The retreat of the liberal democratic world.
Back to the jungle. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War and the associated bipolar world order. In the same year, political scientist Francis Fukuyama published an article in which he proclaimed ‘the end of history as such’. The end of the Cold War was not only the end of a historical period, but the end of history as such. It was the zenith and completion of human evolution, in which humankind had overcome its warlike existence and peace, democracy and a liberal world order had become the new natural state of affairs. It was the beginning of the universalisation of the Western liberal-democratic world order. But democracy and peace are not part of the natural world order and certainly cannot be taken for granted. The liberal-democratic world order must be constantly fought for and, above all, defended. Defending it requires strong global leadership from those states that have promoted this world order over the last 80 years. These include, in particular, the United States and Western Europe.
The natural world order
The international political system is characterised by anarchy and disorder. In order to guarantee their own security and survival, states are ultimately dependent on themselves and, in the best case, on allies. In this system, there is no institution hierarchically superior to the nations that, as a sovereign power, has the power and resources that are not dependent on the individual interests of the states. Because every sovereign state naturally puts its own interests first, we live in an inherently unstable security dilemma. This anarchic, violent state of nature has characterised human coexistence since the beginning of our modern state system. For most of our human and state history, we have been far removed from democracy and peace.
This multipolar system was unstable because no state had the resources and the de facto monopoly on power to enforce peace. The only nation that could have shouldered this responsibility – namely the USA – withdrew into isolation in the 1920s and 1930s. This led to the two world wars at the beginning of the 20th century. The resulting bipolar balance between the USA and the Soviet Union ensured a long, stable period of relative peace without global wars and direct confrontations between the world powers. The power constellation of balancing great powers and their reluctance to engage in direct confrontation for fear of a nuclear conflict allowed Europe to recover from two catastrophic world wars. At the end of the 1980s, everything looked as Fukuyama described it: the dominance of Western liberal ideology of democracy and freedom promised a new state of nature.
But things turned out differently than expected. Our current situation does not correspond to the ideas that people had at the beginning of the 1990s. Geopolitics has once again become a major component of international politics, and the emerging regional hegemonic powers have increased their quest for power. The natural features of the international political system have become visible again, and liberal institutionalism, which attempted to enforce rule- and norm-based politics, is now losing its impact. The number of authoritarian regimes is increasing worldwide, and freedom is tending to decline. Nationalism has awakened from hibernation and is showing its ugly face. History, as Fukuyama predicted, has neither come to an end nor progressed in the direction hoped for by the liberal-democratic world. If the international community is left to its own devices without clear leadership, anarchy, not peace, is the natural state of affairs. Clear leadership under a global hegemon followed the logic of mitigating our imperfections and flaws. The absence of such leadership celebrates and promotes these imperfections and flaws, leading us into a security dilemma.
The role of the USA and Europe’s dilemma
The democratisation and inclusiveness of institutions and states that has emerged over the last 80 years, as well as the relative peace since the First and Second World Wars, was unfortunately not the result of human progress, but of the prevailing balance of power. The global hegemon, the USA, had imposed its values on the losing powers of the Second World War and, in return, created cohesion, economic growth, democracy and a free society. Germany is the best example of this. It was only thanks to the intervention of the USA in favour of peace, democracy, capitalism and the subsequent economic growth since 1945 that Europe was able to stabilise.
Even after 70 years, we Europeans are still dependent on the US because we are still unable to guarantee our own security. For decades, Europe was able to rely on the protection of the US and cut back on security and military spending, investing instead in the welfare state, the economy and research. But now the US is withdrawing and Europe is facing a problem – it has to make up for what it has missed out on in recent decades. However, a European army is a long way off, which is why each country must pursue its own strategy and ensure its own national security. And so we find ourselves back in the natural state of international politics, running the risk of European countries once again arming themselves separately.
Is this really what we want? Hasn’t history taught us better? Of course, we Europeans often and readily criticise the role of the USA as the world’s policeman. We are the first to raise a warning finger at military interventions by American hawks, even though we have benefited from this global dominance for decades. But from a European perspective, the alternative to the USA as a world power is much less appealing.
The withdrawal of the hegemon is always associated with a shift in the balance of power, leading to uncertainty and unrest. The relative decline of the hegemon gives regional, emerging powers the opportunity to rise in the ranks of international politics and take the place of the world power itself. This quest for power is dangerous for the international community and a potential attack on the democratic-liberal world order. Multipolar systems generate more uncertainty and historically tend to lead to violent conflicts. The withdrawal of the US as a stabilising force and its relinquishment of responsibility for maintaining peace, leadership in global political issues and international challenges such as climate change marks the resurgence of a multipolar political order.
The isolation and desire to relinquish responsibility for world peace and the liberal world order is understandable. The US has fought too many unnecessary, misguided wars. Too many sons of the nation did not return home. Too much taxpayer money was spent on the military-industrial complex. But what is the alternative? The US already attempted to isolate itself after the First World War in the 1930s and 1940s. The result was a devastating war in Europe, into which the US was ultimately drawn anyway. The resulting international responsibility weighed heavily on the shoulders of the United States.
In the post-war period, the USA played a decisive role in the European peace project. It helped to reconcile Germany and France, was involved in the reconstruction of Europe and held a protective military shield over the war-torn old continent. The US was also heavily involved in the reunification of Germany and was a driving force when the rest of Europe was sceptical about a united Germany. Thanks to the US, the Cold War was won peacefully.
The majority of Americans and the political establishment – not just President Trump – support the US disengaging from geopolitical power struggles. They believe that ‘America First’ and a focus on their own problems will restore them to their former strength. They have also long since lost interest in the transatlantic partnership. And this at a difficult time for Europe, when dangerous rifts are emerging on the old continent. Brexit is a symptom of the current crisis of meaning. Tensions with Russia pose a major threat. It would be in the best interests of the US to bring key players such as Germany, the UK and France closer together again. The US was the driving force behind the peace project in Europe, but today it is no longer committed to keeping this peace project alive or revitalising it.
The withdrawal of the US as a champion of the liberal order and as a leading power poses major challenges for Europe and the international community. Liberal democratic values promoted cohesion in the Western world, and the international community relied on the US to uphold these values. However, it seems that the pendulum is swinging in the other direction and that the withdrawal of the US as a stabilising force is not just temporary. A hasty withdrawal from Iraq and the consistently inconsistent line taken in the Syrian conflict show the trend we can expect to see in the coming years. In the conflict over the South China Sea, many countries are hoping for US support to stand up to China. However, it is more than uncertain whether the United States will actually assume this responsibility.
The story continues
The rise of authoritarian states has thwarted modernisation theory. Developing countries that manage to escape poverty do not automatically become liberal and democratically organised states. Authoritarian states provide stability and are often no weaker than their democratic counterparts in terms of economic performance. The best examples of this are Singapore and China. This means that the liberal world order is not a sure-fire success. It requires international commitment, moral and ideological guidelines, and a coherent foreign policy to spread these values throughout the world. As Robert Kagan beautifully illustrated in his analogy, the liberal democratic world order is like a garden that needs to be tended. It is not the natural state of affairs. Without this care, weeds grow and the well-tended garden is suffocated by the overgrown jungle. The jungle, however, harbours war, nationalism and instability. This is what history teaches us. Unfortunately, historical memory in the US is just as short as ours.
Dr. Thomas Borer
*This text is based on Robert Kagan’s book ‘The Jungle Grows Back’, his lecture at the GDI on 21 January, and is a reflection of his hypothesis. I reflect on this with my own experiences on the diplomatic world stage, current developments and the theoretical concepts of Francis Fukuyama, Kenneth Waltz and Samuel Huntington.