The West Patiently Awaits Its Decline

In order to undermine America’s world order, China and Russia are resorting to a strategy from the Cold War. The U.S. is even helping achieve its own destruction through a policy of isolationism.

Historians will likely regard last year as the year when the American world order started to crumble. As the political scientist Walter Russell Mead wrote, “Sometime in 2013, we reached a new stage in world history.” Although the order America imposed on Eurasian countries in the wake of the Cold War hasn’t been overridden yet, according to Mead: “From this point on we will have to speak of that situation as contested.”

Francis Fukuyama coined the phrase the “end of history” to refer to the time when the collapse of the Soviet Union finally came to an end. The geopolitics are back.

There are many clues which support this view. They are connected to the growing isolationism of America’s population and politics. For years, President Barack Obama has tried to pick up on the United States’ commitment to global affairs, and he has taken actions that left many U.S. allies from the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere feeling anxious. It also gave some states the opportunity to push back against U.S. influence and undermine the American world order piece by piece, especially because they have been unhappy with the situation for decades.

The most important competitors with the U.S. are China, Russia and Iran. In their own way, they all try to harm American relations and alliances across the world, in particular where the superpower’s reluctance or absent-mindedness allows such harm. The historian and columnist Anne Applebaum writes that there isn’t a return of the Cold War yet, “but the tactics of the old Cold War are now, at the dawn of 2014, suddenly being deployed in a manner not seen since the early 1980s.”

A Policy of Pinpricks Against the U.S.

In spring, Moscow flew sham attacks against Sweden, threatened the ex-Soviet states and recently stopped the Ukraine and Armenia from joining the EU through bribes and blackmail.

In order to maintain a foothold in the Middle East, Russia has been at the disposal of its ally in Syria: the murderous President Bashar Assad. This is similar to what happened during the Cold War. Putin also does not hide his eagerness to revive a lighter version of the Soviet Union in the form of the “Eurasian Union.” Moscow’s bullying of its independent neighboring states in this way has not happened since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

China also believes that something is possible again. Establishing a no-fly zone over Peking, which China claims to be an international no-fly zone, appears to be a challenge to the U.S. A similar challenge was posed when the Chinese navy nearly provoked a collision with a U.S. war vessel in the same area.

Like Russia, China is not able to go to war against America. Hence, both resort to a policy of pinpricks, which aims to dismantle American alliances and undermine the U.S. allies’ confidence in an American superpower. Their message is this: Don’t rely on the U.S., which does not have the will or power to protect you in the long run; start dealings with us.

Evaluation of Iran’s Political Power

Iran also adheres to such revisionist ideals. Just like China and Russia, the clerical regime in Tehran sees itself in ideological competition with America. Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, it has felt exposed to Western values, such as freedom and democracy, which are ideas that the so-called “great Satan” champions like no other country. Alongside this ideological tendency, the classical geostrategic pursuit of power also plays a role in this region.

Iran sees itself as a representative of the Shiites and is attempting to forge a Shiite alliance comprised of the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Alawite regime in Damascus and the Shiite-dominated government in Iraq. Tehran sees itself as the natural leader of such an alliance. However, the U.S. has also done a lot in recent years to strengthen Tehran and to irritate the traditional Sunni allies of Washington.

Saddam Hussein’s fall, which was instigated by the U.S., enabled the Shiite majority in Baghdad to seize political power. Ever since, the new government has been cleverly manipulated and influenced to Tehran’s benefit. In Syria, the U.S. has done very little to overthrow Iran’s ally Bashar Assad. Further, following Assad’s use of chemical weapons, the U.S. accepted a deal that would put Assad in de facto power. Now it seems that the U.S. is bringing Tehran out of the cold with a nuclear deal to largely favor the country, which would eventually loosen the nuclear program.

The symbolic nuclear deal has caused a significant political revaluation of Tehran, without which it would have to abandon its problematic and destabilizing role in the region. Hence, Washington has a significant interest in its Sunni allies either protecting themselves by constructing their own bomb and thus relying on international law protected by the U.S., like Saudi Arabia, or questioning whether it’s better to rely on those who hold power in Tehran than [those who hold power in] the U.S. — which does not appear to be filling the role of world’s policeman anymore.

The Fight against the U.S. Is a Uniting Element

At the moment, the three contenders have too little power and do not possess a sufficiently attractive economic model to release the world from an American world order. Furthermore, the contenders are only allies where the U.S. is concerned; otherwise, they are not on the best of terms. However, a growing American weakness and detachment from the world is gradually being felt, since many small states that used to be under U.S. protection are now being forced to figure out a plan B.

The indecisiveness and consternation with which the West reacted to Ukraine turning its back on Europe under Russian influence also shows that the U.S. and Europe have given up thinking in terms of geopolitics. We can thus acknowledge that we have not yet entered a period in which Western norms are valid at an international level, but we still live in a world where the old ruthless game of power relations and manipulation among states continues to be played, and is on the rise.

In recent years it has even become academically fashionable to predict America’s downfall. Thus, it seems even more incomprehensible that the West does not prepare or even anticipate the problems that might arise from such a downfall. The multipolar world of which German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and French President Jacques Chirac used to dream is a world that resembles a school playground. It’s one in which rowdy school bullies use threats and violence against the smaller countries to make them part of their entourage.

The year 2013 has given us the first clue as to how such a world might eventually look. In any case, the world would look that way if the West no longer invested the same will, resources or mental energy it has put into conserving the world order thus far.