Downing Reports: Brian M Downing and the world at war
Not long ago, American power and beliefs appeared unchallenged in the world. The Soviet Union was gone, generals in developing nations were heading back to the barracks, and democracy was everywhere on the rise. We had, in the famous words, reached the end of history. Open economic and political systems were the only viable systems and all others were vanishing or doomed to soon follow. More recently, uprisings across the Middle East seemed to confirm that a new democratic tide was at hand.
That vision was fleeting. China, under authoritarian leadership, will soon be the largest economy in the world. Russia, after a brief period of democracy and drift, is reasserting its identity as a rival to the West. Saudi Arabia, irritated by the US’s support for democracy in the Middle East and opening to Iran, is moving away from their alliance dating back to the parley between Franklin Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz aboard an American cruiser in the Suez Canal.
Each power in this emerging triad faces regional security dangers. Russia sees NATO expansion in its direction through the lens of its painful history. China wishes to reduce the American military presence along its periphery and establish its own hegemony there. Saudi Arabia faces threats from the Shia states of Iran and Iraq.
This triad also opposes democracy – stifling it at home, rolling it back where desirable, building ties with like-minded governments, and using foreign policy successes to strengthen their legitimacy at home. Security dangers may be overstated owing to political cultures – and more so as a way of enhancing state power and weakening domestic calls for reform.
Mixing geopolitical ambition and political affinities, the powers will oppose American hegemony around the globe and seek to make the Eurasian land mass the dominant region that geographers such as Halford Mackinder foresaw and that Russian ultra-nationalists such as Nikolai Danilevski advocated.
There is little likelihood that this triad will always act as one or seek global mastery, though that concern will grow along their peripheries and in the US. Its goals are counterbalancing western power especially along their peripheries, retaining authoritarian rule at home and among key allies, and competing for influence in commodity-rich countries around the world. Its import for world affairs will be considerable.
Authoritarian traditions
Each country’s conservatism draws from different sources. Russian political culture has long admired powerful leaders such as Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Nicholas I, and Joseph Stalin – men who ruled autocratically, defended the nation, and brought national greatness. The absence of a firm hand in the Kremlin is associated with weakness, treason among privileged groups, internal upheavals, and devastating foreign invasions. Tellingly, Vladimir Putin has recently suggested that Volgograd may revert to its former name – Stalingrad, the site of the immense battle in the Great Patriotic War.
China’s ruling elite sees itself as the proper guardians of national affairs. They deem the populace as too numerous and too provincial to share in governance. The rulers pride themselves, and justify their preeminence, by having ousted imperialist meddlers and domestic warlords and turned a backward and vulnerable country into a powerful industrializing giant in only a few decades. Leaders are about to restore their country to its historical position in world affairs – economic, cultural, and military. The prospect binds state and people for the foreseeable future and renders internal calls for democracy into weak echoes of voices from distant, hostile shores.
Saudi Arabia, a country formed by the intersection of a warrior band and immense oil deposits, has no long national history. Outside of defeating the Rashidi and Hashemite clans after World War One, it has no military victories, which historically are the soundest bases of legitimacy. The House of Saud presents itself to its subjects and fellow Sunnis as guardians of the holy sites of Medina and Mecca and defenders of the faith from Shia apostates. Saudi wealth and munificence are not geophysical happenstance; they are signs of divine favor and mission.
The Eurasian triad sees grievous faults in democratic processes and do not want to see them play out in their own countries. This will preserve their rule, ensure national security, and in their view, govern their people in the best manner. Politically, democracy leads to dangerous divisions and often enough brings inexperienced, clumsy, and vainglorious politicians to high office. Economically, democracy has brought on burdensome national debt as myopic leaders accede to popular demands regardless of longterm consequences. Socially, it leads to the erosion of traditional norms and the rise of decadence, immorality, selfishness, crime, and anomie. Martial values and nationalism wane tremendously in democracies, replaced by a hyper-individualism inconsistent with a coherent society and state. These flaws in rival states present opportunities for the new big three.
© 2015 Brian M Downing