2014: When the bubble finally burst

Over the last few months one had to work very hard, not to notice the major questioning going on in western political and intellectual circles about the “unprecedented number of conflicts in the world today” and what it means, i.e. the “failure of liberal values”, the “end of the post-cold war era”, the “end of the United States of America as a superpower” and so on. You’ll notice the numerous quotation marks used in the sentence.

It is somehow ironic and fitting that this questioning should occur 100 years after the First World War began; 75 years after the Second World War began; and finally, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unofficial end of the Cold War. All are crucial dates and events that remind us, that peace is not only short but a relative term, and that war has been the constant presence, whether we want it or not. Acknowledging this allows us to truly put into perspective what is going on today – rather than use words like “unprecedented” and “novel”.

This is not to say that 2014 is not the end of something. If anything, it shows that a dichotomous view and management of sociopolitical issues is no longer appropriate, and that the universality of liberal ideas stemming from the Enlightenment is an illusion. 2014 reminds us, that the triad of Liberalism, Free Market and Democracy – praised as the victor after the end of the Cold War – is not an unequivocal harbinger of peace, and that the world is made of thousands of conflicting interests and political ambitions, which cannot be confined into two, three or four interpretations. The narrative must now be truly global. The impression that we are now “more than ever” surrounded by war is misleading. The end of the Cold War may have led to peaceful relations between the Soviet Union/Russia and the western block, but I would certainly not say, that it brought about an era of peace. This has been discussed and analyzed many times, it lifted the lid on many more conflicts and regional problems – more than anyone expected.

The so-called era of “Liberal Peace” of the last 25 years began with the Horn of Africa tearing itself to pieces. West Africa underwent horrendous civil wars, as did Central Africa, some of which are still ongoing. The civil wars of Ex-Yugoslavia brought mass atrocities to Europe, the likes of which it had not seen in fifty years, and although the Balkans achieved a level of stability, they remain a powder keg in many areas. The conflicts in Afghanistan have had worldwide repercussions for 35 years. Drug cartels have built a system of fear in hundreds of regions around the world, one where violence and repression dictate the terms. Russia has been at war with various neighbors for many years, including Chechnya, Georgia, and most recently Ukraine, and this excludes the colder relations it maintains with other regional actors like the Baltic states. China has been playing a game of chicken with Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam among others, over the Spratly and Senkaku Islands for decades.

Terrorism has been a big part of western insecurity going back to the 1960s, even more so since the 1990s, when dogmatic interpretations of ideology and religion have led to attacks on western states both at home and abroad. Finally, we witnessed the emergence of powerful informal structures, whose strength and credibility are matched only by the failure of states to live up to the expectations they set. Groups like Hamas, Hizballah, ISIS, Al Qaeda or Boko Haram have been allowed to establish structures and allegiances, which have made them more appealing and trustworthy than formal and duly recognized institutions. These actors truly embody the weakness of western liberalism and above all, the outdated approach to understanding international relations and conflicts.

What the visibility of the conflicts in 2014 has brought is an existential crisis for the West. Its ideas and visions, seemingly unchallenged for centuries, are demonstrating now that they are more illusion than model. It is the model of universal righteousness in force for a millennium – first with Christianity, then the Enlightenment – that is coming into question. What the West has imposed for centuries through conquest and colonization (and also sheer arrogance) did have some positive effects, but its numerous negative effects are also truly visible. The Sykes-Picot borders are a huge part of today’s middle-eastern conflicts, and we are witnessing a genuine redefinition of known borders based on ethnic, tribal and religious grounds. Most conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa are supra-regional in nature and structure, based on population flows and interests rooted in the real issues on the ground, century-old tribal tensions and allegiances. These conflicts, just like the drug cartel wars in Latin America and Asia, have daily effects in Europe, the USA and Canada. As for Russia, it clearly understood what the geopolitical situation is and took opportunity of a divided, indecisive EU and USA to pursue its aggressive international policy – with much success to this point. Consequently, all of this exposes the true discrepancy between the ideas and values we promote, their false “universality”, and the impossibility to apply them as such. Either because they are not adapted to local culture and customs, or simply because we lack the credibility that would allow them to take root and develop, as it did with us.

This discrepancy is also domestically obvious. Crime and poverty have dramatically increased in Europe and North America, while financial and migratory crises have exposed the latent conservatism, racism, and xenophobia of western states, demonstrated by the steady and strong increase in support of far-right parties and rhetoric, with many of these parties having elected members in local, municipal, national and supranational bodies. We can also add the resurgence of separatism and national movements to the mix, that are sure to disturb the current order of things. In short, we are struggling ourselves with our values and ideas, and we are staring at internal conflicts that may not be violent (yet), but are not peaceful either.

It is understandable, that something as big, as fluent, as fast as full globalization in all its facets creates a cognitive dissonance, when confronted with a polarized view of politics and geopolitics. But to many of us, whose job it is to monitor and adapt to these changes, those that understand that security issues are truly global, this is security and politics in the 21st century, the evolution and devolution of history. What the conflicts in 2014 really do is, they force us to reconsider our approach to world politics, security, and domestic sociopolitics. This does not mean, that things are worse than ever, nor that this is the “end of history” or similar conclusions, but merely, that we genuinely need to think globally, and that our roles and methods have changed. But no one said change was easy, especially in an exponentially developing world.