World order is in a state of flux not seen since the first half of last century. The way that the US executed regime change in Iraq is the realisation of a decade of change. Such actions pose a serious challenge to the multilateral system that has existed for nearly 60 years. The post-1945 system has been characterised by détente and containment, by multilateral institutions and by the compromise of power around the United Nations Charter. That system now risks being swept aside in a new era of unilateralism and ad hoc coalitions of the willing.
Proponents of unilateralism argue that the old order is no longer relevant, if it ever was, in guaranteeing peace and security in a hostile world. What the world needs now and into the future, so the argument goes, is a benign hegemony to maintain order and stability and to promote the universal values of freedom, democracy and free enterprise. This requires a leading nation with military supremacy, in this case the US, to defeat current and emerging enemies, unilaterally if necessary.
Some world leaders are troubled by this logic. The usually subtle Kofi Annan warned last September against what he called the ‘lawless use of force’. ‘We have come to a fork in the road’, he said. ‘Now we must decide whether it is possible to continue [with the present arrangements] or whether radical changes are needed.’
Annan left little doubt about the present disarray of world politics. But while we might be shocked by events of recent years, we should not be surprised. The world has been stewing, to adapt the old business analogy, like a frog in boiling water, oblivious to the changing temperature.
Over a decade ago the Cold War ended with the crumbling of the Soviet Bloc and its planned economies. This was a unique time in modern history, marked by turbulent change and a bankruptcy of political alternatives. With the monopolisation of world power, the Third World—which had benefited from playing off one superpower against the other—lost its bargaining leverage and became fractured and marginalised. Meanwhile, business interests became increasingly vocal and global in the absence of an ideological alternative. The triumph of the market hastened change and unleashed an unprecedented worldwide orgy of structural adjustment and deregulation.
The 1990s also saw the rise of groups resisting these trends. The Islamic terrorists are the most prominent, but there are others. Xenophobic and isolationist groups