Division of the world into various mutually hostile great power bloc’s has been the empirical reality of human civilizations from the very ancient period.The development of modern transport and communication technology has brought different civilizations closer to each other and has thereby enhanced their chances of mutual cooperation and confrontation. The clash of interests of great powers of the world has led to a number of large scale hot and cold wars in the world.The division of the world into the Spanish and Portuguese arenas in mid-fifteenth century is the first formal attempt by the European Core countries to create their pan regions in the Peripheral World.The World War Ist and IInd in 1919 and 1944 respectively divided the world into the two broad groups known as the Axis Powers and Allied Powers.The end of World War IInd in 1945 resulted in to the division of the world into USA led capitalist bloc and the USSR led socialist bloc.The mutual economic and political rivalries between the two world systems produced the Cold War between the two blocs that culminated in to the abolition of the socialist bloc and the hegemony of the USA led capitalist bloc following the disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991.
In September 1993 President Bill Clinton’s National Security Advisor, Anthony Lake outlined a strategy of “enlargement” as the successor to Cold War containment. Having successfully contained the threat to market democracies during the Cold War, the United States now strive to enlarge it’s reach through out the world. Whereas the old mission of American foreign policy sought to contain the red blobs of communism on the world map, the new mission sought to enlarge the blue blobs of democracy. Anthony Lake identified four components of the strategy of enlargement:
1) strengthening the community of major market democracies, including most importantly, the United States and the other Group of Seven nations (Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, France and Britain);
2) fostering and consolidating new democracies and market economies:
3) countering aggression and supporting the liberalisation of states hostile to democracy and markets; and
4) fostering democracy and market economics through humanitarian aid in stressed regions. Anthony Lake advocated a hard line approach towards the states that are “ anti-democratic “ and aggressively “anti-Western”. The approach here will be to “isolate them diplomatically, militarily, economically and technologically.
When the actions of such states directly threaten our people, our forces or our vital interests, we must be prepared to strike back unilaterally,we must always maintain the military power necessary to deter or defeat aggression by these regimes”.
The Chinese response to the US policy of Enlargement has been the infrastructural development project of “Silk Road Economic Belt” in 2013 revised as “One Belt One Road” and finally designated as “Belt and Road Initiative”. The Belt and Road Initiative is a one trillion US $ infrastructural development project to connect 65 countries of Asia, Europe and Africa through land and maritime routes to promote agricultural and industrial development as well as foreign trade in the Old World.The grand strategies of the two super powers of the contemporary world are bound to produce new conflict situations in the global arena in the 21st century.
The post-Cold War situation has offered three possibilities of international politics, namely a unipolar world order, a bipolar world order and a multi polar world order.Fukuyama in his “End of the History” thesis projected the emergence of Unipolar World Order dominated by the single capitalist hegemone, i.e., the United States of America. Contrary to it Samuel P. Huntington presented his “Clash of Civilizations” thesis to project the emergence of a Multi-Polar World Order.Zbigniew Brzezinski in his “Grand Chessboard” treated the Earth’s space as the field of game, that is the chessboard on which the fight for world hegemony and the expansion of influence zones takes place in the most strategically important regions of the world. According to Brzezinski the “Crisis Arch” is the vast region stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean.Brezezinski was that this is the region where conflicts may have a completely new face which starts to immerse between Middle and Central East and Pakistan and Afghanistan.In his opinion, lack of stability in this geographical arch may directly or indirectly affect the interests of the state in Eurasia.
The analysis of the contemporary world economy, defence capability and geopolitical situation makes one to believe the rise of New Cold War between the United States and China.The power of United States as a result of the internal contradictions of capitalism is on a decline whereas China is emerging as a major economic and military power at the international level.The United States is the leader of North Atlantic region and India and Israel are its Asian natural allies. Contrary to it the Eurasian powers like China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and other countries are forging unity to counter the American hegemony in the post-Cold War era. Thus one can easily conclude that a New Cold War has emerged and we are already experiencing a situation of bipolarity in the contemporary world. The major conflicts in the post-Cold War era like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria as well as the Cold War issues of Palestine, Kashmir and Sinkiang are the products of great power rivalry in the world. These conflicts can be resolved if the world powers like so but in order to perpetuate their hegemony and flourish the defence industry the conflicts offer them an opportunity to exert their influence in the world arena.Thus it can be accurately concluded that the contemporary conflict zones are the arenas of geopolitical rivalry between the major power players of the New Cold War era.
Prof.G.M Athar can be reached at ghathar@yahoo.co.in.
