Collective Security in a Fragmented Global Order
The transcontinental emergence of expansionist geopolitical ambitions has brought with it a very intriguing and interconnected web of challenges. The Russians proudly insist on emphasizing the principle of “indivisible security for all”. But what does it mean precisely? The Chinese claim to possess the noble objective of democratizing global governance by standing up to hegemonic power concentration.
As far as hegemonic concentration of power and indivisible security is concerned, the Chinese and the Russians ought not to forget about the illegal and forceful occupation of Tibet and the 1968 Prague invasion, to name just a few examples. Historically speaking, expansion of influence through territorial conquests was the primary medium of power projection. Historian Sarah Paine also speaks of the contrast between territorial expansionism through conquests and the relatively modern development of naval power projection. Consider, for instance, the Mongol control over Kievan Rus or the development of Spanish colonial presence in North America. Empires, khanates, kingdoms, etc., fought over resources, land, and extension of their respective spheres of influence.
But modern security architecture, when analyzed alongside dynamic and constantly changing international dynamics, warrants a much deeper inquiry.
Take, for example, China’s near-monopoly over rare earth elements. Advanced systems such as missile defense, etc., cannot be replenished without a secure and reliable supply of these important elements required for manufacturing them. China almost exclusively controls the extraction and processing of these rare earths. But places such as Australia and Greenland, among others, possess a strong untapped potential in rare earths reserves which can be harnessed if properly channelized. In the United States, Mountain Pass, California, happens to be one of the significant domestic reserves of rare earth elements.
Changes in the very methods of warfare and the development of advanced technology have changed the modern playing field in a way it has never happened for the vast majority of human history. Even as the defense industrial complex and the vulnerabilities it is exposed to are significant, to say the least, a very laughable set of ideas that have come into existence must be addressed swiftly. The very notion that expansionist dictatorial powers governed by maniacs such as Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-Un should be allowed to dilute the security of the democratic Free World — under the garb of democratizing global governance — just so it would enable them to implement their revisionist, revanchist, and expansionist ambitions, ultimately bringing them to fruition.
Eurasian strategic thinkers have, for too long, very cunningly sought to present this idea of being at the receiving end of an unjust system that has perpetrated some sort of a grave assault on them. Does ‘indivisible security’ for the Russian context mean intermittently invading Georgia and Ukraine? Or constantly threatening the Baltics to test the cohesion of NATO? Or targeting Germany’s civilian infrastructure with the help of drones? Or tacitly running campaigns against European cyber infrastructure?
Does multipolarity mean that the entire world be held hostage by the nuclear blackmail emanating from rogue capitals such as Pyongyang? Had dictators like Gaddafi or Saddam been alive today, they’d rejoice at the state of the democratic Free World consumed by internal political chaos failing to perform sufficiently for keeping authoritarianism and expansionism at bay.
Let there be no room for any doubt whatsoever — the very concept of ‘rebalancing of power’ or a ‘multipolar world’ happens to be nothing but a propaganda nonsense to just bring to life an alternative center of power and authority and shift the cards from due process and democracy to authoritarian rule for the purposes of meeting their expansionist objectives.