‘Superpower’ is a term used to describe a nation-state that has the power to wield a decisive influence at a global level far in excess of the rest of the nation-states. When this term first began to be used in the pre-World War 2 period and, during and just after that war, the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland (the UK) was included in this category along with just two other states, namely, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and, the United States of America (USA).
The criteria applied comprised economic, geo-political and cultural or ideological power. It was the basis of economic power and geographical spread of influence that then provided the foundation for immense military power, including the capacity to extend that military power across the globe. The ideological influence arises from the pre-existing spread and influence of European colonial and industrial domination, which, in turn, resulted in the global privileging of a single, regional civilisation, namely, Europe. Hence, the conceptual dominance of modernity, rational science and philosophy, market capitalism and liberal democracy as global standards of current human endeavour.
The collapse of the British Empire in the post-WW2 period was the first chink in the superpower establishment. The loss of its colonial territories completely undermined the UK’s ability to extend its military power globally.
Nuclear military power with the sheer scale of destructive force and, capacity for total global reach, was the final defining factor that raised the US and USSR to a status of world power never before achieved by any previous society or community. The combined explosive power of the nuclear arsenals of the Soviet bloc and the US bloc was enough to destroy both, humanity as well as the Earth itself. Ultimately, nuclear power became its own ‘deterrent’.
The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and, the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 heralded the end of the dual superpower system and, the emergence of the US as the sole superpower. This reconfigured the global political system in the most significant manner since the start of the superpower antagonism of the Cold War in 1945 after WW2.
It is possible to argue that events and developments in 2016 may herald yet another similarly significant change in the global political system - the end of the ‘age of superpowers’ per se.
Actually, 2016 is perhaps the most significant year so far in a process that has gradually emerged in the last decade and more. That is, the greater diffusion of political and economic power among more countries than ever before led, first, by China’s rise and, then by the rise of India and the emergence of several other powers across the continents. The rise in economic capacities as well as the expansion of international economic linkages of several such countries was also a spur for the arming of these states to enable them to wield military influence at least in their own and neighbouring regions.
While India, today, is asserting its military and political power in its own region of South Asia, China is dominant in its own East Asia region and is already reaching far beyond its immediate geographic neighbourhood. Brazil in South America, and, Nigeria and South Africa in the African continent are the other countries that have now formed a kind of second tier emerging regional powers. Russia, as a diminished economic power, also fits this category.
The new international groupings that have emerged, such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and the Shanghai economic grouping are based on their newly built economies, the consolidation of their own versions of modernity and their own networking within the global community of nations.
At the same time, the ineptness of the US in exercising its ‘sole superpower’ status resulting in horrific geo-political mis-adventures in the Persian Gulf, West Asia and Central Asia, has contributed to the shaming of America and the dilution of its ideological hegemony. The Western bloc’s complicity with the US in these political disasters ushered in the decline of the West as the standard bearer of global civilization. The success stories of the newly emerging powers have built up parallel ‘universes’ in which the rich variety of development and modernization options give greater meaning to global humanity, tired of the previous single ‘model’.
The single most decisive event this year that influenced the whole world is the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election. America has produced a president who, in his election rhetoric itself, has announced the abdication of the US from its current superpower position in the world.
Already NATO’s other members, especially, the West European powers are devising their own regional military configuration and there may soon be an EU military force that is independent of the US’ military support. The EU will, in future, deal with other world actors such as, Russia (their seemingly hostile neighbour), China, and newly emerging Iran in West Asia, in ways independent of US interests.
Trump has already tilted the US away from its global outreach orientation so Washington may be happy to concede such independent geo-politics by its former close friends in NATO. Likewise, when Trump’s Washington, despite the influence of its many political and business ‘insiders’, decries the cost of maintaining bases in other countries such as Japan, South Korea and in Central Asia and Africa, this will only open up space for the emerging powers to step in.
At the same time, the announced withdrawal of the UK from the EU and corollary changes in attitude by other EU member states, is already threatening to reconfigure that giant regional state-economy in ways that will dilute its current collective power and status as a key element of the Western bloc. Since ‘superpower’ status involves global alliances that enable global military outreach, the weakening of the EU and NATO add to the undermining of the US as the sole superpower.
The announcement in mid-2016 of the finalizing of a global banking system led by the BRICS countries also provides a new economic pole that may soon parallel the US-led World Bank and IMF system.
Equally important has been the UN’s Paris Agreement on Climate Change finalized in Paris in November 2016 that saw the Agreement become globally binding. Even if Trump cannot fathom the intricacies of global warming, the US is now bound by caps on emissions and effluent. Attempts to withdraw from this Agreement will only weaken the US in the global trade system. On the other hand, the US no longer has the capacity to single-handedly buck global economic trends and get away with it. This global framework that includes the superpower in its grip is yet another factor that ultimately undermines that very superpower status.
A final development this year that adds to the weakening of the West’s hegemony is the emergence of global anti-State insurgency, an insurgency that is currently led by Islamist terrorists in West Asia and their offshoots in other parts of the world. The sheer number of attacks by this Islamist insurgency in 2016 and their spread across the entirety of the Western bloc countries (even Canada and Australia have suffered Islamist attacks or alerts) can be seen also as ‘armed propaganda’ to use an old Cold War term. The sheer demonstration effect of armed bands nesting in remote corners of West Asia countries and then striking into the heart of the US and Europe is a factor that further undermines the ideological supremacy of the West led by the US.
What this all means is that, with an imminent end of the age of superpowers, humanity faces the exciting, if daunting challenge of braving a new world in which stability and prosperity cannot rely on the protection of one or two superpowers, but requires the efforts and imagination of all peoples. Or, will there be an age of some international chaos and stability first? 2017 may show us the way of the world in the future.