Foreign Policy.
The
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was supposed to mark both the "end of
history" and the birth of an international community founded on the universal
acceptance of Western values -- a world in which "market democracy" was the
norm. Instead, the West has suffered a litany of disappointments -- from costly
wars to financial crises to the rise of non-Western powers -- that has left it
deeply disillusioned. Far from a cooperative, rule-based order, the
contemporary world is a place of vast, permanent competition -- a muddled
melee among regional poles, countries, governments, businesses, banks,
financial funds, rating agencies, producers, consumers, individuals,
international media, and criminal organizations, if not also between "civilizations."
This competition continues even in the forums that are supposed to regulate it:
the World Trade Organization, the G-20, and others.
After
the end of the Cold War, those in the West with universalist sensibilities -- particularly
in Europe -- strove to promote international exchange. Of course, this exchange
was supposed to be unidirectional -- the projection of the values of freedom and progress
and the market economy onto the rest of the world. But, to the consternation of
the proselytizing West, the outside world is now being projected onto it. Just as colonized peoples turned
colonizers' ideas -- liberté, égalité --
against them, the globalized peoples
have begun to leverage the deregulated global economy to their advantage. As a
result, we have seen the rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and dozens of other "emerging"
countries that signal the end of Western control over global affairs.
Faced
with this disorienting new reality, part of the Western elite has taken refuge
in denial, insisting on ever more openness and globalization -- and falling
further and further out of touch with public opinion. Meanwhile, the accumulation of these upheavals is producing a
sense of vertigo and even panic among Western populations. All the world's
flows -- trade, finance, migration, culture -- seem totally unchecked and
uncontrollable, at least by the West and the international organizations that
have, until now, served their interests.
