World Crisis - Empires and Nations
How the Polycrisis Reveals a Reordering of the States of the World
Over the next few months I will write a series of articles or essays reflecting on the nature of the world crisis.
The reasons for this series of articles were described in my post, World Crisis, and in my podcast World Crisis, Polycrisis, or Another Day at the Office? (episode 103). To recap briefly, there is a widespread sense of crisis today, and of dramatic changes in many fields. Xi Jinping has said we are seeing changes the world has not seen in 100 years. Adam Tooze has proposed the idea of polycrisis. Others present fears of World War Three or indeed Armageddon. Others celebrate the birth of a multipolar world.
The crisis and form of the new emerging world reveal themselves in big signs and small gestures. Big signs are the defeat of the economic war against Russia, the crumbling of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, and the begrudging, belated admission by an American General that the USA is opposed to two super-powers, Russia and China. Small gestures include Saudi Arabia’s denial of the dignity of a national flag behind the seated American Secretary of State, when Tony Blinken came on a state visit this week. In this substack, I am writing notes towards an historical understanding of this world crisis, that try to find some patterns in these confusing signs, big and small.
When I began the Burning Archive podcast, I saw it as a way of making sense of this time of troubles or polycrisis, if you like, by interpretation of events under four broad themes that represent breakdown of order. These themes represent the strands of the World Crisis or Polycrisis. My initial four themes were imperial rivalry, political disorder, social fragmentation and cultural decay. In each theme, I discerned challenges to our mental models of social reality. America is no longer the indispensable dominant power, but struggles to come to terms with its demotion. Political order is breaking down and many people question whether Western democracy is still what they were taught that it was. Societies no longer cohere well within nations. Culture grows wild in an accelerating revolution in which all that is solid transitions into air. Each of my themes therefore reflected one of the attributes of the polycrisis, as described by Adam Tooze, that is, a breakdown of our capabilities to match our mental models to social reality.
However, while I have been following events over the last two years, new aspects of social reality have forced themselves onto my attention. War, as it often does, demanded reflections on how we write history. The Ukraine conflict broke out. It did not proceed quite as anyone anticipated or planned. Miscalculations of major powers were evident. New initiatives of states like India, Saudi Arabia and of course China became more evident. Western economic power was not all that sanctions claimed to be. My understanding of the world was shocked by mass compliance with propaganda, the Cancel Russia actions, and the Stand with Ukraine marketing.
I was not disturbed that my own mental model of the World Crisis began to break down. I consider it a virtue to change your mind after reflection and contemplation of real events. So I decided to reexamine an overview of the world crisis using seven themes, by adding three new themes of crisis, war, economy and environment. I also revise imperial rivalry to great state rivalry.
The seven themes are:
Imperial or ‘Great State’ rivalry
Political Disorder
Social Fragmentation
Cultural Decay
War
Economy
Environmental Threat
My fortnightly essays over the next few months will explore each of these themes. Each essay is exploratory and reflective, as befits an outsider’s work in progress. I hope they offer prompts for your own reflections and maybe some insight.
My first theme is imperial or great state rivalry, which may be defined as competition between more evenly balanced great powers in an international system that is being reordered by that competition. Is America in decline? Will it fall? Is China going to be a hegemon, or will we move to a multipolar world? How long can the myth of the international rules based order be maintained? How is competition between more evenly balanced great powers reordering the international system? Does multipolarity usher in more war and less peace, or is it a more secure world than the illusory Pax Americana?
These essays are frankly exploratory, experimental and essayisitic. That is my style, which befits a try to remake the mental models with which we make sense of this world crisis. I offer my own theories, or speculations, and admit they can be wrong. I would love your comments and contributions. If you become a paid subscriber, you can be part of this conversation too.
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