The Future Will (not) Be Polarized

Yes it has been quite a while since I last wrote. My apologies, between Comedy of Errors and freaking out over housing situations, its been a hectic two weeks.

So to make up for it, I'll do a fun post about the future.

According to a new article in Foreign Affairs magazine, the fashion of the future rests in the hands of non-state actors and sees a decline in the power of nation-states. Ergo, the US as a nation will not be as dominant, but US based corporations and other non-governmental actors probably still will be.


So a quick explanation of polarity...During the Cold War, the world was bipolar. No, not bipolar like your aerobics enthusiast man eating cousin Cindy. Bipolar in the sense that two states have relatively equal power and influence over all the other states. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the world was unipolar, which is the same thing as hegemony, and the US was definitely "it". Multipolarity, the generally thought of hippie favorite, is as you can guess, a system where multiple states enjoy power and influence.

This guy, Richard Haass, is arguing none of these will exist in the future. The world will be nonpolar, which to me sounds like a lot of fun. I don't like to play power games because someone always gets trampled, so I prefer the idea of not playing the game at all. But its still possible that a nonpolar world would still be just as messed up.

Lookie at Haass' conclusion:

Nonpolarity complicates diplomacy. A nonpolar world not only involves more actors but also lacks the more predictable fixed structures and relationships that tend to define worlds of unipolarity, bipolarity, or multipolarity. Alliances, in particular, will lose much of their importance, if only because alliances require predictable threats, outlooks, and obligations, all of which are likely to be in short supply in a nonpolar world. Relationships will instead become more selective and situational. It will become harder to classify other countries as either allies or adversaries; they will cooperate on some issues and resist on others. There will be a premium on consultation and coalition building and on a diplomacy that encourages cooperation when possible and shields such cooperation from the fallout of inevitable disagreements. The United States will no longer have the luxury of a "You're either with us or against us" foreign policy.

Nonpolarity will be difficult and dangerous. But encouraging a greater degree of global integration will help promote stability. Establishing a core group of governments and others committed to cooperative multilateralism would be a great step forward. Call it "concerted nonpolarity." It would not eliminate nonpolarity, but it would help manage it and increase the odds that the international system will not deteriorate or disintegrate.

Okay fine, I do play power games. I'm addicted to the Civilization games. But come on, the suffering of digital people doesn't really count does it?