https://yadi.sk/i/mJZGgziLjqPUC
ACONTINENT separates the
blood-soaked battlefields
of Syria from the reefs and
shoals that litter the South China
Sea. In their different ways,
however, both places are witnessingthe
most significant shift
in great-power relations since
the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In Syria, for the first time since the cold war, Russia has deployed
its forces far from home to quell a revolution and support
a client regime. In the waters between Vietnam and the
Philippines, America will soon signal that itdoes not recognise
China’s territorial claims over a host of outcrops and reefs by
exercising its right to sail within the 12-mile maritime limit that
a sovereign state controls.
For the past 25 years America has utterly dominated greatpower
politics. Increasingly, it lives in a contested world. The
newgame with Russia and China that isunfolding in Syria and
the South China Sea is a taste of the struggle ahead.
Facts on the ground
As ever, that struggle is being fought partly in terms of raw
power. VladimirPutin has intervened in Syria to tamp down jihadism
and to bolster his own standing at home. But he also
means to showthat, unlike America, Russia can be trusted to
get things done in the Middle East and win friends by, for example,
offering Iraq an alternative to the United States (see
page 51). Lest anyone presume with John McCain, an American
senator, that Russia is just “a gas station masquerading as a
country”, Mr Putin intends to prove that Russia possesses resolve,
aswell as cracktroops and cruise missiles.
The struggle is also over legitimacy. Mr Putin wants to discredit
America’s stewardship of the international order. America
argues that popular discontent and the Syrian regime’s
abuses of human rights disqualify the president, Bashar al-
Assad, from power. Mr Putin wants to play down human
rights, which he sees as a licence for the West to interfere in
sovereign countries—including, if he everhad to impose a brutal
crackdown, in Russia itself.
Power and legitimacy are no less at play in the South China
Sea, a thoroughfare for much of the world’s seaborne trade.
Manyof its islands, reefs and sandbanks are subject to overlapping
claims. YetChina insists that its case should prevail, and is
imposing its own claim by using landfill and by putting down
airstrips and garrisons.
This is partly an assertion of rapidly growing naval might:
China is creating islands because it can. Occupying them fits
into its strategy of dominating the seas well beyond its coast.
Twenty years ago American warships sailed there with impunity;
today they find themselves in potentially hostile waters
(see pages 64-66). But a principle is at stake, too. America does
not take a viewon who owns the islands, but it does insist that
China should establish its claims through negotiation or international
arbitration. China is asserting that in its region, for the
island disputes as in other things, it nowsets the rules.
Nobodyshould wonder that America’spre-eminence is being
contested. After the Soviet collapse the absolute global supremacy
of the United States sometimes began to seem normal.
In fact, its dominance reached such heights only because
Russia was reeling and China was still emerging from the chaos
and depredations that had so diminished it in the 20th century.
Even today, America remains the only country able to
project power right across the globe. (As we have recently argued,
its sway over the financial system is still growing.)
There is nevertheless reason to worry. The reassertion of
Russian power spells trouble. It has already led to the annexation
of Crimea and the invasion of eastern Ukraine—both
breaches ofthe very same international lawthatMrPutin says
he upholds in Syria (see page 60). Barack Obama, America’s
president, takes comfort from Russia’sweak economy and the
emigration of some of its best people. But a declining nucleararmed
former superpower can cause a lot ofharm.
Relations between China and America are more important—
and even harder to manage. For the sake of peace and
prosperity, the two must be able to work together. And yet
their dealings are inevitably plagued by rivalry and mistrust.
Because every transaction risks becoming a test ofwhich one
calls the shots, antagonism is never far belowthe surface.
American foreign policy has not yet adjusted to this contested
world. For the past three presidents, policy has chiefly
involved the export of American values—although, to the
countries on the receiving end, that sometimes felt like an imposition.
The idea was that countries would inevitably gravitate
towards democracy, markets and human rights. Optimists
thought that even China was heading in that direction.
Still worth it
That notion has suffered, first in Iraq and Afghanistan and now
the wider Middle East. Liberation has not brought stability. Democracy
has not taken root. Mr Obama has seemed to conclude
that America should pull back. In Libya he led from behind;
in Syria he has held off. As a result, he has ceded Russia
the initiative in the Middle East for the first time since the 1970s.
All those, like this newspaper, who still see democracy and
markets as the route to peace and prosperity hope that America
will be more willing to lead. Mr Obama’s wish that other
countries should share responsibility for the system of international
law and human rights will work only if his country
sets the agenda and takes the initiative—as it did with Iran’snuclear
programme. The new game will involve tough diplomacy
and the occasional judicious application of force.
America still has resources other powers lack. Foremost is
its web of alliances, including NATO. Whereas Mr Obama
sometimes behaves as if alliances are transactional, they need
solid foundations. America’s military power is unmatched,
but it is hindered by pork-barrel politics and automatic cuts
mandated byCongress. These spring from the biggestbrake on
American leadership: dysfunctional politics in Washington.
That is not just a pooradvertisement fordemocracy; it also stymies
America’s interest. In the new game it is something that
the United States—and the world—can ill afford.
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