{"id":158768,"date":"2020-04-20T12:01:25","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T11:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=158768"},"modified":"2020-04-20T08:45:58","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T07:45:58","slug":"world-order-and-covid-19-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/04\/world-order-and-covid-19-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"World Order and COVID-19 Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

19 Apr 2020 – <\/em>This is a slightly modified text of an interview conducted by Daniel Falcone and published on 17 April\u00a0in CounterPunch<\/em>.<\/p>\n

World Order and the Sars-Co2-Virus<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Daniel Falcone<\/strong>:\u00a0<\/em>Carlos\u00a0Delcl\u00f3s<\/a>, a sociologist based in Barcelona has highlighted the need for bottom up responses for social\u00a0solidarity in Spain when compared to the unity declarations\u00a0put forth by the monarchy. Further, journalist\u00a0Ben Ehrenreich<\/a>\u00a0cites that while there are severe problems with the government, remnants of a democratic\u00a0spirit and mutual aid keep optimism and hope alive within their system of universalized healthcare. Can you comment on the greater European\u00a0response to pandemic<\/a>?<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard Falk<\/strong>: I am aware of the\u00a0greater strength and role of cooperative movements<\/a>\u00a0in European countries, a residue of the socialist movements of the prior century, that give rise to more spontaneous approaches on local levels to immediate threats to well-being, exhibiting both less trust and less dependence on governmental undertakings.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, European health systems are more evolved, fewer people left out, and more sense of public responsibility, although some deficiencies also emerged.\u00a0Italy and Spain<\/a>\u00a0lacked sufficient governmental capabilities to cope humanely with the challenge of a pandemic, although the epicenter was initially in\u00a0Lombardy<\/a>, the richest part of the country.<\/p>\n

Given the urbanization and social complexity accompanying modernity, the need for intelligent, imaginative, and humane governance is a necessity in times of societal crisis, and its absence magnifies suffering.<\/p>\n

Daniel Falcone: <\/strong>The World Bank is reporting that\u00a0<\/em>Sub-Saharan Africa<\/a>\u00a0is experiencing a drastic economic downturn and the first in more than a couple of decades. Can you explain the unfolding in this region, which is fairly under reported by western democracies?<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard Falk<\/strong>:\u00a0Sub-Saharan Africa<\/a>\u00a0is still heavily dependent on the exports of resources rather than on the provision of services and high-end manufacturing, and as a result is exceedingly vulnerable to changes in the adverse terms of trade that arise whenever \u201cdeglobalization<\/a>\u201d trends are present. It would seem that the rise of ultra-nationalism, as highlighted by \u201cTrumpist\u201d economic nationalism, have\u00a0negative impacts<\/a>\u00a0on sub-Saharan African development prospects.<\/p>\n

Daniel Falcone<\/strong>: Recently, I spoke with\u00a0John Feffer<\/a>\u00a0of Foreign Policy in Focus and he explained how the pandemic has impacted globalization in regards\u00a0to a \u201cslowbalization<\/a>.\u201d He has commented on additional dimensions of this elsewhere. Could you elaborate on the anti-globalization and ultra-nationalist worldview wave that autocrats around the world are riding currently? This looks as dangerous as the pandemic.<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard Falk<\/strong>: There is no little doubt a rise of autocrats, elected and non-elected, in what seemed\u00a0entrenched democracies<\/a>\u00a0(U.S., UK, India, Brazil), in\u00a0faux democracies<\/a>\u00a0(Russia, Hungary, Egypt), and\u00a0monarchies<\/a>\u00a0(Saudi Arabia, UAE, Morocco). This authoritarian surge, which came initially as a surprise to most of us, superseded expectations associated with the end of the Cold War that were triumphantly interpreted as an ideological victory for the West and its values, and especially for the American political economy.<\/p>\n

George H.W. Bush, president at the time of the Soviet collapse, proclaimed \u2018a new world order<\/a>\u2019 in which the geopolitical hegemony of the U.S. now was unopposed, and would no longer be challenged in global arenas. This meant that the UN could function as intended on the basis of consensus in a world without ideological rivalry, which allowed the UN to sponsor the Iraq War of 1992 designed to restore Kuwaiti sovereignty by compelling Iraq to abandon conquest and annexation.<\/p>\n

Then Bill Clinton came along promoting a foreign policy based on a doctrine of \u2018enlargement<\/a>,\u2019 shorthand for predicting and promoting the spread of democracies. It was accompanied by the optimistic belief that an era of peace and prosperity would follow the further spread of democratically governed states. It was widely believed that democracies do not go to war against one another and capitalism is the best engine of growth the world has ever known. From such perspectives the post-Cold War world was envisioned as becoming increasingly both peaceful and prosperous.<\/p>\n

Such a worldview was supportive of regime-changing interventions, especially in the Middle East, to get rid of the more strategically troublesome remnants of autocratic regimes and reflected the prevailing enthusiasm about the growth potential of\u00a0neoliberal<\/a>\u00a0globalization, an approach long championed by the\u00a0neoconservative<\/a>\u00a0movement.<\/p>\n

To become operational such a policy outlook needed both the 9\/11 attacks to re-securitize American foreign policy and the neoconservative presidency of George W. Bush. The decisive test of this proactive outlook occurred in the Iraq War of 2003. Expressing this jubilant mood, Bush II introduced a\u00a0government report on national security in 2002<\/a>\u00a0with an assertion of faith in the singularity and superiority of the American form of governance that went largely unchallenged at the time. He contended that market-oriented constitutionalism (as exemplified by the USA) had demonstrated to the world that its form of democracy (elections plus capitalism) was the only\u00a0legitimate\u00a0way to organize the political life of a sovereign state in the new century.<\/p>\n

So, the haunting question remains, \u2018what went wrong\u2019? The most obvious explanation rests on the alienating impacts of\u00a0neoliberal<\/a>\u00a0globalization that seemed to heap its rewards on the very, very rich while leading to stagnation or worse for the multitudes.<\/p>\n

This structural explanation of the rise of autocracy is certainly a large part of the story as predatory capitalism in this period gave rise to gross inequality on all levels of social order, symbolized by the\u00a026 richest individuals<\/a>\u00a0controlling more than half of the world\u2019s wealth. Another part of this story, less frequently acknowledged, is that the\u00a0socialist alternative to capitalism was successfully discredited<\/a>\u00a0by falsely representing the Soviet political and economic failure as a decisive and sufficient test case of the viability of a socialist alternative.<\/p>\n

This ideological supremacy of neoliberal capitalism facilitated two regressive developments: first, leading neoliberal globalization to privilege\u00a0capital\u00a0over\u00a0people<\/a>, or put differently, to choose economic efficiency over human well-being. Secondly, creating a political consciousness that fed the illusion that there were no tenable alternatives to the existing mode of political economy, completely ignoring the kind of autocratic state capitalism that flourished so remarkably in China in an ideological atmosphere that presented itself as fulfilling the hopes and dreams of socialism, experiencing a remarkable modernizing facelift under the leadership of\u00a0Deng Xiaoping<\/a>\u00a0that had did not rest its claims on the virtues of democracy.<\/p>\n

For most of the world, the Chinese phenomenon, while mesmerizing, was seen as not generalizable beyond China, or at least not beyond Asia. In such a setting there was a very unhealthy political situation\u2014the dominant practices and policies of\u00a0neoliberal globalization<\/a>\u00a0were not delivering material benefits to most people living in democratic societies, and the excesses of this\u00a0stage of capitalism<\/a>\u00a0were left unchallenged, and hence unmitigated, by socialist challenges that had since Marx led the most adept masters of capital to seek accommodation with the laboring classes and create an image of an ethical capitalism that was inclusive of the great majority of people in their respective national societies.<\/p>\n

With that humanistic imperative of ideological rivalry pushed aside, the path was cleared for the emergence of demagogues, and those who found scapegoats to blame for the widespread distress among the public, especially foreigners. This new kind of political appeal produces a blind kind of trust in the leader, however misleading the diagnosis, and\u00a0feeds a nationalist frenzy<\/a>\u00a0at the very time that the world needs recognition of a cooperative global order to address such challenges as climate change. It is not without irony, that the U.S., which had long lectured the world on the many virtues of democracy, should\u00a0voluntarily succumb to the autocratic \u2018charms\u2019<\/a>\u00a0of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

It is notable to take account of the existence of some dissenters from \u2018slowbalization,\u2019 the most prominent is\u00a0Richard Haass<\/a>, former government official and currently President of the Council of Foreign Relations. He anticipates a recovery process that involves an \u2018acceleration\u2019 of pre-pandemic trends, including a concerted effort to restore the neoliberal\u00a0world order<\/a>\u00a0with especial emphasis on its orientation toward limitless growth based on technological innovation and capital efficiency, but revamped in the precarious context of continuing American decline, which includes an absence of the kind leadership required to address global problems through\u00a0multilateralism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the background of the Haass view of the post-pandemic world is an intensifying geopolitical rivalry producing conflict and increasing dangers of strategic warfare, presumably featuring a standoff between the\u00a0U.S. and China<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Henry Kissinger<\/a>, a stalwart of the triumphalist outlook that followed the Soviet collapse, is more hopeful than Haass, projecting the period after the pandemic subsides as a call for the reassertion of robust American leadership on the global policy stage. He believes that the openness of trade and the transnational mobility of people depend on the\u00a0renewal of confidence in the neoliberal world order<\/a>\u00a0that proved so successful after World War II, and was constructed on the basis of Enlightenment values emphasizing the fusion of political stability, confidence in science and technology, and market-driven economic growth<\/p>\n

In the background of the restoration of the pre-pandemic \u2018normal\u2019 is the\u00a0ecological illiteracy<\/a>\u00a0of supposing that maximizing economic growth via globalization, or otherwise, can proceed without respect for the limits on carrying capacity of the earth.\u00a0Frank Snowden<\/a>, the widely respected expert on epidemiology in an illuminating interview (Il\u00a0Manifesto<\/a>, Global Edition, April 11, 2020) suggesting that COVID-19 virus and earlier flu epidemics (SARS, MERS, Ebola, avian flu) can all be traced to\u00a0zoonotic transfers<\/a>\u00a0of the virus from animals to humans, expressing spillovers that he argues are bound to occur when animal habitats are encroached upon by spreading urbanization and industrialization.<\/p>\n

A more reconstructive post-pandemic approach would strive for \u2018a new normal<\/a>,\u2019 which combined the health imperative of sensible preparedness and universal coverage with an ecological sophistication that sought to mitigate inequalities among peoples and societies by\u00a0addressing poverty as a health issue<\/a>, including the recognition that diseases are more lethal in relation to vulnerable peoples, who suffer as victims and victimize others by becoming agents of contagion.<\/p>\n

Daniel Falcone<\/strong>: After the dust settles from the pandemic, if it does, can you attempt a forecast of how global powers will align or realign?<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard Falk: <\/strong>\u2018Dealignment<\/a>\u2019 is more likely than \u2018realignment<\/a>.\u2019 I am assuming here that either that the nationalist retreat from neoliberal globalization will continue or there will be strong moves, hard to forecast, in the direction of regional and global cooperation in key sectors of policy, with international institutions given important coordinating roles. In either alternative alliance, diplomacy seems not likely to reemerge in any manner comparable to what it was in the prior century. Trump has already significantly\u00a0weakened the Western alliance structure<\/a>, and except for the forays of \u201ccoercive diplomacy<\/a>\u201d contra Iran (in concert with Saudi Arabia, Israel), seems to have adopted a unilateralist foreign policy course supplemented by transactional\u00a0bilateralism<\/a>\u00a0in which the interaction seeks win\/lose outcomes based on hard power disparities.<\/p>\n

Reverting to\u00a0Haass and Kisssinger<\/a>, it is worth noting that the pessimistic assessments of Haass are explicitly linked to his anticipation of the post-pandemic world order as resembling what happened in the decades after World War I, that is, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, and a second world war. Kissinger, although habitually associated with a\u00a0fatalistic view<\/a>\u00a0of the international scene, somehow strikes more hopeful notes by advocating and somewhat anticipating a post-pandemic recovery that resembles the dynamics of world order following World War II with the U.S. playing its former leadership role by recognizing the opportunities and needs for a more cooperative approach to global problems.<\/p>\n

Daniel Falcone<\/strong>: Are there any chances for United States reform at a local or even an institutional level that can offset the political capital maintained by autocrats both here and around the world? Are we in fact, a \u201c<\/em>failed state<\/a>?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard Falk: <\/strong>You raise an interesting question. A response must start with the disappointing observation that the 2020 election is between\u00a0Trump and Biden<\/a>, a familiar political figure who shaped his career around the bipartisan Cold War consensus of militarism, neoliberalism, and\u00a0pro-Israeli absolutism<\/a>. This orientation is what I have called elsewhere \u2018the three pillars of American foreign policy\u2019 that only Sanders dared challenge (and paid the price) as one sees what was done to his frontrunner status by the guardians of the established order. Sanders\u2019 response that he lost the primary campaign,\u00a0but his movement will go on fighting<\/a>, is suggestive of the gap between the establishment world of political parties and his movement consisting of various societal domains of people that seems openly hostile to the bipartisan consensus, the deep state, and the special interest lobbies that continue to dominate not only the governing process, but also the electoral process<\/p>\n

What is worth noticing is that even Trump despite his bombastic claims during the 2016 presidential campaign has as president paid his dues to the\u00a0bipartisanship in foreign policy<\/a>\u00a0with his enlarged military budget, tax cuts for the richest and rollback of regulatory interferences with predatory capitalism, and the\u00a0greenest light ever given to Israeli expansionism<\/a>\u00a0and one-statism. His only halfhearted departure from bipartisanship has been the downplaying of Euro-American alliance geopolitics.<\/p>\n

Possibly, the autocratic edge of American politics would be dulled by a\u00a0Biden presidency<\/a>\u00a0by more moderate judicial appointments and some effort to address gross inequalities, student debt, infrastructure, and an improved health system that encompasses the whole society. Yet, it would seem absurd to expect more from Biden, given that his principal message is ideational, a promise to restore national unity by reaching out so far as to\u00a0include so-called \u2018moderate\u2019 Romney Republicans<\/a>, who have never struck me as moderate except in comparison to their alt-right Republican leadership of the Trump era.<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s unity message is also code language for restoring the bipartisan consensus in an overt form that would counter some of the ultra-nationalist retreat from globalization. In foreign policy we could expect a shift in tone from \u2018America First<\/a>\u2019 to \u2018NATO First<\/a>\u2019 as a way of differentiating his approach from that of Trump and of reaffirming faith in the Western alliance as once again the centerpiece of American foreign policy. It would be foolhardy to expect Biden after a centrist lifetime political career to pursue a progressive social and ecological agenda, yet without such an agenda we can be thankful to Biden for ending the reign of Trump while\u00a0renewing our severe worries about the social and ecological shortcomings of the American governance<\/a>\u00a0experience given 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century urgencies.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Richard Falk is a member of the\u00a0TRANSCEND Network<\/strong><\/a>, an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University,\u00a0Distinguished Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies,\u00a0UCSB,\u00a0author, co-author or editor of 60 books, and a speaker and activist on world affairs.\u00a0In 2008, the\u00a0United Nations Human Rights Council<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(UNHRC) appointed Falk to two three-year terms as a\u00a0United Nations Special Rapporteur <\/strong><\/a>on \u201cthe situation of human rights in the\u00a0Palestinian territories<\/strong><\/a> occupied since 1967.\u201d Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and associated with the local campus of the University of California, and for several years chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His most recent book is\u00a0<\/em>On Nuclear Weapons, Denuclearization, Demilitarization, and Disarmament\u00a0(2019). <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 richardfalk.wordpress.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

19 Apr 2020 – I am aware of the greater strength and role of cooperative movements in European countries, a residue of the socialist movements of the prior century, that give rise to more spontaneous approaches on local levels to immediate threats to well-being, exhibiting both less trust and less dependence on governmental undertakings. Furthermore, European health systems are more evolved, fewer people left out, and more sense of public responsibility, although some deficiencies also emerged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":122129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1829,1868,1864,75,1160],"class_list":["post-158768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-pandemic","tag-world","tag-world-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}