A GEOPOLITICS REALITY ESSAY AT THE BEGINNING OF 2015

Nicolás Dousdebès Córdova Mgs.

Salesian Polytechnic University

(Quito-Ecuador, Girón Campus)

Social Communication Career

International Journalism Course

Abstract

There is not an easy way to talk about a whole geopolitics reality because it is a changing object of study throughout time. Worldwide forces shift in few years; sometimes even in months. Oil prices could suddenly fall and leave behind a new scenario where those states that had trusted on high raw material incomes to adjust their budgets will have to face unexpected challenges. New strong economies are emerging defying traditional western powers; in the meantime, the terrorist shadow keeps growing up in the Middle-East threatening Europe where islamphobic reactions have begun to arise.

This short essay does not intend to be a picture that depicts the world geopolitical shape, 15 years after the world started the third millennium of the current era; there are thousands of facts taking place in the world today that are not here mentioned. Its only purpose is to provide some guidelines to develop further some relevant issues and facts. They will certainly shape the world’s fragile balance of power in the years ahead. In other words, it is just an appetizer for those willing to deepen into them.

A traditional power getting weak

In recent years, it could be said, the first 15 years of the 21th century, things have changed a lot in the world. Global reality is not the same it used to be at the beginning of this period, especially before the collapse of the World Trade Center, due to terrorist attacks on 9/11 2001.

USA seemed to be, as Huntington stated, a “lonely power” and there was no other country or international actor strong enough to defy its hegemony in the whole world. Besides the above mentioned factor, there have been many other circumstances which have led this country and its imperial influence to a deep decline. As a matter of fact, we have witnessed how what used to be a single UNIPOLAR power has become a much different reality where many other actors have emerged challenging the prior American power. In other words, the world lives now in a MULTIPOLAR system.

Among the reasons that have helped to decrease the traditional American power, it could be useful to remember that American dollar is not as strong as it used to be; maybe because all the wars that have made bleed the U.S. economy (Vietnam, and more recently, Afganistan and Irak). Secondly, Russia has emerged as a super power on the east side of Europe; no country or organization was capable enough, for instance, to prevent it from swallowing the Crimea peninsula in 2014.

Deep economic changes

Moreover, countries that traditionally were considered part of the third world have reached high levels of industrialization and specialization of their human talent. They are no longer consumers of the products that European countries, Japan or United States make. Or at least, not in the same way as in the past. The so called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), are now producing now goods and products that are highly demanded in all the world; therefore, they are challenging the economic and geopolitical situation that was traditional until the end of the 20th century.

Nevertheless, in the realm of worldwide economics there is more news, the dramatic drop of oil prices, during the last seven months of 2014, shows that some governments that have been trusting on high oil prices to maintain social benefits towards their populations -like Ecuador or Venezuela in Latin America-, could be in trouble, or they will have to face a hard time to keep those policies. But emerging powers have also to fear; for instance, Russia heavily depends on oil and gas because they both stand for 70 % of its export incomes. If this trend continues, recession might be knocking at that nation’s door. As it could be foreseen, there are also winners from this situation; industrialized economies such as Japan, India and the EC are now consuming cheaper oil to ease their debts and slightly improve their economic output (BBC, 2015).

The Middle-East is still the biggest world oil producer. Among the countries that belong to the rich club of the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia is by far, the leading one. It has not decided to decrease its oil production quota in order to make prices boost. This could be due to the fact that it is a country wealthy enough to wait for a change in the oil market before undertaking any maneuver to push prices up. The new Saudi Arabia’s king, Salman has received the visit of the American President, Barack Obama (on January 27th, 2015). They shared their points of view about a variety of topics, from human rights to the common strategy against IS (Islamic State). The oil issue has not been touched, at least not according to some media (BBC, 2015). Does this mean that USA also benefits from low oil prices?; most probably yes since it consumes more energy than it produces within its boundaries.

The growing terrorist shadow

In 2014 -2015, the threat represented by IS has grown up until the point of making the Obama administration intervene to reduce the range and power of this fundamentalist group that challenges the western civilization in a kind of mediaeval strategy of terror but equipped with the most advanced weapons and financed through black market oil and kidnappings.

The American policy of not sending troops on ground to fight against IS and trying to stop it just by dropping smart bombs from drones has certainly slowed down the advance of this merciless group but it is not likely to extinguish its danger and avoid more thrilling mass murders in Syria and Iraq. The last crisis of two Japanese hostages apparently caught by IS (January 2015) could eventually trigger a stronger reaction from more western countries towards these professionals of extreme terror.

But Europe is also in the eye of the hurricane; in many German cities there have been bitter reactions against the possibility of granting asylum for African and Middle-East refugees. Far right parties or groups are supposed to support this kind of demonstrations that echoes back to the nation’s dark Nazi past. In addition, France’s traditional freedom of expression through satirical press and cartoons was hit when extremists murdered 12 people at the Charlie-Hebdo magazine main headquarters in Paris, on 7th January 2015. This demonstrates that western democracy does not have a shield safe enough to protect its citizens from fundamentalist terror.

As though it were not enough, the Palestinian – Israeli conflict has worsened in the Middle East threatening to push other regional powers, like Iran, into an uncontrolled war. Beyond any rational doubt, international public opinion has not seen the 2014 attacks from Israel against the strip of Gaza as a merely defensive act but they even have been considered by many as crime war actions where children and women have suffered the worst part of this endless conflict.

Further changes in the international arena

On the other hand, in the last month of 2014, USA has taken an unprecedented step by reopening diplomatic ties with Cuba. Even if the commercial embargo against this country has not yet finished, it seems that another piece of the old international world order is falling apart. Maybe the classical fear caused by communism in western countries has faded due to the fact that even centralized economies like China have opened their doors to foreign investments and capitals since more than twenty years.

However, such changes do not mean that people are being given more political freedom. As a matter of fact, the recent events in Hong Kong that have been named the “umbrella revolution” reveal little interest in changing the old way to do politics in the Asiatic emerging power.

In another continent, Greece has voted Alexis Tsipras as its president (on January 26th 2015). A radical leftist was elected to lead his country to a safe harbor after years of violent waves of social discontent due to a huge public debt and austerity measures that were about to drown the Hellenic economy and throw it out the Eurozone. The deep crisis taking place in this Mediterranean country, which boasts about the fact of being the cradle of democracy, has a new chance to be solved if Tsipras and his team find out how to balance two opposite forces: international pressure from creditors and popular demands on improving social services and keeping prices low.

Is it a new world order?

Some authors, like Cox, have redefined the classical notion of power and international relations within the World System. According to his point of view, it would be more appropriated now to talk about multiple kinds of relations among countries and actors in the international arena. So, in addition to the usual relations among states, scholars have added relations between states and these new international subjects (transnational companies, international organizations, irregular groups such as Mexican drug dealers, among others).

But he also quotes Wallerstein, an author that has a marxist point of view of the international relations. For this latter, in the world, we are still submitted to an unfair order where relations are shaped by exploitation from the central countries to the peripheral ones (COX, 1993). However, as it has just been stated, the new industrialized nations are changing this classical view. In addition to the topics that have been glimpsed here, there are others not less important factors that should also be taken into account in order to better understand the new world order. The syllabus for the study of geopolitics at the Georgetown University summarizes very clearly the most outstanding causes that are quickly fostering an accelerated transformation in history, 

The 21st Century has ushered in a global transformation that is redefining the world order. This transformation is shifting geo-political centers of gravity and is re-casting geo-political influences as the world experiences an unprecedented diffusion of power. This course will examine the above thesis… is this in fact happening? Are the six and a half billion people in the world – soon to be eight billion – and the nations they reside in, redefining geo-political relationships governed by the new realities of global challenges? Global challenges such as an interconnected global economy, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, environmental and energy issues, pandemic health threats, poverty, despair, and new technologies. Are we entering a new era of global engagement and accommodation? Is all of this reshaping and redefining relationships? (GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, 2013)

As a conclusion, many things have changed in the world during the first 15 years of this century. It would be extremely important to focus on each one of these aspects to foresee how the world will continue changing and where it will head for.

Bibliography

BBC. (01 de 27 de 2015). http://www.bbc.com. Obtenido de http://www.bbc.com: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31001332

BBC. (19 de 01 de 2015). www.bbc.com. Obtenido de http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29643612

COX, R. (1993). Fuerzas sociales, Estado y Órdenes Mundiales. En A. MORALES, El poder y el orden mundial (págs. 119-122). San José: Flacso.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY. (2013). http://courses.georgetown.edu. Obtenido de http://courses.georgetown.edu: http://courses.georgetown.edu/index.cfm?Action=View&CourseID=INAF-336&AcademicYear=2013&AcademicTerm=FallSpring