama, writing in The Economist in 2021, said that “the peak period of American hegemony lasted less than 20 years, from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the financial crisis of 2007-9. The country was dominant in many domains of power – military, economic, political and cultural. The height of American hubris was the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when it hoped to remake not just Iraq and Afghanistan (invaded two years before), but the whole Middle East.”

In August 2021, the key marker was plain when the Taliban seized Kabul as American forces hastily withdrew, marking the end of two decades of American intervention in Afghanistan and the Middle East with a humiliating defeat. A mere six months later, the Russia-Ukraine war erupted, with its potential economic and geopolitical ramifications threatening to destabilise the entirety of Europe.

Read more in Daily Maverick: In the rapidly shifting world of geoeconomics, the Rest is getting tired of the West

As Christopher Layne – an American academic specialising in foreign policy – writes: “One of the iron-clad lessons of history is that great powers that seek hegemony are always opposed – and defeated – by the counterbalancing efforts of other states. Yet the prevailing belief among the American foreign policy community is that the United States is exempt from the fate of hegemons.”

The question is: To what extent has Western hegemony been eroded? The US invasion of Iraq, based on false premises, resulted in the death of nearly a million people. During the Arab uprisings, democracy was selectively applied, and the military coup in Egypt led by Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi was portrayed – somewhat ludicrously – as a “restoration of democracy”.

Under the Obama administration, attempts to reverse Middle East decline through interventions in Libya and Syria proved futile. Following the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, the US relinquished its pretension to be the dominant external power in the Middle East.

Again, the current state of the Middle East is precarious – to say the least – with regional powers engaging in complex interactions through hostilities or rapidly shifting tactical alliances. Ongoing conflicts persist in Yemen, Palestine, and Syria; shipping passing through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden is becoming increasingly precarious and as Iran edges closer to nuclear capability, the threat of Israel’s military action becomes more tangible.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Israel-Palestine War

The apparent decline of American and Western supremacy is not transitory and bears significant implications. The foremost consequence is the potential emergence of an unregulated international order lacking norms, exacerbating the divide between Western and non-Western worlds and fostering identity-based conflicts. This risk has intensified, since the events ignited by the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks.

Meanwhile, the Global South faces increasing alienation, while Russia and China’s policies may well consolidate. This opens the scene for the Islamic world to align itself with a non-Western geopolitical axis – the unique treatment of Israel in its actions against Gaza signalling the end of the West’s superiority, forcing it to confront moral and political decline.

The alarm bells are ringing – the question is who is listening and can anything be done to stem the decline? All bets are off, but it seems clear: Given the strained qualities of mercy, munificence and magisterial supremacy, the unipolar world is pretty much over. DM