A View from Afar, by Dr Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning.
In this the eleventh episode of A View from Afar for 2023, political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and journalist Selwyn Manning examine how the post-World War II liberal internationalist system is being challenged by a fluid constellation of global and regional powers to influence the shape of an emerging new world order.
And Paul and Selwyn also assess how this massive shift in geopolitic demarcations is forming, relatively quickly, into a world of bipolarity where on one side we have a multipolar constellation of states, and on the other the traditional western liberal democracies.
The catalyst behind this rapidly forming bipolarity is conflict.And, most recently, it is clear, that the Israel-Hamas war – and the atrocities committed initially by Hamas and more lately by Israel forces – is driving the world toward a transitional moment.
It appears, that what is emerging from the current multipolar system – and think here the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court among many other global bodies – is a situation that is not merely new-and-old Great Powers competing as nation-states.
But rather, what we see are groupings of fluid constellations of powers competing as blocs to influence the shape of what is to come.
In this episode Paul and Selwyn discuss and describe what is now evident, and sketch out what will likely emerge.
Of course, as mentioned, the Israel-Hamas war lays bare any claims of morality and exposes the hypocrisies of all sides in conflicts.
In particular the Hamas-Israel war exposes the west – led by the United States of America, the United Kingdom and various European states – to an argument that the west is morally moribund as it continues its colonial/post colonial attitudes of support of Israel as the latter commits an apparent disproportionate-defence offensive against Palestine’s peoples.
The argument appears to carry weight, especially as this western axis sustains its support for Israel’s war machine even while, on international humanitarian law grounds, the atrocities being committed against Palestine’s civilian population are morally indefensible and potentially legally enforceable as war crimes.
For example; retribution for the atrocities and despicable crimes committed by Hamas against defenceless Israeli citizens does not remove culpability for the State of Israel as it delivers on an apparent intention to annihilate Hamas and all people – children, the elderly, all innocents – who may surround Israel’s targets.
IHL shows how duty of care is not excused even if civilians are used as “human shields”, and at this juncture, it is not clear, whether that cited flawed-justification is founded on truth.
This is the position of what was once an authoritarian axis.
But what has formed is a multipolar-constellation that supports the Palestinian cause on postcolonial, Global South, and solidarity grounds.
The Questions:
So if all of this carnage is the catalyst for a new world order, what comes next?
Will we see the emergence of a parallel global institutional structure that develops as a counter-balance to the west’s post-WWII world order?
Has the west’s leading power lost its moral authority through its support for a war machine that has caused the deaths of over 10,000 people of innocent disposition, while itself refuses to be a signatory member state to the International Criminal Court and its principles of global justice?
And as such, has the west ceded persuasive moral authority to the rising constellation of once authoritarian-states that dominate the opposing bloc?
And does the west, as a consequence, find itself powerless to counter the migration of moderate independent states that are repelled by the immorality of the west’s arguments, laid bare by the Hamas-Israel war?
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