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There are not a lot of historical examples of a multipolar world that was stable and peaceful. There are competing theories, but there's a valid case to be made

There are not a lot of historical examples of a multipolar world that was stable and peaceful. There are competing theories, but there's a valid case to be made that if many nations believe they have a shot at being #1, they will inevitably go to war to find out. Whereas the current unipolar system, despite its flaws, is correlated with the largest expansion of peace and prosperity in history. I think a lot of what we are seeing in geopolitics today comes down to world leaders realizing that there could be another pole in this system if things keep going the direction they are going. And that second pole would be an authoritarian nation which is one of the greatest human rights violators on earth, has a million people in detention for practicing moderate Islam, claims sovereignty over Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong despite vigorous protest from all the aforementioned, and who shelters a neighboring hermit state that's always threatening to nuke the other pole. Predictably you have dictators like the ones in Cambodia, Russia and Thailand who are enthusiastic about the idea. Increasingly you have resistance to it in the West and in allied stable democracies like Japan and India.

mytailorisrich 7y ago
The issue here is that this is like physics: You may not like it but you cannot beat it. In my view it is simply 'physically' impossible for the world to remain unipolar under American so-called leadership. It worked for a time because the only other developed pole was Europe (and Japan), which is not united with each and every country much smaller than the US. But as the rest of the world develops then we fall back to a situation similar to the rise of the US in Victorian times: Whatever the British thought, it was 'physically' impossible for them to remain at the top. This is not only because of China. India, the EU, maybe an African block longer term. In today's world, war between 'superpowers' to find out who's #1 is also simply not possible because the cost would be astronomical and the result inevitably that everyone would revert to the stone age in a nuclear wasteland. In 100 years this will all stabilise with the US being may in 3rd place, maybe just in the top 5. No direct war, but maybe a few proxy wars in the meantime.
Jedi72 7y ago
The US could give up their priviledged position in the anglosphere and give all of us who are currently just along for the ride (i.e. weaker weatern nations) a real shot at the democracy they so fervently sprout. I forsee more colsolidation along the lines of the EU where western powers officially come together to maintain their top status, but as a whole rather than individual nations. A situatiom which comes with its own benefits & issues...
- drawnwren 7y ago
  Not to be _too_ reductionist, but isn't this exactly the situation that led to the, "valid case to be made that if many nations believe they have a shot at being #1, they will inevitably go to war to find out." In the op?
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    > if many nations believe // Isn't it "if many powerful people believe that they can use the population under their control to satisfy their megalomania"? WWI should probably have been resolved by not stopping the murder at Archduke Ferdinand but continuing on to any Royal/controlling person who thought going to war was a good idea. Do nations of people actually care if they're "#1"? People on the whole want local things AFAICT, sufficient freedoms to raise their family and achieve a degree of fulfillment in their lives.
    - emiliobumachar 7y ago
      Ferdinand was the guy who kept convincing the emperor to stay out of war. Violence has a strong tendency to seem more like a good idea than it actually is.
      - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
        My understanding is that mutual defence pacts meant that in theory various countries "had" to go to war to defend Austria-Hungary after the assassination (and similarly to oppose them). It was pretty tongue-in-cheek, but I was saying from that point the Royals involved could have solved things without having a World war. Edward and Wilhelm could probably just have been spanked by their nannies and sent to bed without any supper. I'm not well versed on it but WWI always seems to me like a duel in which the factions chose 'millions of other lives' instead of swords or pistols.
xxxpupugo 7y ago
> Whereas the current unipolar system, despite its flaws, is correlated with the largest expansion of peace and prosperity in history Problem being US is discarding its previous status, maybe because it is pretty expensive to sustain. The longest/largest expansion of peace and prosperity sounds great, but the major enabler and beneficiary of such expansion is ironically, China. I would not frame the current ongoing unsettlement of established order around the world as the war of good and evil, democracy versus totalitarianism. It could simply due to the fact of the west's diminishing lead in terms of technology and economy. On paper, we are still innovating faster than ever, however as more players on the playground, the exclusive period of ripping monetary reward from innovations is shortening, no matter it is through theft or reverse-engineering or just competitor learning faster, even open source. Knowledge is spreading faster than ever. Such trend doesn't start with China, it started with Japan, then to SK/Taiwan, finally it had reached China. Had China reached Japan's status domination of technology like it was in the 80s and 90s, with its huge domestic market, it will wield unthinkable influence over the global economy, and it will lead to empower its military ambitions. So where does this all lead. It is hard to predict really. With a loss of vision and confidence, this world would be much more unpredictable thus dangerous, but probably something could be done to prevent a Cold War 2.0, until the equilibrium is reached.
- orwin 7y ago
  I'm not pro-China in any case, i really believe in liberalism, but i think in history, and with the exception of Tibet (That's not really an exception tbh if you get back in the historical context), China was never known for waging exterior wars. Internal wars however...
  - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
    Tibet was not recognized (by China or any other country) as an independent country. It was de facto independent because of the collapse of the Chinese central government during the 1911 revolution. But most of China was under the control of local warlords at that time. Both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China viewed Tibet as just one of many provinces that were temporarily beyond the central government's control.
codedokode 7y ago
Does "expansion of peace" include peace in Kosovo, Lybia, Syria, Iraq and other countries? The list of military operations by US [1] is nowhere near empty. That "authoritarian nation" didn't do anything close to it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations#1990%E2%80%931999 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_mili...
DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
> Whereas the current unipolar system, despite its flaws, is correlated with the largest expansion of peace and prosperity in history. The post-WWII expansion occurred largely under a bipolar world. Calling this the "greatest expansion of peace and prosperity in history" is very questionable, though. > has a million people in detention for practicing moderate Islam I'm not going to claim to be an expert on what's going on in Xinjiang, but then again, 99% of the people who give their opinions on it aren't. This isn't an issue of "moderate Islam." China has a pretty significant Hui Muslim population (much larger than the Uighur population), which does not face the same issues. The issue in Xinjiang has to do with "East Turkestan" separatism, not Islam per se. The Chinese government really does not like separatism. > claims sovereignty over Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong despite vigorous protest from all the aforementioned Those territories are all internationally recognized as being part of China. Hong Kong was handed back to China by the UK as the result of a treaty. Tibet was never internationally recognized as an independent state. Taiwan is the most complicated issue. Most countries, including the United States, recognize only "one China," which is the PRC. The RoC (Taiwan) also officially recognizes only "one China," which it claims to represent. Funnily enough, Taiwan's territorial claims are even more expansive than those of the PRC, since Taiwan still officially considers Mongolia to be part of China. All those islands in the South China Sea? Taiwan also claims them (and it occupies more of them than the PRC does).

mytailorisrich 7y ago

The issue here is that this is like physics: You may not like it but you cannot beat it. In my view it is simply 'physically' impossible for the world to remain unipolar under American so-called leadership. It worked for a time because the only other developed pole was Europe (and Japan), which is not united with each and every country much smaller than the US. But as the rest of the world develops then we fall back to a situation similar to the rise of the US in Victorian times: Whatever the British thought, it was 'physically' impossible for them to remain at the top. This is not only because of China. India, the EU, maybe an African block longer term. In today's world, war between 'superpowers' to find out who's #1 is also simply not possible because the cost would be astronomical and the result inevitably that everyone would revert to the stone age in a nuclear wasteland. In 100 years this will all stabilise with the US being may in 3rd place, maybe just in the top 5. No direct war, but maybe a few proxy wars in the meantime.

Jedi72 7y ago

The US could give up their priviledged position in the anglosphere and give all of us who are currently just along for the ride (i.e. weaker weatern nations) a real shot at the democracy they so fervently sprout. I forsee more colsolidation along the lines of the EU where western powers officially come together to maintain their top status, but as a whole rather than individual nations. A situatiom which comes with its own benefits & issues...

drawnwren 7y ago
Not to be _too_ reductionist, but isn't this exactly the situation that led to the, "valid case to be made that if many nations believe they have a shot at being #1, they will inevitably go to war to find out." In the op?
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  > if many nations believe // Isn't it "if many powerful people believe that they can use the population under their control to satisfy their megalomania"? WWI should probably have been resolved by not stopping the murder at Archduke Ferdinand but continuing on to any Royal/controlling person who thought going to war was a good idea. Do nations of people actually care if they're "#1"? People on the whole want local things AFAICT, sufficient freedoms to raise their family and achieve a degree of fulfillment in their lives.
  - emiliobumachar 7y ago
    Ferdinand was the guy who kept convincing the emperor to stay out of war. Violence has a strong tendency to seem more like a good idea than it actually is.
    - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      My understanding is that mutual defence pacts meant that in theory various countries "had" to go to war to defend Austria-Hungary after the assassination (and similarly to oppose them). It was pretty tongue-in-cheek, but I was saying from that point the Royals involved could have solved things without having a World war. Edward and Wilhelm could probably just have been spanked by their nannies and sent to bed without any supper. I'm not well versed on it but WWI always seems to me like a duel in which the factions chose 'millions of other lives' instead of swords or pistols.

xxxpupugo 7y ago

> Whereas the current unipolar system, despite its flaws, is correlated with the largest expansion of peace and prosperity in history Problem being US is discarding its previous status, maybe because it is pretty expensive to sustain. The longest/largest expansion of peace and prosperity sounds great, but the major enabler and beneficiary of such expansion is ironically, China. I would not frame the current ongoing unsettlement of established order around the world as the war of good and evil, democracy versus totalitarianism. It could simply due to the fact of the west's diminishing lead in terms of technology and economy. On paper, we are still innovating faster than ever, however as more players on the playground, the exclusive period of ripping monetary reward from innovations is shortening, no matter it is through theft or reverse-engineering or just competitor learning faster, even open source. Knowledge is spreading faster than ever. Such trend doesn't start with China, it started with Japan, then to SK/Taiwan, finally it had reached China. Had China reached Japan's status domination of technology like it was in the 80s and 90s, with its huge domestic market, it will wield unthinkable influence over the global economy, and it will lead to empower its military ambitions. So where does this all lead. It is hard to predict really. With a loss of vision and confidence, this world would be much more unpredictable thus dangerous, but probably something could be done to prevent a Cold War 2.0, until the equilibrium is reached.

orwin 7y ago
I'm not pro-China in any case, i really believe in liberalism, but i think in history, and with the exception of Tibet (That's not really an exception tbh if you get back in the historical context), China was never known for waging exterior wars. Internal wars however...
- DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
  Tibet was not recognized (by China or any other country) as an independent country. It was de facto independent because of the collapse of the Chinese central government during the 1911 revolution. But most of China was under the control of local warlords at that time. Both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China viewed Tibet as just one of many provinces that were temporarily beyond the central government's control.

codedokode 7y ago

Does "expansion of peace" include peace in Kosovo, Lybia, Syria, Iraq and other countries? The list of military operations by US [1] is nowhere near empty. That "authoritarian nation" didn't do anything close to it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations#1990%E2%80%931999 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_mili...

DiogenesKynikos 7y ago

> Whereas the current unipolar system, despite its flaws, is correlated with the largest expansion of peace and prosperity in history. The post-WWII expansion occurred largely under a bipolar world. Calling this the "greatest expansion of peace and prosperity in history" is very questionable, though. > has a million people in detention for practicing moderate Islam I'm not going to claim to be an expert on what's going on in Xinjiang, but then again, 99% of the people who give their opinions on it aren't. This isn't an issue of "moderate Islam." China has a pretty significant Hui Muslim population (much larger than the Uighur population), which does not face the same issues. The issue in Xinjiang has to do with "East Turkestan" separatism, not Islam per se. The Chinese government really does not like separatism. > claims sovereignty over Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong despite vigorous protest from all the aforementioned Those territories are all internationally recognized as being part of China. Hong Kong was handed back to China by the UK as the result of a treaty. Tibet was never internationally recognized as an independent state. Taiwan is the most complicated issue. Most countries, including the United States, recognize only "one China," which is the PRC. The RoC (Taiwan) also officially recognizes only "one China," which it claims to represent. Funnily enough, Taiwan's territorial claims are even more expansive than those of the PRC, since Taiwan still officially considers Mongolia to be part of China. All those islands in the South China Sea? Taiwan also claims them (and it occupies more of them than the PRC does).