Imperialism of the fittest

National Interest, The, Summer, 2005 by Vladislav Inozemtsev, Sergei Karaganov

THE INTERNATIONAL order that had its beginnings with the Treaty of Westphalia (1648)--in short, a world comprised of sovereign territorial states--is coming to a close. Many states today are not truly sovereign--not in the accepted Westphalian definition of a government possessing a monopoly of force and in firm control of the territory under its titular jurisdiction. (1) As many political scientists and policymakers have recently discovered, failing and failed states make up the bulk of the Third World, as well as a large part of the former Soviet bloc. Not only are these countries increasingly unable to develop independently, they can pose a serious threat to international stability. Failed and failing states provide havens for terrorists and organized crime networks, and they can destabilize their larger region when internal chaos and conflicts spill over their borders to affect neighboring states--as the experience of West Africa during the 1990s aptly demonstrates.

At the same time, the Westphalian order is being undermined from another direction. In some Western political circles, the traditional concept of "integral sovereignty" is gradually giving way to the notion of "limited sovereignty." For some, the individual sovereign state is no longer in a position to meet all of the economic and security challenges of the modern world, requiring the delegation of some powers and functions to supranational bodies like the European Union. (2) For others, the sovereignty of any state is circumscribed by its ability to protect and enhance the human rights of the population under its care. The doctrine of "humanitarian intervention" implies the loss of internal and external legitimacy by those governments that choose to violate these rights. And the "democracy deficit" apparent in many countries--together with their inability to guarantee their own social and economic development--calls into question the ability of such nations to exercise their sovereign rights.

It seems inevitable, therefore, that the traditional understanding of sovereignty introduced by the Treaty of Westphalia will be modified if not replaced outright. This imperative will gain strength as the developed countries of the Core not only continue to voluntarily transfer some of their sovereign prerogatives to transnational authorities, but increasingly become less willing to recognize the full sovereignty of the failed and failing states in the Periphery. This process will determine what shape the international order will take in the next few decades.

DESPITE SOME irritants in the relationship between the major powers (and between the United States and its partners around the world), we are at a unique moment in history. The vastly reduced probability of a conflict between the great powers and the convergence of their positions on a majority of international issues creates the conditions for the formation of a "neo-imperial" alliance--a global concert of the truly sovereign--whose might cannot be counterbalanced by any coalition of peripheral states.

There are those who believe that the Westphalian system of international relations can be revived if failed and failing states can be repaired and modernized. After the end of the Cold War, the United States became the leading proponent of the notion that democracy is the panacea for all social and economic problems. The spread of democracy, in turn, would create a more stable and viable international order.

For those of us whose global outlook was formed in the 1960s and 1970s, it is very difficult to accept that the various development paradigms that promised fast economic growth and political stability for the newly independent states of the Third World--including the most recent, the so-called "Washington Consensus"--have failed. However, there are many who continue to insist that the backwardness of the least developed nations can be overcome through the infusion of ever more generous amounts of foreign aid or still greater involvement of international bureaucracies like the United Nations.

But the track record of these measures is not good. The humanitarian and development aid that has been provided by Western countries has tended to corrupt the population and governments of the failing and failed states. Contrary to popular opinion, financial aid packages do not encourage the modernization of the target economies. Instead, they give rise to parasitic attitudes and overt corruption. (3) Furthermore, granting these beleaguered countries a more favorable trade regime often has a similar effect, since raw materials make up the bulk of their exports. It should not be forgotten that no raw material economy has been successful in restructuring itself through the good fortune of high resource prices on the global markets.

Moreover, in those regions where there have been no precedents for successful development, such as Africa and the Greater Middle East, a culture of insurmountable backwardness is manifest in the stagnation, and even degradation, of human capital. Indeed, most of these countries have eschewed economic development to remain exporters of raw materials and have retained semi-feudal political systems defined by patronage and corruption. (Of course, the ruling elites are more than happy to point to other reasons for their countries' problems, but never to their own incompetence or greed.)