Page 4 of 5 REVAMPING US
FOREIGN POLICY, Part 3 The rising pole of
the East By W Joseph Stroupe
and mostly empty threats out of Washington
regarding China's "unfair" economic policies serve
as but one example among many of an admission of
Washington's loss of significant control of the
helm of the US economy.
The US cannot
afford to take action that angers China and the
big economies of Asia for fear that its primary
source of crucial
foreign cash inflows would be
lost, or that it would become entangled in an
economic war in which it is entirely ill-prepared
to prevail.
Is all the foregoing the
result of careful strategies, unforeseen
occurrences or a combination of both? No matter
the answer, the rising East fully appreciates the
unique global position it is being ushered into
and it is unlikely to squander its global
opportunities the way the US has done, especially
since 1991 when it failed to look ahead and to
make the most of its opportunities to create a
US-led order that virtually all the global players
could and would willingly be loyal to, as
president George H W Bush promised the US would do
in 1992.
India firmly in tune with the
vision Where does India stand on the great
issue? Its leaders have repeatedly and fervently
come out in favor of an end to unipolarity.
India's meteoric rise, not insignificantly fueled
by the acquisition of advanced technologies from
the West, is only adding to the geopolitical
leverage of the rising East where it fully knows
its economic, energy security, diplomatic and
geopolitical fortunes lie.
India has
concluded an important agreement with the US over
acquisition of advanced nuclear technologies. Many
judge predominantly by appearances and assume
India is thus moving into alignment with the
United States, but that is simply not the case. As
an emerging power, India knows full well the
crucial role of the acquisition of such
technologies, and its foreign policy has a "face"
(more than a mere facade but much less than a true
representation of its genuine alignment) that
serves to facilitate such acquisitions.
But as in the deal with the US, these
agreements are concluded almost entirely on terms
favorable to India. It is unwilling to sacrifice
its autonomy and independence from the West in any
agreements it concludes. Simultaneously, India is
meaningfully strengthening its ties, alliances and
economic interdependence with Russia, China and
the wider East. There should therefore be little
uncertainty about in which direction India is
genuinely aligning - it is aligning eastward.
The recent visit to India by Chinese
President Hu Jintao illustrates the truth of the
above analysis. The two great powers are steadily
deepening their strategic ties in the key spheres
of bilateral economic relations, security,
diplomacy and energy.
They see each other
as key centers of power in the developing
"multipolar" (read: an end to US-led unipolarity)
world order and continue to take meaningful steps
along the path of peaceful co-existence, in spite
of the many obstacles in their way. The 10-point
joint statement issued by Hu and Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh included the declarations
that the two great powers intend to strengthen
their trilateral ties with Russia and that they
intend to push ahead to create a new international
energy order that is fair and equitable, and to
diversify the structure of the current order, as
reported by Xinhua News Agency.
That
signals that the current US-led global energy
order is not the one that is being strengthened
and adhered to by the rising East, and such a
development has enormous, incalculable
implications for the West and for the ability of
the US to maintain its position of global
dominance. So contrary to the largely unfounded
expectations of most analysts, and despite some
surface appearances, India is fundamentally
aligning toward the East.
It's all
about structure The skeptic will often
acknowledge all the foregoing analysis as that
based solidly on the observable facts, yet will
cling to the objection that the arising of any
truly cohesive yet multifarious pole of the East
requires a grand unifying organizational or
institutional structure that formally encompasses
its multitude of diverse members. The skeptic will
assert that it needs a NATO-like institutional
arrangement or an EU-like organizational
structure, for example, to achieve genuine
cohesiveness and the ability collectively and
effectively to challenge the US colossus.
However, as it relates to the origination
of unity and the achievement of fundamental
cohesiveness among diverse members, that argument
in essence confuses cause and effect, mistakenly
reversing their roles. With respect to the
origination of a deep-seated unity and
cohesiveness among members of a diverse group, the
organizational and institutional structures are
much less the cause producing unity and
cohesiveness; they are rather much more the
effect, that is, the corporeal expressions of a
more ethereal but profoundly potent and persuasive
cause - the commonality, the shared aims and goals
that come to exist first within and among a group
of individuals or powers and that galvanize them.
If that commonality (shared vision) exists
first, then the members may subsequently and
progressively come together to form a tangible
organizational or institutional structure or
structures that properly and more effectively
express their common will. Therefore, the
commonality and cohesiveness come to exist first
and they serve as the cause, which then often
produces the follow-on effect of the formation of
organizational or institutional structure.
It is vitally important to understand the
fundamental distinction between cause and effect
as it relates to the rise of the multifarious East
as a cohesive center of power, because those
