Just five years ago it looked as if the march of western corporations was unstoppable. Under the auspices of the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF, World Bank etc), backed by the threat of military intervention by the world’s only superpower, western capitalists were setting the agenda in no uncertain terms. Theorists concurred that US power would define the 21st century. On the right Francis Fukuyama foretold “The End of History” while on the left Negri nodded knowingly with “Empire”.

Like a school playground where the resident bully has just lost a fight, the world geo-political scene is in ferment. The Jenga tower of US imperialism has not fallen but it is tottering and other hands now reach for the pieces. The neo-cons must be considering renaming the Project for a New American Century the Project for a New American Decade (or maybe the New American one night stand).

Dick Cheney set the agenda for the new world order back in the 90s, saying, “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defence strategy and requires that we endeavour to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

The ensuing neo-conservative global assault did not just include the attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan but saw an attempt to push US power into the backyards of both Russia and China. The ‘lilypad’ doctrine has seen US airbases built across the hydrocarbon rich regions of Central Asia. US-sponsored “Orange” revolutions have taken place in Georgia and the Ukraine, in what amounted to a public happy-slapping of Putin by Bush. The Ukraine has the only warm-water port for Russia’s black sea fleet. NATO under US guidance has expanded relentlessly into the Baltic -in 2004, 7 more countries: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined NATO. Another area of contention is the Caucasus. The US having successfully brought Georgia into its camp is focusing on other small nations in the region. Control of oil in this region, and the pipelines going through it, is of vital importance to the US. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, having substantial reserves of oil, are going to be flash points. Kazakhstan is particularly important since it borders both China and Russia and is the main launching pad for nearly all of the Russian space vehicles.

Pride comes before a fall – How can the rulers of a country with a mere 260 million population (no matter how well resourced) really hope to achieve that kind of global domination? We know all about the G8, the WTO and the IMF (see most of SchNEWS 1999-2002) but although these institutions still hold power, they are gradually being diminished as forums for the simple bulldozing through of US-led corporate imperialism. The US is increasingly demonstrating its inability to project global power with boots on the ground. Alarmed by Uncle Sam’s swagger and the robber-baron excesses of the G8 economies, the rest of the world has begun discreetly ganging up. The so-called G21 group of countries (headed up by India and Brazil) wrought havoc on the G8’s plans at the last round of WTO talks. The G8 itself is riven by splits and NATO was unwilling to follow the US into the Iraq war.

SHANGHAI NOON

The possibility of a major power-bloc stand off is developing as the China-Russia axis is strengthened. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which held its fifth annual meeting in June, developed from the so-called Shanghai Five (no, really!) Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. This grouping was created in 1996, allegedly to address the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism (all these countries are threatened with internal break up mostly from Islamic separatists) and narcotics. In 2001 the group admitted Uzbekistan and signed the Declaration of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In the same year Russia and China signed the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation (which probably tells you all you need to know about the mutual suspicion this project was born in). In 2004 Mongolia was admitted as an observer and in 2005 Iran, India and Pakistan received their observer status. Last year also saw joint Russia/China military manoeuvres. The US has been outright refused observer or member status.

SCO could evolve from a regional economic and security pact into something else. If the observer states were to actually join the SCO, it would be one of the most powerful organisations in the world. Russia and Iran combined would have more energy reserves and production capacity than any other nations on Earth. It would represent over 2 billion people. Economically it would have the energy resources of Russia, Iran and caucuses plus the manufacturing might of the Chinese and burgeoning economy of India. With the Russian space/military industrial complex it would be a formidable world power. SCO represents the coming together many of the world’s resource rich nations with China, which seems to have an insatiable appetite for more oil and gas to feed its rapidly expanding economy. It is conceivable that at some future date, Russia and Kazakhstan might choose, either for strategic or economic reasons, to export the bulk of their oil and gas eastward to China, rather than westward to Europe. This is not a foregone conclusion by any means and the US is doing everything in its power (such as signing new nuclear technology deals with India) to break up the alliance.

However the growth of this new power nexus has already seen the Stars and Stripes snubbed more than once. Uzbekistan’s dictator recently gave US troops their marching orders while Kyrgyzstan took the opportunity to put the rent on their bases up a hundredfold! Even Israel, the US’s primary client state, has begun cosying up to China with $3bn annual trade, joint agricultural projects and, most significantly, advanced military technology of US origin. The whole Caucasus is being dragged through a hegemony backwards, playing both sides against one another in classic Cold War style.

The crisis over Iran’s attempts to develop nuclear power and North Korea’s letting off of fireworks at the back of the classroom point to a potentially dramatic shift in global politics. Put simply, as both Russia and China are likely to veto any Security Council sanctions against Iran over the nuclear issue, this leaves the US with the option of going it alone with military action or doing nothing. Superpower bloc relations are a game of stud poker, with some cards clearly exposed and others only bluffed or hinted at. While the G8 may be obviously showing a strong hand on the table, it may be the countries of SCO – with their rich share of energy resources, massive supply of cheap labour, undeveloped resources, minimal civil liberties and firm state control – are the ones holding the pocket aces as time for the big showdown gets nearer.

Of course, ultimately whether these power games get resolved as a third world war, a peaceful slide into a new world order or a new cold war of multiple superpowers, any of these outcomes completely fail to deal with the biggies facing the state of human civilisations on earth – climate change and peak oil and other resource scarcity. With countries like China, India and Russia set to make current energy and resource demands look tame, not only will this help put climate change catastrophes into a j-curve, but as resources – particularly oil – get scarce, there will be increasingly desperate grabs for supplies as the ‘resource wars’ hot up.

As the ancient Chinese curse has it “May you live in interesting times.”

For the rest of this weeks issue go to  http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news551.htm