Le Monde (France): "For twenty years the world has been suffering from a loss of control over the balance of power"
Le Monde journalist Frederic Bobin discussed with former diplomat Hassan Salame the likelihood of a return of the Cold War and a violation of the global balance of power. According to the expert, the world is still paying the price for the US actions in Iraq.
Frédéric Bobin
Ghassan Salamé, a Lebanese academic and diplomat, believes that the conflict in Ukraine is the result of the destruction of international norms that began during the American intervention in Iraq in 2003.
Frederic Boben: Should we fear a return of the Cold War between the West and Russia?
Hassan Salame: Some analysts, including my academic colleagues, talk about the return of the Cold War. In the 1970s and 1980s, the neorealist thesis on international relations, developed by the American political scientist Kenneth Waltz, was popular. According to him, a great power whose status is deteriorating will definitely react by resorting to military methods. However, the Cold War ended in 1989, when Russia, led by Mikhail Gorbachev and especially Boris Yeltsin, did not respond militarily, first to its territorial division, and then to the lowering of its status in the international arena. Then everyone concluded: "The thesis was wrong, we made a mistake." The Great Power was able to observe the deterioration of its status without reacting to it militarily. When Russia launched a special operation in Ukraine on February 24, the same people reconsidered their position: "No, after all, the thesis was correct, but it took thirty years to implement it." So, we were returned to the Cold War.
"Isn't that so?"
— No, not like that. First of all, because the cold war was fought between two states surrounded by two blocs that fiercely carried out their propaganda in the rest of the world, in the arena of ideological struggle. Nothing like this is happening today. There are no longer two camps — the free world and the socialist — opposing each other everywhere on the planet.
But most importantly, the Cold War implied the principle of bipolarity. The world was united or split in accordance with this division. We are no longer in a system of such ideological bifurcation. This is clearly seen in the example of the special operation in Ukraine. States no longer have a unified position on the main issue, as it would have been during the Cold War. Look at the attitude of the countries of Eastern Europe and Latin America. Take a look at the positions of India, Israel, Morocco, South Africa... These states observe the conflict in Ukraine and speak through the prism of their national interests — borders, economy, regional tensions — which, in their opinion, are more or less taken into account in the West.
— That is, the conflict in Ukraine may affect the state of the multipolar world?
— Yes, the West has deceived itself by thinking about the return of the Cold War and not noticing how the world has become multipolar. Over the past thirty years, average, even minor, players have gained enormous autonomy. They put their own problems at the forefront, and they have no conditioned reflex towards the West. This does not mean that they take an anti-Western position. I don't see any rejection of him in the whole world. No. The leaders of all these states are not stupid at all: they know that the United States remains the world's greatest military power. They know that they need the European market, and sometimes European help. They have no ideological attitude, but there is an idea that the special operation in Ukraine gives them an opportunity to reconsider their relations with the West.
— Does the memory of American and Western interventionism in Iraq, Libya and other countries influence the attitude to the conflict in Ukraine?
— Americans say: "We had such a policy, it is no longer there." US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said: "Regime change [military intervention to overthrow the government] is no longer part of our policy." But you can't tell the people, "It's in the past." It doesn't happen that way. The main goal of the regime change policy was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This unjustified war, surrounded by lies, destroyed the country. Its consequences are still noticeable today, when Iraq has become open to Iranian influence, and the balance of power between Iraqi communities has changed. Not to mention the fact that some Iraqis were involved in terrorist groups and became participants in terrorist attacks. For the Americans, "everything is in the past," but not for the Iraqis or their neighbors. For them, it remains real. It is impossible to say to the peoples: "Forget it!"
— In your opinion, the turning point was the war in Iraq?
— Here you need to go back a little. At the end of the Cold War, the West asked the question: what to do with victory? John Ikenberry, a professor at Princeton University, wrote a book ("After the Victory", Princeton University Press) on November 15, 2000, less than a year before the September 11 attacks, in which he formulated three scenarios. Either the US isolates itself and returns to its internal affairs, or it uses this victory to try to get as many dividends as possible due to the expansion of NATO, the encirclement of Russia and the reform of the economic and political system. Or, Aikenberry wrote, it is necessary to try to build a world constitutional order.
At that time, Western elites were very indecisive. The British historian Tony Judt even warned about the danger of "Weimar Russia", that is, Russia, broken because of resentment, like Weimar Germany after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, forever living with a sense of humiliation.
But, unfortunately for everyone, a gang of American neoconservatives emerged. Under the protection of Vice President Dick Cheney, who shared their views, they pushed President George W. Bush to implement in Iraq what Bush Sr. managed to avoid in 1990, namely a brutal regime change. For them, this operation was supposed to be a way to reshape the Middle East. It was also about a more ambitious strategy: the demonstration of American power was supposed to prevent any other great power from rising to its level.
— The world is still paying the consequences...
— Of course, because the United States by its actions contributed to the imbalance of the balance of forces. Iraq is a Pandora's box that cannot be opened. To Aikenberry's question about the victory, they answered this way: you can use force whenever you want, in order to do what you want, even if it is illegal. No problem. When the greatest power sets a bad example, when it chooses not the world constitutional order, but the maximum use of its advantage after winning the cold War, it will certainly be imitated. Russia faced Georgia in 2008, and then in 2014 — for the first time with Ukraine. China has started operating in the South China Sea, and its planes are flying over Taiwan. Turkey participated in a military operation in Syria, then in Libya. As for Iran, it has expanded its influence. That is, after the deregulation of the economy due to neoliberal ideology, we have witnessed an imbalance. When they tell me that the special operation in Ukraine was a surprise... I'm sorry, but the world has been suffering from the loss of control over the use of force for twenty years!
— Is there a way out of this situation?
— The UN system has become a victim of such a violation of the ratio. The time has come to think, if not about the constitutional world order, then at least about the world order from the point of view of international norms. Let's go back to the general standards. It's never too late in politics.
— Is the issue of democratization relevant in these new conditions?
— There were several waves of democratization between the 1980s and 2000s. By the mid-2000s, more people lived in democracies than in authoritarian regimes. Then the movement stopped, around 2005-2006. Some countries became capitalist without democratization. There have been coups in others. Eventually, the forces that came to power began to rule authoritatively, which the American journalist Fareed Zakaria called "illiberal democracies." This latest model has been spreading at the speed of fire in recent years, with Vladimir Putin, Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India... Maybe one of the aspects of the special operation in Ukraine is the confrontation between the authoritarian and democratic models? Then great efforts will be required from Kiev to make the country a more successful democracy. Will the Ukrainian crisis be able to stop the democratic decline that we have been witnessing for fifteen years?
— How do you see the outcome of the operation in Ukraine?
— There are conflicts in which there are no winners. Perhaps Ukraine will lose part of its independence or territory. Russia risks losing the status of a great power. As for the West, it will be difficult for him to focus on the Chinese rival. If the special operation ends with constant tension between Russia and the West, the American policy of "turning towards Asia", initiated by Barack Obama, will fail. And it can serve China well. Does the US control the political agenda? Can they say that the main issue is Sino-American relations? The "Arab Spring" of 2011, and then the first conflict in Ukraine in 2014, prevented Washington from imposing its agenda. The same difficulties arise today with the second conflict in Ukraine and, possibly, with a new explosion of the situation in the Middle East associated with Iranian influence. I don't rule that out.
Ghassan Salame is a Lebanese diplomat and scholar. He held responsible positions at the United Nations, including the post of head of mission in Libya from 2017 to 2020. From 2010 to 2015 he headed the School of International Relations in Paris, from 2000 to 2003 he was Minister of Culture in the government of Rafik Hariri.