Geopolitics is always shaped
by few global powers, especially the US so far, even if it has been an
increasingly multi-polar world.
But with the recent developments
that have revolved around inward looking protectionist and autocratic powers
taking central position not just at their homes but in the overall flow of geopolitics,
the world order is increasingly going to be shaped by a block of four countries
– RUBRICHUS (Russia-Britain-China-US) with their leaders – PUMAXIT (Vladimir
Putin-Theresa May-Xi Jinping-Donald Trump).
The US still wields enormous
military power. Russia and China are big military powers in their region.
The US is also the world’s
largest economy and will remain so with its clout to greatly affect the trade
blocks and negotiations.
But then autocratic China is
also there with its economic might and a production model back home that is
antithesis of the values that the US and major economies of the free democratic
world promote.
There is absolute
protectionism and labour laws heavily tilted in the favour of businesses. And
with that model, China has become the world’s second largest economy. Further,
with the new US President Donald Trump’s inward looking and protectionist views
that aim to seclude the US economy in domestic shackles, the Asian economic
giant is trying to take a global leadership position with its president Xi
Jinping saying that China is ready to fill the space vacated by the US.
The US under Donald Trump has
effectively dumped the biggest global trade dead proposed – Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) with a potential to regulate 40% of the world’s trade. Trump’s
next target is NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement) and no one knows what
comes next. No one knows where he will stop in the name of preventing jobs and
businesses going out of the US. But signs are not good. He is threatening businesses
with counterproductive measures
Russia is a big military power
and big economy of its region of influence in Europe and Asia with an
autocratic president in Vladimir Putin who believes in the unbridled run of
power, military expansionism and has increasingly displayed a tendency to
interfere in the theatres of conflicts like it is doing in Syria. And as Putin
is sitting comfortably at home, crushing all the dissent, if he goes about
pursuing his global designs, it will be a development that was about to happen.
The erstwhile USSR was one pole of the once bipolar world and Putin has not
forgotten that.
Britain, once the reigning
colonial superpower of the world with economic and military might, has reduced
to being just a small country with no influence to affect the geopolitical
matters. Yes, but it remains a symbolic superpower of values that define the
existing free democratic world order – free men, free markets and a freer
world.
Many in Britain fought hard
and championed to create the world’s largest economy and single, border-free zone
of countries in the European Union (EU) – inspiring the world to create such
free zones for men and economies to flow freely. But that is not the case
anymore. Britain, under its new leader Theresa May, in a bitterly fought
referendum that divided the country, has said that it will exit from the EU and
the legal process has already begun.
What happens to RUBRICHUS and
PUMAXIT, only future can tell but the flow of geopolitics is going to be
dependent on their movements.
©SantoshChaubey