US Election: the World After November 5, 2024

With the presidential elections in the USA that will take place on 5 November 2024, this "year of elections," in which half the world population went to the polls and on many occasions surprised pundits, incumbents and other luminaries, will have its grand finale. Much has been written about the consequences of these elections for transatlantic relations and the world order. Between isolationist impulses and unilateralist primacy-seeking, a Trump administration will have the potential to further upend the already weakened, delegitimized, and institutionally eroded "liberal world order" that safeguards Western hegemony. The equally primacy-oriented but more multilaterally inclined Harris administration will try to contain the erosion of that order and reconstruct it in a more inclusionary fashion, albeit with American preeminence as its stated goal.

Restoration of that preeminence--whether in its more aggressive unilateralist or more benign-looking internationalist-primacist version--will be difficult, however. The shift of economic power towards Asia, with China as the chief geopolitical challenger for the USA, changes the dynamics of the world order from its post WWII and certainly from its post-Cold War configuration. The formation of ad hoc axes of revisionist or subversive powers and alternative organizations such as BRICS or SCO that attract rising powers as well as hedging ones before the emerging asymmetrical multipolar order stabilizes challenges the paradigm of a Western- or specifically American-led order in the future.

It may be appropriate to start with a categorization first introduced by former American secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld. In one of his press conferences slightly over a year before the invasion of Iraq he identified the following categories to facilitate our alertness to the challenges any country faces at any given time: known knowns; known unknowns; unknown knowns and unknown unknowns.

Not only because the circumstances that gave way to it changed but because the custodian of the order is no longer interested in abiding by the confines of that order partially because of the frontal challenge it faces as Asia in general and China in particular rises economically and geopolitically.

It may also be useful to revert to Henry Kissinger who believed that an international order had to be legitimate but not necessarily just or fair. The current order has lost its legitimacy in the eyes of many of its participants particularly as the so-called "rules based international order" has been violated by its custodian at the peak of its power and now is being attacked by a reactionary and declining revisionist power and challenged by a rising power bent on effacing the traces of what it considers "a century of humiliation".

The known unknown in this story is how the future is going to be shaped because by objective criteria there is no absolute way of identifying the inevitable rise of a new power that has the capacity to define, shape and make functional a new order. China has too many weaknesses to do that and to boot it is neither insular nor does it enjoy natural allies or benign neighbors. So, the unknown known is that while it is clear a new order is necessary, which power or set of powers will be its architects and engineers is yet not clear. What kind of ideological or moral compass this emerging order may credibly present to the rest of a world which is fully decolonized and in which many other aspiring powers, however incomplete their power status might be, wish to have more of a say remains opaque.

Because of the size, weight and still considerable capacities of a dysfunctional United States, how this transition to a new type of order or an order whose legitimacy will not be challenged is meant to materialize depends to a large extent on the actions of America but not its actions alone either. This is the reason why November 5 both for America’s domestic order and for the international system shapes up to be a critical if not a determining moment.

The world that is being shaped is likely to be one whereby an asymmetric multipolarity prevails. Others think in terms of apolarity, entropy, multipolarity, multiplex, etc. It is clear that in this period of transition many countries prefer to hedge and attempts at joining alternative international platforms or organizations/institutions dominated by non-Western powers such as BRICS, SCO and others are rising. Minilateralism appears to be an attractive way of dealing with current challenges that can be tackled in a regional context and with regional cooperation.

Isolationism is the default choice of American foreign policy since the founding of the Republic although one may question if this is wholly valid when it comes to American continental expansion westward and its relation to Latin America since the Monroe Doctrine which basically messaged to the European powers of the 19th century to "get off our backyard or else". The unilateralist impulse of the American power leads it not to wish to be constrained by multilateral institutions and its rules that were created by Washington that responded to the necessities of a different time in the wake of WWII. The war against Iraq was a manifestation of the unilateralist impulse, the most consequential but not the only such move, as the Bush administration did not wait for another UNSC mandate before attacking.This tendency is also increasingly prevalent in the pursuit of economic policies. What used to define the liberal economic order in its iterations of 1944, 1971 and certainly after the Thatcher-Reagan led neoliberal paradigm that fully dominated in the post-Cold War period of rampant, unfettered globalization or marketization is waning .The end of that era has historically come in 2008-2009 but its actualization had to wait for some more years for the sociological and political costs of that experiment to become obvious for developed western countries. As the countries that were the primary beneficiaries of globalization that enjoyed FDI flows and free trade began to challenge Western dominance of the world economy and the income gap between developed and underdeveloped world began to narrow, the historically dominant actors started to change the rules in the middle of the game. This is the translation in strategic terms of the economic policies that now favor sanctions, protectionism, industrial policy, high tariffs and a desire to control capital flows rather than the market logic. This is the economic background to the strategic or geopolitical challenges of our times as the world economy is being transformed yet again.

The quest for primacy is present in the worldview of both candidates and their parties and among the American elites. Both are much more cautious about or, in Trump’s case, opposed to the kind of exuberant liberal interventionism or neocon hubris that defined American foreign policy in the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century. Whereas Trump displays more of the attributes of an isolationist/unilateralist approach that appears to have the sympathy and support of a large segment of the American public, Harris will seek primacy while maintaining if not bolstering America’s alliance network and a degree of multilateralism. How this would square with the aforementioned economic policies remains to be seen since in its desire to balance and contain China the US will need many of the countries in Asia and elsewhere to side with her strategically. Trump has no interest in multilateral institutions and beyond his idiosyncrasies structural determinants of a primacist foreign policy may shape his term. For Harris even paying lip service to multilateralism would necessitate an attempt to reform many of the institutions formed as a result of the Second World War which should in turn lead to a more equitable distribution of power globally or in such institutions. Under Trump Christian nationalism may come to play a far more important role ideologically in shaping foreign policy choices and this would correspond to the civilizational worldviews that the current leaders of China and India also invoke. The geography of Islam lacking a center, or a spokesperson may not find its articulate leader along those lines, although the Turkish President seeks it with all his being.

A settlement is what the West now seeks. For Trump a settlement is akin to a surrender by Ukraine and submission to the demands of Putin. His aides suggested that they will propose a deal to Zelensky and ask Ukraine to seek an agreement. Then Putin will be asked to go to negotiations. Should he refuse that, one of Trump’s advisers suggested then the ex-President may think of continuing support for Ukraine. This sounds like a long shot especially after Zelensky’s visit in the US for the UNGA meetings that ruffled the feathers of the Republicans in general since he appeared to be siding with the Democrats when he visited Pennsylvania by the side of Democrat politicians. Harris is likely to continue with Biden’s policies but there as well the desire to have a settlement, that concedes the territories occupied by Russia without formally accepting their annexation, is growing. Perhaps the offer of NATO membership, which the Russians will most strongly object to and may be a deal breaker, will assuage the current Ukrainian government and lead it to drop its insistence on a total withdrawal of Russian troops from occupied Ukrainian territory, which is a highly unlikely if not totally impossible prospect given the balance of forces.

On the other burning issue of world politics, Gaza the Biden administration’s management of the conflict has been quite abysmal as far as most of the world is concerned. It exposed the Western alliance in general and as the underwriter of the Israeli war efforts, the USA in particular, as holding double standards, and acting hypocritically. Certainly, the rhetoric deployed on humanitarian grounds about the conduct of the war against Russia in Ukraine and about Israel in Gaza were so radically different. This is the view certainly for much of the rest of the world and parts of Western populations. In the wake of the elections there will be a difference in approach, rhetoric and perhaps intentions on Israel-Gaza. Harris will at least pay lip service to an elusive "two-state solution" and had the decency to invoke the humanitarian catastrophe the civilian Palestinian population has been subjected to. But she had nothing to say about the land grab and the violence of the settlers in the West Bank.

The crisis of American foreign policy in this region was compounded by the defiance of the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu who on more than one occasion double crossed President Biden and humiliated the American president in the search for a cease fire in Gaza. He doubled down on that attitude more recently when he opted out of an American-French plan to which he was a party calling for a three-week cessation of hostilities to avoid a regional war. Then came the assassination of Hezbollah’s leader Hasan Nasrallah in the party’s headquarters. It is yet unclear at the time of writing if Israel will go on defying the United States that opposed a war in Lebanon and cross the border for conducting a land war which most analysts believe would favor Hezbollah, even though it lost many of its senior commanders to Israeli assassinations. Harris is silent on these issues because of her campaign expediencies. For Trump, despite his declared antipathy for Netanyahu, the use of Israeli might and the moral problems that it created for American policy would not matter. He would also return to the policy of maximum pressure on Iran and drop the delicate management the Biden administration pursued in relations with Iran. After the Israeli assassination of Revolutionary Guards commanders in April and more recently the assassination in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, ostensibly Israel’s interlocutor in ceasefire negotiations, the Biden administration succeeded in containing Iran and avoiding a war between the two rivals/enemies. It is plausible that Iran’s weaknesses kept it from responding to the embarrassing Israeli operation in Tehran and for not engaging forcefully in the escalating Israel-Hezbollah confrontation particularly after the death of Nasrallah. Yet, the new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s conciliatory approach to the United States also played a role in the calm after the Haniyeh incident. It is unlikely that Trump would seize the opportunity to deal with Pezeshkian who, during his campaign expressed willingness to negotiate with Washington and recently said that the United States was no longer their enemy.

In 2050 a quarter of the world’s population will live in Africa. The mineral wealth of that continent the access to which already defines the competition between western powers and China and Russia will make it along with Latin America that holds half the world reserves of Lithium and copper the sought-after continent. That Africa along with Southwestern Asia (commonly known as the Middle East) is also the continent that will send the highest number of migrants to the north is likely to exacerbate the immigration problem that for Europe is a politically toxic topic although immigration per se is an absolute necessity if the old continent will manage its demographic and hence growth problem.

What China wants in a new order is not very clear. It wants the USA out of Asia where, as the Middle Kingdom, it sees itself entitled to a hegemonic role and wishes to economically dominate Africa and be present economically and increasingly militarily in Western Pacific. To what end? What is the order that China can promise to the rest of the world that would make it attractive beyond its economic aid and investments to these countries that do not seek another hegemon to be subservient to. In fact, until two camps are settled in a new order most countries will prefer to be hedging or non-committal to a camp and seek to have enough room for their so-called "strategic autonomy". The question will be if the great powers and the aspiring but weak great power of the past, that is Russia, can live with that aspiration for more equality in the world system. Legitimate but more just and egalitarian too.

This is also the challenge of Europe. It can be a third, continental size balancer in the world order and act as a great middle power if it can maintain the cohesion of the EU and succeed in producing strategic thinking and turning this into policy and action. This would necessitate a different type of approach to its former colonies and to migration and perhaps a radically different set up in its political structure. Whether or not this is even plausible is of course the big unknown.

Copyright image: Brendan Smialowski / AFP
Joe Biden and Xi Jinping during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders' week in Woodside, California on November 15, 2023.