A World Transformed. Danilo Türk
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Containment is historically known, and it is tempting to replicate or develop it in an appropriately modified form. It is easy today to imagine the philosophy of containment applied by the US and its allies to China regarding the East and South China Seas. The practice and potential variety of containment policies is rich indeed. While there are situations where containment is the necessary policy option, it is hardly ever the optimum one. It is therefore necessary to explore the alternatives: engagement, cooperation and partnership.
Partnership, on the other end of the policy choice spectrum, is not easy to establish. It requires a high level of trust, well-developed practical cooperation and a shared vision of the future, based, ideally, upon shared values. Taken together, these requirements represent a very tall order. They also require a great amount of practical innovation. All this must be kept in mind during discussions aimed at partnerships in the Eurasian region. States have to carefully measure specific initiatives and practical policy steps by the high standards implied in the concept of partnership.
The experience of Turkey – the country in the middle of Eurasia – is particularly important. Turkey’s initiatives vis-a-vis its immediate neighbors in 2009 to 2014 were motivated by the wish to resolve some of the persistent problems in the region and, through that, to raise the level of trust needed for future cooperation and partnerships. The initiatives concerning Turkish relations with Armenia, Cyprus and Iraq were the clearest examples. The efforts of those years (2009–2013) to settle the situation with the Kurdish population within Turkey fell into this category also. Turkey’s role in the effort to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan and the joint Turkish-Brazilian initiative of 2010 dealing with the Iranian nuclear program are examples of efforts to build the necessary trust for effective problem-solving to identify solutions to the most complex issues in the Eurasian region. It is important to note that all these initiatives demonstrated strong commitment and a vigorous spirit of innovation. However, these promising initiatives were blocked due to a combination of international obstacles and domestic developments in Turkey. They showed, once again, how difficult it is to develop genuine partnerships in areas characterized by historic grievances and current political complications. Optimism is sometimes understandable, but it can rarely serve as a reliable guide towards the future.
So, what does the experience of the post-cold war era suggest for the future? Here are some tentative suggestions:
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First, the movement towards a new multipolar world is clearly visible and most probably irreversible.
Second, the multipolarity of the twenty-first century is characterized by an unprecedented level of economic interdependence which calls for extremely careful management of security issues. Security in the multipolarity of our era requires much more than pondering on the military might of the main powers.
Third, the multipolarity of the twenty-first century is not totally dependent on the US, China and Russia, the key global political players and nuclear powers. However, their specific responsibility is to continue to ensure the strategic stability of the world and rationality about nuclear weapons, including the continued viability of nuclear non-proliferation. All states, however, can contribute to the management of security issues.
Fourth, developments in Eurasia will continue to have a critical influence on the evolution of multipolarity. Cooperation among the key players in the stabilization of the situation in Afghanistan, for example, will be an important indicator of the quality of future multipolarity. Relations among the main powers of our era can lead to either new types of cooperation and partnership or degenerate into a host of containment policies and, in the worst case, armed conflicts. The importance of international security mechanisms, especially regional mechanisms is growing. There is thus a need to develop regional security arrangements in Asia, in Central Asia and Northeast Asia in particular.
(Address at the Eurasian Economic Summit, Marmara Forum, Istanbul, 11 April 2013)
Notes
1. 1 Among the vast literature on the subject, the following sample could be suggested: henry Kissinger, World Order, Penguin Press, New York 2014; Charles Kupchan, No One’s World, Oxford University Press, 2012, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power. For a more optimistic view see Kishore Mahbubani, The Great Convergence: Asia, the West and the Logic of One World, Public affairs, New York 2013.
2. 2 A succinct reflection on this concept in Xenia Wickett, Why US Remains an Indispensable Nation, Chatham House, 30 June 2015.
3. 3 Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality: London, Penguin, 1944; originally published London: Constable, 1922.
4. 4 For a more recent discussion see Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us about Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, Random House, 2013.
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The Role of Norms, Values and Institutions in International Politics
International politics is not mechanical: values, norms and institutions play an important role. The emphasis here should be placed on politics. It is through the dynamic process of politics where the factors of power meet the world of values and norms. And it is the process of politics which shapes the actual working of institutions. So, politics must be at the center.
It is worth reminding ourselves that international politics has always been a rough place, dominated by the struggle for power. This has been the case since the time of the Peloponnesian War to today, when we are currently preoccupied with the war in Syria and the instability of the wider Middle East. History is a constant reminder of the decisive importance of power in international politics. The somber message of the “Melian Dialogue,” articulated masterfully by Thucydides, still resonates in many situations in international politics now: “The strong do as they can and the weak suffer as they must.”1 Far too often power prevails over the moral argument.
But it would be factually incorrect and morally wrong to believe that power and military force alone decide all the important questions in international politics. The famous question posed by Stalin: “How many divisions does the Pope have at his disposal?” received a convincing answer several decades later, at the end of the Cold War. None was the answer, but he can nevertheless generate important changes in the international environment. The role of the human spirit, the power ←11 | 12→of ideas and the importance of human values that bind people together must never be underestimated.
And then there is the world of norms. Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of political realism, reminded his readers of an ethical point made long ago by Roman politician and jurist Cicero: There are two ways of contesting, either by force or by law, and force must be resorted to because law is not always sufficient2. As a cultured man, Machiavelli had a clear preference for legal ways. At the same time, as a practitioner of politics, he was sufficiently realistic to understand the limits of law as an instrument of statecraft and international politics. Therefore, he did not hesitate to advise his Prince to be determined and brutal.
However, there are moments in international politics when the use of force becomes so counterproductive that the