Hal Brands
Hamas’ surprise assault against Israel is tragic in its own right: The Israeli death toll, relative to population, is several times worse than 9/11 was for the US. Things could still get much nastier if Hezbollah — Iran’s Lebanese proxy — fully enters the fray, confronting Israel with a multifront fight and regionalizing the conflict.
Yet the war in the Levant is also part of a broader, intensifying crisis of global security.
Consider the Eurasian panorama. Europe is experiencing its worst insecurity in decades, thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine. The threat of war is also growing in the Balkans, where Serbian troop movements recently forced the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to bulk up its forces in Kosovo. In the Caucasus, Azerbaijan has exploited Russian distraction to seize control of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia, resulting in the flight of some 100,000 civilians. Along this arc of instability from Eastern Europe to Southwest Asia, conquest and ethnic cleansing are alive and well.
The Western Pacific is less violent but not less dangerous. The Taiwan Strait is a perpetual flashpoint, as China tries to coerce that island and force the US and its regional allies to prepare for a showdown. Tensions are rising in the South China Sea, as the Philippines — sick of years of Beijing’s bullying — begins asserting its rights with greater verve. On the Korean Peninsula, Pyongyang is steadily improving its nuclear weapons and missile programs, while also fueling Putin’s war by providing artillery ammunition and other resources.
Then there is the Middle East. Just weeks ago, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan declared that the region “is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” He might wish to revise that comment.
Iran continues to creep toward a nuclear capability as part of its drive for Middle Eastern hegemony. It supports a vast network of proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah, which are now demonstrating their ability to plunge the region into chaos. Just last week, the US shot down a Turkish drone over Syria, showing how tense the situation remains in that country, as well. With the Middle East igniting once more, all three of Eurasia’s vital regions are in upheaval.
Meanwhile, in Africa, coups have become contagious in the Sahel; Sudan has descended into civil war; jihadist violence is metastasizing across the continent. In Latin America, democracy is eroding and criminal gangs are terrorizing helpless populations. The destabilizing effects of climate change and refugee flows are hitting countries on multiple continents.
It is hard to find a major region untouched by the current disorder, which reveals four realities of the contemporary world.
First, the Pax Americana of the post-Cold War period is over. For a generation after 1991, the world saw historically low levels of geopolitical and ideological competition, mostly because Washington and its allies had such decisive advantages.
That’s changing as revisionist actors — principally China, Russia and Iran — try to throw back American power and create their own spheres of influence. The resurgence of autocratic great powers, in turn, is intensifying pressures on global democracy. We’re back to world politics as usual — and world politics is usually an ugly, violent affair.
Second, connections between revisionist actors are stronger than at any time in decades. It’s probably wrong to suggest that Russia, which enjoys decent ties with Israel, had a hand in this weekend’s events. It’s correct, though, that the war in Ukraine has fostered deeper, mutually reinforcing defense partnerships between Russia and its autocratic brethren in Iran, North Korea and China. Solidarity between these challengers amplifies the threats they collectively pose.
Third, different types of crises — geopolitical and transnational, traditional and non-traditional — are increasingly blending together. It is fashionable to say that great-power rivalry is in, and terrorism and other post-Cold War challenges are out. But as we’re seeing right now, terrorist groups remain lethally potent, in part because geopolitical actors such as Iran cultivate them as tools of pressure against their enemies. Meanwhile, military aggression in Ukraine, or internal upheaval in areas from South America to North Africa, fuels migration flows that roil countries around the globe.
Fourth, we’re getting a real-time education in the fragility of progress. The brutalization, kidnapping and execution of Israeli civilians shows how quickly basic moral norms collapse when peace and security break down. A fundamental pillar of the global order, the impermissibility of changing borders by force, is being tested every day in Ukraine.
The news isn’t all bad, thankfully: Intensifying threats to the international system are producing expanding patterns of cooperation among its defenders. Anti-China coalitions are multiplying in the Indo-Pacific. NATO is enlarging and strengthening itself in response to the war in Ukraine. Iran’s enemies have been drawing closer together: Hamas may have intended this assault to disrupt the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The international order is under more stress, in more places, than at any time since the chaotic aftermath of World War II. The work of preventing its collapse will be multilateral, and it is just beginning.
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