Opinion | Is the world on the brink of total war?
The
political centre is no longer holding as governments misjudge their
capabilities on the battlefield and their level of public support
Published: 5:30am, 7 Dec 2024 The South China Morning Post
I was so absorbed by
Donald Trump’s presidential victory in the United States that I missed the news that the
German coalition government had fallen apart. Then, earlier this week, South Korean President
Yoon Suk-yeol did the unthinkable and declared martial law, which was thankfully reversed by lawmakers.
In the same week, French Prime Minister
Michel Barnier
lost a vote of no confidence after pushing for an unpopular budget that
lacked support from parliament. Meanwhile, US President
Joe Biden pardoned his son. Such political crises are unfolding even as US markets and bitcoin hit record highs.
What is going on? Wars are raging in
Ukraine,
Gaza,
Syria and
Central Africa.
Armed conflicts are escalating towards total war. The First World War,
which bankrupted Europe and weakened the British Empire, lasted four
years from 1914 to 1918. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in
February 2022, has had devastating consequences for both nations and the
future of European security.
Since
Trump claimed that he can settle the Ukraine war in 24 hours, Russia
might spend the winter trying to occupy as much territory as it can
before the US president-elect is inaugurated.
After Biden approved the use of
long-range US missiles
for Ukraine to attack targets inside Russia, the Kremlin unleashed a
new medium-range ballistic missile in retaliation. While the Russian
missile is non-nuclear, these escalations still raise the possibility of
nuclear war.
Protests break out across Asia marking one year of Israel-Gaza conflict
Are we on the way to total war, as the latest issue of Foreign Affairs magazine seems to suggest?
The Prussian strategist
Carl von Clausewitz
wrote: “War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds; as one
side dictates the law to the other, there arises a sort of reciprocal
action, which logically must lead to an extreme.” Violent war is an
extreme extension of politics, applied when diplomacy fails.
Total war erupts when one side thinks that superior technology will overwhelm their opponent. The
Houthis’
ability to use drones and missiles to block the Red Sea against
aircraft carriers shows that technological superiority can be neutered
asymmetrically.
The
tech war can be understood as the US tries to maintain technological superiority over China, but a
narrowing of the gap is only a matter of time.
The
real war being fought in almost all economies is internal. Most people
cannot understand why their governments want to fight other people’s
wars and not spend money to improve their healthcare, pensions and
overall livelihood. One of the few things that unites US Democrats and
Republicans is
containing China.
A staff member works at a chip manufacturing plant in Juye county, Shandong province, in November 2023. Photo: Xinhua
When Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters and protesters “deplorables” in 2016, she misread the public mood just as recent
Jaguar commercials
discounted what some fans like about the car brand. When the ruling
elite fails to comprehend what holds the centre together, in the words
of poet William Butler Yeats, “things fall apart, the centre cannot
hold”.
Some
political scientists think about politics as a bell curve with a centre
between two extreme tails of left- or right-leaning views –
socialists vs capitalists.
However,
when a nation enters a period of grave unknowns, there is no
intellectual giant or leader like Gandhi or Nelson Mandela with the
moral narrative to unite a divided and polarised people. When the centre
cannot hold, we should think about the centre as the borderland between
different warring interests.
Ukraine
and Gaza represent the borderlands between civilisations where warring
factions fight over ideology, energy and power. Internally, the lines
between the left and right are so blurred and yet so fragile. That is
when populist leaders like Trump emerge.
Trump is back: what’s next for China, Asia and the world? | Talking Post with Yonden Lhatoo
The
political analyst George Friedman said: “A borderland is a region where
history is constant: Everything is in flux.” The centre is where the
left and right fight over principles, turf and power. Balance is
achieved when those at the centre (or the borderlands) persuade both
sides that peace benefits us all.
If the borderlands become a vacuum, it invites one side to take it to gain an advantage over the other. That is how the
British Empire went from a small island nation to being able to play its rivals against each other and establish shipping routes.
Biden’s
big mistake was not to play the great game of balancing, and instead
choose to fight on four fronts at once between Russia, China, the Middle
East and a domestic political faction.
Readers of Chinese historical dramas will appreciate that Trump is inheriting an international landscape reminiscent of the
Romance of Three Kingdoms. The West is trying to contain the East while the
Global South
seeks non-alignment. Since many in the Global South want development
through peace rather than war, whoever is willing to offer them stable
trade and investment will be the long-term winner.
The
good news is that Trump has criticised war. His return signals more
isolationist, protectionist tendencies. The war in Ukraine might be left
to Europe to handle. Total war will be avoided if Trump buys time
through
transactional deals or truces with Russia or China. The Middle East is far more complicated, however, due to converging US and Israeli interests.
As
the world braces for more Trumpian volatility, his legacy might be
defined by whether he can restore balance to the world system, not by
whether he ignites the next total war.
Andrew
Sheng is a former central banker and financial regulator, currently
distinguished fellow at the Asia Global Institute, University of Hong
Kong. He writes widely on Asian perspectives on