Rise of the Middle Powers

The history of the world since 1945 is that World War 2 was the great anti-colonial war. The biggest impact of 1945, in retrospect, was that the power shifted from the imperialist to the natives. The UN was founded upon the premise that national borders were sacrosanct, and that invasion by another power, no matter how much more powerful that other power was, would be met with extremely violent pushbacks.

The major world powers that emerged after 1945 were USA and the USSR. Europe was divided between the “free world” and the communist states. In many ways, what happened in the aftermath of WW2 was that the old colonial empires collapsed. Britain, France, Netherlands, Japan and Portugal were war-wrecked states who struggled to survive, let alone hang on to their imperial acquisitions. Japan lost Taiwan and Korea. Netherlands lost Indonesia. The French lost Indochina. Britain, after the Suez canal incident, relinquished most of their overseas colonies.

The wars that did take place after the 50s and 60s showed the futility of the great powers to function as effective colonisers. The Korean war was significant, because it was a major conflict of the Cold War. It was fought to a standstill that still lasts until today. South Korea was under the influence of the West, and North Korea were allied with China and Russia. Neither the Communist bloc nor the “free world” was able to gain any significant advantage over the other. The Vietnam war was another draw: in the short run, the US-backed side, South Vietnam lost the war to the north. But the North, while nominally allied to Russia, eventually became more capitalist, in a development parallel to China's eventual embrace of capitalism. This ironically turned the North and south Vietnam towards the US side, because the US were now the protectors of Vietnam against China. China also had a border skirmish with Vietnam in 1979 and later on thought better of it.

The USSR tried to invade Afghanistan to control it better, but it got trapped in a morass where it was drained of resources, eventually breaking up and leading to the downfall of its empire. Then the US tried to invade Afghanistan, and tried to colonise it for 20 years, and eventually had to give up and leave.

Iraq and Syria were Baathist states and aligned with the Soviet Union. Then the Soviet Union collapsed and the US started encroaching on Iraq and Syria. The Syrian war represented a pushback by Russia, and was gained at considerable cost. The US managed to make Iran some kind of a client state in 1953, but the revolution in 1979 cemented its status as some kind of independent power centre. Iraq became an ally of the US after the invasion of 2003, but this was gained at considerable cost. Israel has always been a pet of the US, but this status is threatened by the Arabs in Michigan who are outraged by Biden's staunch support of Israel and are threatening to withhold their support for him until he changes tack on the Palestinian issue.

One of the triumphs of the west “winning” the Cold War is that China became a capitalist participant in the global trading system. But instead of China turning into a second Japan, who is a loyal sidekick of the West, it became a world superpower unto itself and a possible adversary of the West. Yet it has yet to exercise its military power, with the exception of “fishing boats” in the South China Sea. People are wondering just what sort of China we will see should they choose to flex their military strength. Considering the strategic position of Burma, it is very notable that they have not – to the best of my knowledge – intervened in the Myanmese civil war. Perhaps it knows that it's just better to work with whichever side wins? Perhaps it knows that the winner of any war is the party who does not participate in the conflict?

The other prize of the cold war is that the iron curtain ostensibly fell. Now, we know that it's not true that the iron curtain disappeared. We thought that the Eastern European countries would embrace liberal democracy, and that the western-most Soviet states – notably Ukraine, the Baltic states, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan would eventually try to be more like the West. But that was just a fantasy. In retrospect, the US failed to turn Russia into a more western-like country, like France or Canada. The post-communist reforms were very poorly thought out and executed. Russia became a mafia-state, a petro-state, an oligarchy. It may have had a few years of prosperity in the early Putin years, but it turned into a one man dictatorship, similar to the central Asian -stans. This fantasy completely evaporated when Russia invaded Ukraine for the second time in 2022. This sparked a lot of discussion, whereby it became apparent that the cold war vanished for a few years, only to return with a vengeance. The expansion of NATO and the EU turned out not to be the “end of history” enacting itself, but a power struggle whereby the iron curtain as nudged further and further to the east, until the Russians got fed up and decided it had had enough. There were military actions in Syria, Georgia and the Armenian – Azeri conflicts. These, in retrospect, were attempts by the Russians to re-assert itself in parts of the world where they felt like they were losing influence. But in many ways, you could see these, too, as failed attempts by Russia to claw back territory it once held, and reflective of a larger trend, which is that it's harder and harder for the powerful countries to extend their influence over the globe.

In Africa, in the 70s and 80s, the Soviets were trying to dominate Africa. Communist states were established in Angola, Ethiopia and Central Africa. This went away quickly after the USSR collapsed. I think that Zaire was a client of the west and one of the dictatorships supported by the USA. After the cold war, there were the great Congo wars, where various parties were jockeying for influence. One of the great tragedies in this was the Rwandan genocide. But there were also plenty of conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Then, more recently, there were a series of recent coups all over Francophone Africa. The one common thread through many of these conflicts is that the western powers and China were to a lesser and lesser extent in charge.

Arab Spring was another blow to the Americans' ability to shape events in the Middle East. Previously they had propped up dictators in Egypt, the Gulf States and Jordan. Now, they were relinquish Hosni Mubarak as an ally and have to deal with Egypt's experiment with democracy. Conflicts in Libya and Syria were sparked off. Turkey, The Gulf States, Russia and Iran started to try influencing events in the region. The Islamic State ruled for a few years, and eventually were defeated militarily, and then it settled into a pattern of the great powers waging war via proxy. In a way, the Houthi conflict was a proxy war between the Houthis, backed by Iran, and the Saudis. The Syrian Baathists were backed by Russia and Iran. Before 2003, the Middle East was a system where the great powers tried to influence the dictators, and the dictators ruled their countries with an iron fist. Now, it became an arena for the regional actors – Iran, Turkey, the Gulf States – to fight each other via proxy war.

The Belt and Road had always been about China creeping onto Russia's turf. After Russia collapsed, the Central Asian -stans were always ruled over by iron fisted dictators. However, after the Kasakh dictator stepped down, the legacy of his power didn't seem to be as iron-clad as it used to be. It's a bit hard to tell whether the Central Asians are going to be more allied to China or Russia in the future, and that is one of the very big questions that surround China and Russia's pronouncement that they had a relationship “without limits”. Were they drawn together due to their common interest in banding together against the West? Or is this like the Molotov-Ribbentropp pact, whereby the 2 powers pretend to shake hands, but are actually getting ready for a new situation whereby they might have to do battle with each other? Russia may not be completely happy with their incursions into Central Asia, but it finds itself fatally weakened by the continuing conflict over Ukraine, and it cannot but cede some power to India and China, who are swarming over it like vultures. In the 19^th century, we had the scramble for China and the scramble for Africa. Now we have the scramble for Russia.

There are several ways of interpreting the border conflict of the US-Mexico border. One of them is that what is going on in US is a migrant crisis. The other way of interpreting it is that the Monroe doctrine is in trouble. The US had sought to influence Latin America by establishing juntas all over the continent. The military dictatorships of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, as well as a few smaller countries in Central America were allied with the US. But it's no longer able to conduct this influence. Ross Perot's comment that all the jobs were going to Mexico (and making a “giant sucking sound”) has turned out to be quite prophetic, although it is also true that many other jobs – not all of which are good jobs – have been created to replace it. Mexico is an example of the “second world”, a place where economic development is taking place, but lacks the governance one would expect of a first world country. It's a place where things could get better, because of the prosperity and the development, and it could also get worse, because of the lawlessness and the criminal cartels moving in to cash in on the profits. The classic example of this is that infrastructure development has resulted in a place turning into a conduit for illegal drugs. Mexico has become a place where – when the US attempts to shut out a certain industry through tariffs and trade borders, other countries try to establish manufacturing facilities in Mexico, so as to bypass those trade borders.

So the US is losing its iron grip over Latin and South America. It no longer controls the military dictatorships, and the leftist governments have had their intermittent stints in power. And China is starting to encroach onto its turf. It is no longer able to establish a clear line of separation between the US mainland – which is a first world country and free of crime, and Central America, where the crime bosses and drug trade rules the roost. It is no longer able to stop Mexicans from competing with it on a few crucial industries. The US no longer commands the respect of Southern and Central American leaders. There was a conference for the Americas that was held in Los Angeles recently, and the US had some problems getting people to turn up.

Another interesting development is the expansion of the BRICS. It used to be that BRICS was dominated by China. This time, they have persuaded Egypt, Ethiopia, UAE and Iran to tag along. Argentina considered it, but they eventually decided not to join. There's not very much that unites the new members, but a few of them seem to be countries which are embroiled in some kind of conflict. I don't know if they are seeking safety in numbers or are trying to find an alternate power centre to the west. Either way, it is a very intriguing development. It's very difficult to imagine the BRICS countries moving in lockstep with China. But it's also very difficult to imagine what the Quad – US, Australia, Japan and India being a tightly knit coalition. It's entirely possible that all parties just want the economic benefits of more world trade.

The world is starting to transition. Previously, the nations outside of the great powers were weak and helpless. They were easily dominated, and they were passive and weak participants in the spheres of dominance. People had to choose sides, regarding who they wanted to ally themselves to. Now, a lot of countries have ties with both China and the US, and are unwilling to commit themselves to be firmly in anyone's camp. Duterte wanted to steer the Philippines closer to China. Marcos wants it to be closr to the US. Ma Ying-Jeou wants Taiwan to have more of a rapproachment to the mainland. Tsai Ying-wen is steeling Taiwan to stand up to China. Lai Ching-Te opposes mainland influence on Taiwan but is also trying not to get Taiwan into trouble. Israel is uncertain whether to side with US or Russia. Southeast Asia likes the security umbrella marshalled by the US, but also likes having economic ties with China.

Basically, nobody wants to be having to choose between the spheres of influence between the big powers. Perhaps spheres of influence is an outdated concept. It seems that “areas of conflict” is a more likely term of description for what's going on in the world today. The superpowers are in a dilemma: if you are too friendly with another superpower, they can turn around and hurt you. But if you engage in conflict with that superpower, then both sides will stand to lose. The smaller states are starting to realise this. They're starting to understand that the big powers can be played against each other, and that if any of the big powers want to engage in a rivalry with another one, they'll have to marshall support from the medium sized nations, who may use that as a leverage against the bigger power.