A View from Afar, by Dr Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning.
In this the eleventh episode of A View from Afar for 2023, political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and journalist Selwyn Manning examine how the post-World War II liberal internationalist system is being challenged by a fluid constellation of global and regional powers to influence the shape of an emerging new world order.
And Paul and Selwyn also assess how this massive shift in geopolitic demarcations is forming, relatively quickly, into a world of bipolarity where on one side we have a multipolar constellation of states, and on the other the traditional western liberal democracies.
The catalyst behind this rapidly forming bipolarity is conflict.
And, most recently, it is clear, that the Israel-Hamas war – and the atrocities committed initially by Hamas and more lately by Israel forces – is driving the world toward a transitional moment.
It appears, that what is emerging from the current multipolar system – and think here the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court among many other global bodies – is a situation that is not merely new-and-old Great Powers competing as nation-states.
But rather, what we see are groupings of fluid constellations of powers competing as blocs to influence the shape of what is to come.
In this episode Paul and Selwyn discuss and describe what is now evident, and sketch out what will likely emerge.
Of course, as mentioned, the Israel-Hamas war lays bare any claims of morality and exposes the hypocrisies of all sides in conflicts.
In particular the Hamas-Israel war exposes the west – led by the United States of America, the United Kingdom and various European states – to an argument that the west is morally moribund as it continues its colonial/post colonial attitudes of support of Israel as the latter commits an apparent disproportionate-defence offensive against Palestine’s peoples.
The argument appears to carry weight, especially as this western axis sustains its support for Israel’s war machine even while, on international humanitarian law grounds, the atrocities being committed against Palestine’s civilian population are morally indefensible and potentially legally enforceable as war crimes.
For example; retribution for the atrocities and despicable crimes committed by Hamas against defenceless Israeli citizens does not remove culpability for the State of Israel as it delivers on an apparent intention to annihilate Hamas and all people – children, the elderly, all innocents – who may surround Israel’s targets.
IHL shows how duty of care is not excused even if civilians are used as “human shields”, and at this juncture, it is not clear, whether that cited flawed-justification is founded on truth.
This is the position of what was once an authoritarian axis.
But what has formed is a multipolar-constellation that supports the Palestinian cause on postcolonial, Global South, and solidarity grounds.
The Questions:
So if all of this carnage is the catalyst for a new world order, what comes next?
Will we see the emergence of a parallel global institutional structure that develops as a counter-balance to the west’s post-WWII world order?
Has the west’s leading power lost its moral authority through its support for a war machine that has caused the deaths of over 10,000 people of innocent disposition, while itself refuses to be a signatory member state to the International Criminal Court and its principles of global justice?
And as such, has the west ceded persuasive moral authority to the rising constellation of once authoritarian-states that dominate the opposing bloc?
And does the west, as a consequence, find itself powerless to counter the migration of moderate independent states that are repelled by the immorality of the west’s arguments, laid bare by the Hamas-Israel war?
INTERACTION WHILE LIVE:
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RECOGNITION: The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication. Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category.
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Good to see Mr Bradbury ask a good question on the podcast.
My fears that Bomber has been hanging around the barber shop too long, and that he’s had his hair clipped by one or two associated with TWG have been allayed – especially considering the mid-life crisis and all.
This episode of AVfA is well worth a listen. What is/was pertinent for the gorjiss me, in this space, going forward, is that the idea that a cabal of gummints are staunchly??? supporting nutters like Netanyahu and his enterage, whilst the populations they purport to represent are taking a different view.
(Wouldn’t want to be in their shoes when it all comes time to cash up).
As an aside – Bit of a shame Trotter is all over the place as well. An indication He didn’t know his BFF Gerry as well as He thought He did. But keep it coming CT
Iran is a military superpower it has the capacity to defend itself
This is new?
This disconnect has been around since the winners of the Cold War decided to go with the PNAC option of disruption – chaos by failure to impose change by force. When they had the option of building an international order around a post NATO Europe and a deal with China over Korea and Taiwan. Voting for Bush over Gore and the consequences.
There is nothing wrong with the elimination of Hamas and its underground military base and prevention of any rebuild. But why did neither Gantz and the West not require the Religious Zionist party to be removed from the Israeli government before the Unity government was formed and a promise of Netanyahu to later resign and for peace talks with the PA to begin as the price for removal of Hamas as a military force from Palestine territory?
There is no doubt that the Western World is on the way down. Good job I think. Whiteys have had it for too long, many of them are racist and their governments are racist.
Imagine if Jews were being slaughtered right now as the Palestinians are. Would we have the silence of Governments around the Western World?
P.S. I am a whitey.
If you like the Jihadist movement they will welcome you with open arms as long as you are not a Jew and are prepared to pray and do what their god demands.
Reject all false gods, whitey.
Hello whitey. FYI Arabs and Israelis are not the only people dying right now. For all the angst displayed by our fellow whiteys over the death of George Floyd a few years back, nobody appears to give a damn about Black pastors being burnt alive in Nigeria. Come to think of it African and Middle Eastern govts are pretty quiet about that. Racist much?
And Mozambique and money other places in Africa, in the name of Jihad.
Its not a war between Israel and Hamas.
Its a war between the mullas of Iran and the western world.
I love the blithe assumption from post enlightment Westerners that religion is so passe. That rationalism is how the whole world needs to think. Give up religion, give up nationality to become a uniform liberal “democrat”.
End result the West abandoned national borders and wonders why it is full of people who don’t think like “us”. Who are fundamentally opposed to our world view.
To demonstrate our post religious Western leaders thought that they could support endless wars in the Middle East and explained the rationale to Western citizens in post religious concepts. We were helping their oppressed women or promoting democracy. Try telling that to an Islamic population who you have bombed.
Worse, we lie to ourselves. We have secular religions such as neo conservatism, neo liberalism. We have religious types such as the Christian Right in the US system, or their proponderance of practicing Jews in Washingtons halls of power such as Nuland and Blinken. None of these people are neutral or non aligned. Time to stop giving credence to the lie that these people represent “us”, we are divided.
There will be no peace until we the West understand that our one size fits all model isn’t going to work. We need to understand what we find unacceptable and respond with more intelligence.
Ok…?
Note: The west does not make war against theocracies, dictatorships or anti capitalist countries because of their style of government.
The West makes war for rational reasons. In the Middle East it is oil, in the Ukraine it is Russia’s resources. Every other reason like democracy is window dressing. When neocons go on about a project for the American century what they really mean is imperial preeminence. By rules based order they mean them ruling over you and me and taking what we have for themselves.
Anybody rational would see the above, and would recognise the irony of the excuses clothing the reality. Even religious cultures recognise the dogmatic zealotry of the neocons precisely for what it is. A front for self enrichment.
In Ukraine Russia is the invader. You may well be correct that access to resources is behind their actions, …. protecting the right to an education in Russian, it is not!
Suggesting that self enrichment is a neocon phenomenon is non-sensical when self enrichment drives nearly all actions by humans. (Even choosing a god is biased towards your own self enrichment)
The behaviour of communist government actors tells us that much.
Russia is the invader…. technically yes. You might consider the movement of NATO east of Berlin a quiet invasion and an extreme threat if you were Russian. You might also consider that the last time a military threat came that way 35 million Russians and Soviets died.
On neocons you answer that to paraphrase that they are not the only self interested. True except they have advertised their goals, have the means and are prosecuting them more than you or I.