There is great inequality of power among the states of the world. This has led to Might-is-Right thinking for some and lies behind the current wars of aggression. With drumbeats of war with Russia being broadcast regularly in our media and the move to re-arming Europe, the world faces yet again another potential catastrophe of European making, potentially involving nuclear weapons.
Is there a way we can redress this power imbalance that could bring an end to Might-is-Right thinking, to halt wars of aggression, and to save the long-term future of humanity?
Engineering a Safer World
From a realist perspective, states must act in accordance with the international distribution of power to maximise their political and economic security. The international distribution of power shapes security interests, incentives, arrangements and alliances between the states. The current shift from a unipolar system to a multinodal system provides an opportunity for the reduction of large power asymmetries and the establishment of a balanced international power distribution.
What follows is some Blue-Sky Thinking where we envisage an international order based on a Regional Structure, that leads to a more secure and collaborative world, as opposed to a world where wars, domination and exploitation are the norm.
Some of the concepts and terms are further explained in the Definitions section at the end of this article.
The Problem
The international order is collapsing from a unipolar to an unstable multipolar order. Since the founding of the UN eighty years ago, international peace and harmony were meant to result from the acceptance of the sovereign equality of nation states. For a large number of states, relying on their sovereign defence capability is not enough to keep them secure when there exists such a huge inequality of power.
Although the current wars are being undertaken and supported by states that are in the West, who are fighting their so-called enemies on the peripheries of the West, whether it is Russia in Europe or Iran in West Asia, the problem of Might-is-Right thinking can easily spread. In other parts of the world some states have developed powerful military capability and some even have their own nuclear weapons. Therefore, this problem affects not just the West but the whole world.
Since the founding of the UN, we have witnessed several wars of aggression, without the UN being able to do anything about them. Not that the Security Council was designed to produce any other result – its veto system was meant to allow the five permanent members of the Security Council to override any rule they chose to not abide by. As a result, in international law, as in domestic law, there exists one rule for the powerful or rich and one rule for the weak or poor.
The UN is also not designed to have its own power of enforcement or of policing the world. It, therefore, has no direct way to ensure that states cannot wilfully violate its international rules. At most, it can use its peacekeeping force, composed of contributions from member states, to keep warring sides separate in a conflict.
Engineering a Safer World
In the world today, there exists a club where the powerful states have, and a limited number of their allies are allowed to have, nuclear weapons. None of the members of this club will want to take the risk of engaging militarily with each other, as it would invariably lead to their mutually assured destruction. In the worst case, this would trigger an existential threat to the entire world.
Given the above, a powerful state can choose to attack a weak state for an arbitrary reason without anyone being able to stop it. Roughly half of the world’s 193 states are potential victims of the powerful states. Nearly 4 billion people in the world potentially face this threat. This does not include us in the UK, as we are protected by being part of or an ally of the powerful states. Is this threat acceptable? Are we happy to say we do not care as we are not under threat?
This is the problem we hope to solve.
The Proposal
We are asserting that the problem of a war of aggression is fundamentally a result of the power imbalance that exists amongst states internationally. And that, to remedy the problem, we will need to seek a power arrangement between neighbouring states that will redress their imbalance with the big powers.
The arrangement will be in the form of supranational collectives to defend their regions against attacks from potential aggressors. For now, they will be known as defence collectives or simply collectives. An effective balance of power could, therefore, be achieved if groups of neighbouring sovereign states outside of the big powers were to combine their sovereign military capabilities to form regions of defence to deter future wars of aggression. Such an arrangement could also halt global militarization and nuclear proliferation by the mid-sized states.
A critical requirement for the success of our arrangement will be the existence and position of NEUTRAL STATES. Having two powerful states adjacent to each other is often a recipe for instability and conflict. History has shown that the position of neutral states between them can lead to a stable arrangement. In our international order, we will need neutral states, i.e. states that are not part of any collective but which lie either between a collective and a powerful state or between two powerful states.
Engineering a Safer World
The size of collectives will vary depending on the size and location of the constituent states. Based on a rough calculation, ignoring states smaller than Lebanon, there are 150 states, other than the 10 that are big powers, that need to be part of a collective. If there are 10 collectives to balance off the 10 powerful states, then the average number of states per collective will be 15, including the neutral states. Some collectives will have a smaller number and some a larger number of states. The 23 smallest states in the world can be added without changing the power arrangement.
A perfect solution for collectives is not being desired and would never be realistically feasible. We need a balance of power that can significantly reduce the likelihood of the wars of aggression. For now, let’s say that we need a solution that works for 20% of the most threatened states, for them to have a consequence that would apply to 80% of the threat horizon, as per the Pareto Principle.
We will, of course, need to avoid these collectives becoming potential aggressors themselves. We, therefore, will need to remain strictly within the domain of defence arrangements, with no potential of creating military powers that have large offensive capability. We can debate later what the military capability of a defence collective needs to be. For now, let’s use the Pareto Principle again and say that the military power of the collective needs to be at least 20% of that of a potential aggressor state for it to meet 80% of its defence needs.
Within each collective, sovereign states would still maintain their own governments, laws, police and institutions, but security would be outsourced to the regional collective.
Currently, we are not going to assume that these collectives would be anything other than defence collectives. However, for these collectives to work, they will need to have a good level of cooperation politically, economically and technologically. This does not imply they will need to form political federations (like the states in USA) or economic unions (like the EU).
As the peoples of the world are getting closer together in terms of their individual and social goals and objectives, more and more of us are seeking less centralised governance and more local governance. This would enable local communities of different cultures to live amicably side by side rather than lose their diversity. However, trade and cultural exchanges within these collectives would be encouraged.
As these collectives mature, we may see a move towards greater global demilitarisation and nuclear non-proliferation. There may be a greater willingness to cooperate globally to resolve global problems.
Envisioning World Governance
The governance of the world consisting of 10 regional collectives and 10 big powers would be hugely simpler than what it is today with 193 nation states, large and small. Each regional collective and each big power would be represented at the Security Council. There would be no veto power. There could be two Secretary Generals, one for the regions, the other for the powers. They would work as a coalition. The UN would have UN embassies in each region with diplomatic, monitoring, compliance and enforcement capabilities. The focus of the Security Council would be to maintain peace across the world.
We will look into replacing the General Assembly with the global citizens’ assembly based on one that was created on 30 October 2021 coinciding with COP26 in Glasgow. This was a joint initiative of Iswe Foundation and others, supported by the UN. The assembly consisted of one hundred persons from around the world chosen by sortition to discuss issues facing the world as a whole.
The concept was influenced by the ideas of philosopher Jurgen Habermas, who died recently. It focusses on how communities and populations develop a common will through communication in the public sphere resulting in the development of deliberative democracy. The focus of the assembly would be global issues that affect human societies, including their well-being, and the environment.
Challenges to Overcome
The solution proposed is likely to be perceived as a challenge to the current status quo and opposed not only by the current capital and political power holders but also by the mass who may not be able to envisage an alternative to the current problem scenario.
The solution proposed has not considered all the political, economic and social consequences. The major beneficiaries of this solution would be the states and people in the Global South who face the threat posed by wars of aggression. But the states and people in the West will also benefit from less and less money being spent on wars and more on their welfare and well-being.
Democracy world-wide may get an uplift as fascist leaders fail to influence the masses by their rhetoric of hate of the other. There would be several other political, economic and social challenges that would need to be overcome to implement the solution. But ultimately, our objective is to save humanity from wars of aggression leading to nuclear annihilation.
Implementing the solution will take several generations but work on it would need to start now. Once the momentum and motivation for change build up, the pace of implementation may even speed up. Unlike WWII, we do not want a third global war to make people realise that this solution would have been a far better alternative.
Concepts and Definitions
It is important to understand our take on the following concepts and definitions that have been used in this article.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is a tool capable of high-speed data correlation which has both beneficial uses, such as in healthcare and problem solving, as well as unethical uses, such as in autonomous weapons, surveillance, disinformation, manipulation and mass unemployment. Although often compared to human intelligence, AI is holistically not as intelligent as humans. Whether it will one day be able to replace humans is not a present-day concern. The main concern about AI is who is using it and for what purpose? It is the human owner who is in control of the unethical uses of AI.
- Big Powers
Big powers are global powers with a large military capability. Today, these are those with large land masses and large populations, such as the US, China, Russia and India. They also include regional powers that have a large military capability supported by another big power but without having a large population, such as Israel. All these big powers are separated from each other either by ocean, sea, mountains or desert. - Blue Sky Thinking
Blue Sky Thinking is when a group of people look at an opportunity with fresh eyes, often thinking creatively “out of the box”, not hindered by implementation details or past problems, generating as many new ideas as possible, whether they be the drivers or obstacles to an opportunity.
- Capital Order
Capital order is an international economic order based on neoliberal capitalism which presupposes a certain sociopolitical order. Today’s world order is predominantly a capital order, where economic objectives and priorities dictate geopolitics. They also mould national politics and economic priorities, which determine national social order, including social classes.
The heartlands of the capital order are in the West. It can be argued that it was started by the Europeans 500 years ago. Clearances, colonialism and slavery were used to accumulate the initial capital which was then used during the first Industrial Revolution to capture and dominate the market in the rest of the world. Following the destructions of WWII, the baton of the capital order passed on to the US, which benefited from the war and accumulated enough capital to become an economic hegemon that captured the global market under its control.
In today’s capital order, national markets are intrinsic elements of a single globalised market. The global market is inherently a part of the US domestic market, where the single currency is the US currency, the dollar. This order is increasingly being controlled by a small number of US-based elites and the corporate owners of the Big Banks, Big Techs and the Big Pharmas. This order is fundamentally not a democratic order.
It can be argued that capitalism, which is based on unending growth and leads to the end of competition, is an unsustainable system. In addition, the economic rise of China and Asia is threatening the supremacy of the US in the capital order. Although almost all states have been participating in the capital order, not all are willing to accept the West as its primary beneficiary.
Several analysts are claiming that as the capital order is starting to crumble globally, the West led by the US is trying forcefully to carve out a region for it to continue to dominate. As a result, we are seeing the emergence of wars of aggression at the periphery of the Western region.
Internal to the Western region, we are also seeing the rise of fascism. The inequality caused by neoliberal capitalism is leading to traditional political parties losing their legitimacy, as they are failing to stop the rise of economic inequality affecting the masses. Populist and fascist governments, many supported by the top economic elites, are using this as an opportunity to gain control of the agenda, aided by the mainstream media which is already under their control.
If and when the capital order ends, it does not mean an end to wars of aggression. It may, in fact, lead to more wars of aggression as anarchy and fascism become the modus operandi across the world.
- Democracy
Democracy means rule by the people. Direct rule by the people does not exist anywhere. Democracy exists as an indirect rule, where representatives from political parties are elected by the people in elections every few years. Where candidates for elections are selected based primarily on the amount of money they can bring in to the party, it becomes an oligarchic democracy, such as in the US.
China is a major exception to democracy. Although it calls itself a people’s democracy, ultimate power is held by one party which dictates what it believes the people need and want. However, as most people’s needs and wants in the world today are dictated primarily by economics, it can be said that we are all living under a form of dictatorship, of capitalism. The representatives we choose from time to time have little or no control over the form of capitalism that we are under (see Capital Order). In other words, international order in the world today is under capital order (see International Order).
- Existential Threats
The earth faces four existential threats to humankind and life on Earth. The first two are highly likely to arise from a large war of aggression. Three of the four are man-made.
The first is nuclear weapons. Today, over 3,000 nuclear weapons stand ready to be fired within minutes. A hundred or so are all it takes to cause a nuclear winter, the apocalyptic scenario where there’s so much dust in the atmosphere that it blocks out the sun, the temperature on earth plummets, harvests fail, and billions of people starve to death.
The second is AI. Artificial intelligence ca be used for propaganda, censorship, and surveillance, and can make it easier to build a weapon of mass destruction. Worst-case, it gets away from us and we lose control.
The third is the accidental release of a super pathogen from a lab.
The fourth is climate change caused by the use of fossil fuels. The use of nuclear weapons will also have a huge climate impact.
7. Geography and Land
All of us live on the same planet. All 8 billion of us share one Earth. There is no other place we can move to or live in. The geography of the Earth has had and continue to have a huge influence over human group behaviour, including groups fighting over territory.
If you consider the development of human groups, nations and civilisations in the last 10,000 years, geography and land play a key part. The availability of edible plants, domesticated animals, mineral resources and water have determined the development of technologies that allowed certain groups of people to develop, prosper and even occupy other peoples’ lands. These dictated the development of kingdoms and civilisations in the past.
Although most of these major advantages were in the past, their influence continues today in our cultures and behaviours. As we are cultural animals, as much as we are political and economic animals, we need to keep in mind that geography still has a part to play, albeit beneath the surface as it were. We cannot be totally free of geography and land as long as we inhabit this Earth.
- Human Development
After the last Ice Age and starting in Neolithic times, the world underwent three key technological revolutions:
- First Agricultural Revolution about 11,700 years ago,
- First Industrial Revolution in 1760
- Information Age starting in the mid-20th century.
The Information Revolution has now reached all parts of the globe and humans have never been closer to each other, in terms of social, economic and technological development. Future changes in technology, trade and finance, and geopolitics are likely to affect all of us more or less equally.
Today, the vast majority of us are aware of each other’s identity and culture, willing, in principle, to accept each other as equals, and to recognise each other’s sovereign states as equals. Despite periodic and highly destructive wars of aggression, the taking of other people’s lands is considered unacceptable by most.
- Human Settlements & State Formation
In prehistoric times, human family groups moved from place to place as hunter gatherers, much like the larger animals have always done. In the Final Stone Age, humans started settling down and forming kinship settlements, such as tribes and clans. Over time, the small settlements became larger, mostly through conquests, and became parts of kingdoms and empires.
The reasons why some nations had become more developed than others are brilliantly described by anthropologist Jared Diamond in his book, “Guns, Germs and Steel”. The reasons were not the innate superiority of one so-called race or of any human-invented religion, as eugenics or racist theories since the Age of Enlightenment would have one believe.
After the destruction of WWII, these enlargements came to a sudden halt. Many nations gained freedom from European colonisation but, unfortunately, ending up with borders drawn up by their colonisers. With the founding of the UN, sovereign states became the governance norm for the world, each responsible for governing their people and lands. By 2011, there were 193 sovereign states in the world, signed up as members of the UN supposedly following a common UN Charter.
The vast majority of sovereign states today have internationally accepted geographical borders. Occupations of other people’s lands by force are rare and temporary. Africa is an exception for reasons of colonial legacy. Conflicts over borders have and will need to be carefully mediated via the UN.
For sovereign states, governance by the state is the norm and is likely to remain. However some groups of people within the states will continue to ask for devolution of certain governance powers to the subregions.
- International Order vs. World Order
International Order refers to the political order between states. World Order refers to the political, economic and societal orders between states and their peoples. As argued above, the world order today is a capital order (see Capital Order)
- Pareto Principle
The Pareto principle states that, for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes.
- Power
In international politics, the power of a state can be either hard or soft. The hard power of a state means its technological, economic and military powers, all of which are inter-related. The soft power of state means its ability to influence relationships with other states. In a conflict between states, it is military power that counts most.
In general, the military power of a state depends on its size, in terms of land and population, as well as its technological and economic capabilities. Military power includes its military assets, including military weapons, bases and production capabilities, and military resources, including its army, navy and air force.
- Regionalisation v Regionalism
Regionalisation is the process by which regions emerge and strength, through increasing interactions. It can be seen as the organic, bottom-up growth of regional interdependence, often in areas of trade or investment. Or it can be deliberate, led by the politicians and dealing with issues like security.
Regionalism, in an international context, refers to the political and ideological commitment to cooperate and integrate with countries in one’s region, it involves a “common sense of identity and purpose” among states in a geographic area, often manifested through the creation of institutions and policies for collective action.
Region in international relations, is a geographically bounded area comprising a group of countries that share certain commonalities. Joseph Nye defined an international region as “a limited number of states linked by a geographical relationship and by a degree of mutual interdependence”. For example, South Asia or Southeast Asia can be considered regions due to geographic proximity and shared historical or cultural ties.
Regional integration is the deepening of cooperation between states in a region through formal agreements and institutions. It often involves stages like free trade areas, customs unions, common markets, etc. In simple terms, regional integration means counties voluntarily pooling aspects of their sovereignty to gain collective benefits (e.g. the EU’s single market or common currency).
- Sovereignty
In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating legitimate authority over some polity, such as a nation. It is expressed through the power to rule and make law. A sovereign nation state is an independent state, normally occupying a territory with internationally acknowledged borders. A sovereign state is required to have a permanent population, defined territory, a government not under the control of another, and the capacity to interact with other sovereign states. Under the UN Charter, all sovereign states are considered of equal value.
In today’s complex world, states do not have complete power to rule and make law. In an economically interconnected world, states are legally obliged to follow international rules of capital and, therefore, do not have complete power over their economy and, by extension, over their society (see Capital Order).
- State vs. Nation
A state is a political entity, in which the state and nation are congruent. A nation is an ethnic group, which may or may not have a State of their own. Nations preceded States, especially sovereign states (see Sovereignty).
- Existing Supranational Groups:
1. European Union (EU)
2.Eurasian Economic Union (EEU)
3.United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)
4. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
5. Southern Common Market (MERCUSOR)
6. Organisation of American States (OAS)
7. Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
8. South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
9. The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC)
10. Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
11. Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)
12. Arab League (AL)
13. Arab Maghreb Union (AMU)
14. Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
15. Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
16. Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO)
17. Organisation of African Unity (OAU)
18. African Economic Community (AEC)
19. South African Customs Union (SACU)
20. South African Development Community (SADC)
21. Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)
22. Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS)
23. Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)
24. Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD)
25. West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU)
26. Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (BAPOA)
27. Pacific Islands Forum (PIF)
- War of Aggression
Wars of aggression are unjust wars in the sense they are carried out for reasons that are neither justifiable nor morally acceptable to most of us. In the contemporary world, they are carried out by military power using weapons that are capable of inflicting huge destruction of property and inflicting indiscriminate death on large numbers of people, both combatants and non-combatants.
States capable of carrying out such wars need large military industrial complexes. Wars of aggression need not involve the use of nuclear weapons, which are weapons of ultimate aggression are, therefore, an existential threat for all humans (see Existential Threats).
Wars of aggression in the future are likely to use autonomous weapons run by artificial intelligence (see Artificial Intelligence).