Aby The Liberal

Dmitri October 8th, 2007

The Kosovo Conflict of the mid-1990s and the expansion of NATO on Eastern Europe (former Russian ‘Sphere of Influence’) acted as a political and military alarm bell for Russia. The collapse of the Soviet Union led many western pro-democracy political analysts to believe that Russia would be on a prosperity path to be a global economic might. But their analyses went horribly wrong and post-Soviet Russian economy went downhill, along with its political and military influence. It was very much like Berlin in latter days of Weimar Republic, living in past glory with a bleak present and a dark future. The failure of western economic model on Russia gave rise to skepticism on whether one could count Russia any more as a superpower provided its large nuclear force was ignored.

A BBC News video on recent Russian bomber patrols over British airspace - a symbolism of Cold War power projection

Things started looking up after Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999. With strategic experience of an ex-KGB agent and diplomatic experience of an internationalist, Putin pulled Russian economy back from the post-Cold War downfall. Doomsday sayers who predicted a ‘Latin America’ situation for Russia were dissappointed after the energy and infrastructure boom put Russian on track with other global economic powers. Vladimir Putin became a hero of the Russian people by restoring their national pride (which was as weak as its economy due to several political failures). Putin also scored political and diplomatic brownie points for Russia by strengthening ties with West Asia and improving relationships with non Anglo-Saxon Western Europe.

Despite the political and economic restructuring of Russia in the early 21st century, European political analysts were slow and reluctant to acknowledge the reality of Russia’s resurgence. However the stupour dissappeared once Russia made a few critical political and military moves to assert its power projection in Europe. These moves included a tougher political stance on Kosovo issue, opposition to US missile shield in Poland, revival of nuclear strategic missile development, political manipulation of Europe by controlling gas supplies, revival of bomber missions, taking a pro-Iran political stance, Arctic missions with territorial claims, revived patrols of nuclear submarines in the Pacific and finally the testing of the largest non-nuclear bomb on September 11, 2007.

The economic resurgence and revival of power games has already created flutters in global politics, with speculations that the Cold War is not yet over. While the rest of the world looks at Russia as a counterforce against US to create a multipolar world, Europe sees Russia as a threat to its political stability. A strong and more powerful Russia will have a power projection in Europe which will be more effective that the weakening United States’ influence among European Union nations. Considering the nuclear deterrance of UK and France, a war between Russia and EU is highly unlikely quite sometime into the future. The worst that Europe is going to face in the light of Russia growing political and military assertiveness is a few changes in EU foreign policy to accomodate Russian interests in addition to their own.

• World Politics , Internationalism , Russia
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Dmitri October 3rd, 2007

The human quest for peace is as unending as the human desire for war, evident as both diplomacy and warfare coexisted through the ages. However it is only after the massive loss of lives in the two World Wars and the advent of destructive atomic weapons, did humans come to the realisation that wars will end humankind unless some measures to ensure peaceful co-existence was found. One of such proposals was a World Government backed by imminent thinkers like Albert Einstein, Baha’ullah and Lord Alfred Tennyson.

There were several proposed models of a world government which ranged from a league of nations to the most popular concept, a federal world government with autonomous nation states, not very much unlike Switzerland or United States of today. The league or union of nations are much more of military or political alliances than any serious world government so we will take a federalist type of unified global government into consideration. Although good in theory, a federal world government is highly likely to fail or lead to even further conflicts, due to several ground realities, a couple of them explained below.

The United Nations : Closest one could get to a World Government

One of the biggest roadblocks to a world government is the diversity of humans on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, beliefs, nation and other cultural differences. Proponents of equality would brush off these differences making the universal and often heard statement “all humans are equal”. However reality is evident how far such an ideology goes, all one has to look at are the relentless ethnic, racial or religious conflicts of today. Despite the desire for human equality, the differences cannot be wished away and nor be fought off. They will come in the way when a world government is formed; the diversity of humans will inevitably make some groups feel un-represented or perhaps even victimised, leading to rebellion and conflicts. There will also be ambiguity in judicial and political systems as a system which is acceptable and works for one group may not be so for another. There is good that comes out of a one-size-fits-all approach to legal or political system.

In addition to the limitations arising from unavoidable human differences, a world government would also entail massive administrative difficulties and representation problems, assuming it is a democratic set-up. The larger and more powerful countries like United States, China or Russia will exert their dominance and influence over the under-represented or weaker countries and will usually have their way over them. This will widen the identity gap between races, economic classes and social order which will lead to widespread separatist and rebellion movements as seen in erstwhile Soviet Union. Additionally there will also be administrative difficulties arising from the geographical size of a world nation, which will lead to rampant corruption, violence and social problems in the lesser accessible geographical areas like Africa. Bureaucratic hurdles will increase manifold to keep every group happy which will make the administrative mechanism inefficient and slow.

The above limitations are only a few obvious ones, as experienced at present by countries with large multi-ethnic populations like China, India, Indonesia and erstwhile Soviet Union. In a real World Government, there could be many more unforeseen problems which would crop up which might be even more serious than the above mentioned ones. In such a situation the only way to sustain a world nation would be through suppressing dissent. This will end up reducing a world government to another empire where the powerful rule over the weak. This is one of the primary reasons why no countries had their governments make any serious initiatives or proposals to start a world government. Most of the revolutionaries for world government are driven by unrealistic idealism and sometimes for the sake of radicalism, without much consideration of reality and real implications of a global administration.

The closest we can get to a world government in the present age is United Nations and yet it is hampered by severe drawbacks. Over the years, the UN has turned nothing more than a foreign policy tool for powerful countries, its effectiveness as a world organisation is limited only to weak and powerless countries.

• World Politics , Internationalism , Humanity
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