A World in Disarray

The world is a mess.  No matter on what side of the great divide in American politics you reside, there appears to be great consensus that something has gone awry, or so says Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations and former George HW Bush advisor in his new book, “A World In Disarray.”  In remarks before the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Mr. Haass said he hoped that his next planned book won’t be entitled “A World In Chaos,” but the “arrows are pointed in the wrong direction.”

Things looked quite different twenty-five years ago.  The collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in an era of hope.  The superpower tension that brought us to the brink of nuclear annihilation in 1962 suddenly relaxed.  The apogee of the World Order 1.0 was probably reached in 1991 when a united coalition of countries successfully repelled the annexation of the sovereign country of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein.  Brent Scowcroft envisioned a world in which, “…a new era, freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace.  An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony.”   People spoke of a “New World Order” and “The End of History.” 

From today’s perspective, all that appears to have been hopelessly naïve.  A few commentators pithily predicted in 1990 that we would someday yearn for the good old days of the Cold War.  It appears that vision may have come to pass.  The world has passed from the bi-polar world of the Cold War to a largely unipolar one, and into one where several powers are once again competing for power and influence.   On top of that, we have nonstate actors that are wreaking havoc.

Under World Order 1.0, countries were more or less free to do what they wished as long as it was done within their own borders.  The classic view of order is “a respect for sovereignty,” and an aversion to “the use of military force to achieve foreign policy aims.”  The order that followed the Second World War (even though dominated by the Cold War) was enabled largely because the defeated Axis Powers were transformed into functioning democracies rather than punished, as they had been after WWI.

 But now,  merely respecting sovereignty is not sufficient as problems within a state’s boundaries have a way of leaking out: pollution and contribution to global warming, refugee crises, and pandemics are just some of the examples of problems that threaten to spill across borders.  He calls for World Order 2.0, in which the world recognizes that it is permissible to intervene when such issues present themselves.

Haass argues that the Cold War brought with it its own kind of discipline, which has since eroded.  American leadership and prestige has also been diminished by its intervention in Iraq and its precipitous withdrawal, its action in Libya without concurrence from Russia or China, and its inability to show internal discipline with its dysfunctional politics and deficit and debt problems.    Finally, he sees the unenforced “red line” with Syria’s use of chemical weapons as a terrible blunder.  A more chaotic world has been worsened by U.S. policy missteps.

Haass does not present an optimistic view of where this is all headed.  He does not see the Israel/Palestinian problem to be ripe for a solution, nor does he see peace breaking out anywhere in the Middle East anytime soon.  As to nonproliferation, he also takes a dim view, “If  a state is determined to  go nuclear, it is very difficult to stop them.”  Likewise, he is not entirely hopeful about the European project, “In a span of little more than two years, Europe has gone from being the most integrated and stable region in the world, the region most resembling ‘the end of history’ ideal, to one that appears to risk being overwhelmed by history returning with a vengeance.’ And while he does not lay all blame at the feet of the United States, he asserts that we made errors of both omission and commission that have made things worse in a number of different theaters.

Haass’s work is indispensable reading for those that wish to come to a greater understanding of how our world is evolving.   It is short and digestible.  It has its flaws—it all but ignores South America and gives short shrift to the challenges posed by radical Islam.  Yet, his work methodically frames our foreign policy challenges in a largely nonpartisan way.

I highly recommend A World in Disarray, but it should be read with a large glass of wine.