Power has been the key to international politics since time immemorial. Power remains also a fundamental tool in ensuring international order. If power is defined as the ability to enforce the desired behaviour on partners, then without power as a guarantor there will be no order. Just like in a well-functioning state, it is impossible to imagine public order without “law enforcement institutions”, i.e. the entire coercive apparatus that ensures respect for the law. Jared Diamond described that, already at the stage of primitive communities, we agreed to submit to the superior authority in order for it to ensure two of our basic needs: security and justice.
In international life, where there is no superior authority, order is based on the ability of the international community, i.e. international institutions, and in fact the main powers and power blocs, to enforce the norms regulating the order, i.e. primarily the obligations arising from international law, in other words, to ensure the order forcing participants in international politics to behave appropriately.
The way of understanding power has changed over the centuries. From the very beginning it was identified with the size of military potential. Today, with the army alone one cannot achieve much in politics. The space for solving problems in relations between states by resorting to the argument of force is shrinking. We reached the stage when it was necessary to invent the concept of “soft power”. What matters according to this concept is political standing of the state, its ability to define the international agenda, and even pure public sympathy it can enjoy abroad. Military power is still an argument, just to recall how recently Azerbaijan has proved this by militarily overpowering Armenia and by force “solved” (from their point of view) the Karabakh problem. And no one either wanted (Russia) or was able (the West) to counter Azerbaijan’s military strength with their own power.
Today, two globalization megatrends influence power: the cosmopolitanization of society’s consciousness (ripping the corsets of national identities) and the international emancipation of the human individual (his/her entry into the international arena as a political actor).
We would all like the new globalized world to live according to the saying of the poet Maximianus: “Plus ratio quam vis caeca valere solet”. In other words, it is not the muscles but the gray cells that should decide who is right. And it is true, as Steven Pinker has conclusively proven, the scale of violence in international relations has been decreasing over the centuries. But countries still see the military potential (their own and that of their allies) as the main guarantee of security. It is not the number of Nobel Prize winners, not the number of outstanding writers or composers, but rather the number of missile launchers, tanks and generals that determines mainly the political position of a country (and not only in the case of Russia or North Korea). For a civilization with the proud name of the civilization of a thinking man (homo sapiens), it is quite a sad conclusion.
For over a dozen years, researchers, analysts and commentators have been fascinated primarily by the phenomenon of a shift in the power hierarchies. The rapid growth of China’s economic power, combined with the development dynamics of other so-called global South, gave rise to predictions about the end of the West’s political domination in the world, about its civilizational twilight, and about the relocation of the center of world leadership to Asia. People were afraid of the prospect of a global confrontation between the West and the rest of the world, because the emancipation of the rest of the world would obviously have to be accompanied by strongly anti-Western tones. In addition Putin’s Russia tried to amplify even more these anti-Western sentiments. Kremlin strategists have placed all their cards on the prospect of Western collapse. Dystopian, neo-Spenglerian forecasts began to dominate the analyzes of many Western experts. The world deprived of the civilizational leadership of the West was to plunge into chaos. International relations were to lose their controllability.
Western futurologists were really depressed by the vision of a world ruled by poor giants, i.e. China, India and other demographically expanding countries of the South. Because not only the global South countries outnumber Western countries, and if they formed a coherent bloc, they would outvote the West in every democratic vote at the UN and other global organizations, but they would also dominate the world in terms of population. The population mass alone would account for a big-size economy, a big-size market, and big potential. Moreover, by concentrating efforts and expenditure, as for example in China, they could challenge the West technologically or scientifically.
I myself already some time ago tried to mentally get used to the system in which China, not the USA, would be the largest economic country in the world, the condition of the entire world would depend on the state of its economy, and the monetary policy of other countries would depend on its financial and currency decisions.
I imagined China as the capital of global technological progress, controlling the entire world’s access to new technologies through patents. I imagined China as the scientific and educational center of the world, attracting the best minds in the world to its universities and research centers, monopolizing Nobel prizes in science and economics. I imagined Hengdian World Studios pushing Hollywood and Bollywood combined out of the global film market. I even imagined Chinese as the primary foreign language in European schools. In fact, I almost started learning Chinese myself.
And what? And nothing. Today, in 2024, the vision of the world under Chinese leadership is as distant as the “red giant” or even “white dwarf” phase for the Sun. Not only is China unable to maintain its growth dynamics, but it has also begun to stagnate socially, and demographically it has entered the stage of decline.
And that doomed West turns out to be economically and technologically efficient, as well as culturally creative and attractive. The world’s popular culture is Western culture. Not only has the United States not seen China catch it up as the engine of technological progress, but it has also widened its advantage gap. Militarily, yes, China is a real rival to the US, but not in terms of the technological quality of its weapons. China’s “soft power” has been devastated by its “wolf diplomacy”, opaque economic espionage, human rights violations, and policies in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. The entire effect of the Beijing Olympics was for nothing.
The vision of a world in which the tone would be set by poor giants, and – between the lines – by countries that were not very advanced in terms of development, recalls quite similar cases known from history. Although in today’s situation, such comparisons are politically incorrect. They are downright insulting. But this does not stop populists in the West. They scare their Western compatriots of the coming of the „Savage”.
Parallels with descriptions of Rome (the western part of the empire) dominated by the Ostrogoths, Lombards, Vandals, Visigoths, Franks and Huns are supposed to make us depressed. What is often missed in these descriptions is that the barbarian tribes were Christian tribes, although in fact they professed heretical Arianism. They were however unable to manage and administer, they lived off wars and loot, their culture was low, in fact primitive. From the perspective of people brought up in traditional Roman culture, they were sent as a divine retribution. But they contributed significantly to destroying the fossils of “paganism”, its institutions, and allowed the West to undergo a catharsis, which, centuries later, resulted in an acceleration of the civilizational progress. And Byzantium, on the contrary, saved from the barbarians, sank into stagnation until it lay in ruins under the blows of the Arabs and Turks.
Barbaric oppression in the collective memory of Russians, Indians, Chinese and Persians is associated with the Mongol invasion. However, both in China and India, they recognized the cultural superiority of the conquered people and integrated with them efficiently. In Russia the dominance of the Mongols is still today seen as the lesser evil in comparison with the diktat of the West.
In Poland, the time under Russian rule and within the “camp of socialist countries” was treated as humiliating rule by the culturally inferior tribe of Slavs. It doesn’t matter that the Soviets sent rockets into space and had nuclear technology. After all, we, as Poles, in our own perception were part of the sublime West and in everyday manners we were even several tiers higher than the Russians. For this reason alone, communism brought from Moscow could not be accepted in Poland, because it was treated as an ochlocracy. It is doubtful whether if communism had reached us from Paris (certainly not from Berlin), it would have had a greater chance of public acceptance.
Parag Khanna once analyzed the phenomenon of orphan states. He calculated (a good decade ago) that over 130 countries in the world are beneficiaries of food aid. At least 20 countries cover more than 50% of their budget by the inflow of foreign aid.
Of course, today “poor” does not mean primitive or barbaric. Unfortunately, many people will associate poverty with backwardness. And poverty is still a symbol of disability. However, poor countries and societies certainly see the world’s priorities differently. This can be seen every day at the UN.
It is not appropriate to write about it openly, but for many, including Western politicians, the rule of the “poor” (even if “enlightened”) people over the world would not be a very tempting prospect for the West.
Three ways have been suggested to avoid it.
The first is the consolidation of the West. As part of this intellectual trend, a thesis emerged about the need to transform Europe into a “liberal empire”, because the future of the world would be determined by the condominium of giants. I have said and written many times that these geopolitical considerations should not be seen as a determinant of European identity. I would prefer European identity to be based mainly on a community of values. Admitting Ukraine to the European Union would undoubtedly have an important geostrategic value, but I would not want it to be at the expense of making concessions in the sphere of values. In the case of Turkey’s accession, even more so.
But the West undoubtedly, as I have written many times, should consolidate. Another thing is that linking the future of the world with the domination of “liberal empires” is a questionable prospect for me. But more on that soon.
The second option – separating the West from the world, making it close in on itself, mind its own affairs (and, as a result, betraying universalism, which is treated as part of its identity). This is, after all, what Trumpism in US foreign policy was leading to. Various populists in Europe have taken up the call to separate themselves and mind their own business. And postmodernism legitimized the legitimacy of all cultures, their equivalence. So systems of different values could simply coexist geographically in the world. No one would claim leadership. Can a culture among many in which honour killings and wife beating are the norm, the persecution of gays is seen as divine right, the deprivation of an individual’s free voice as a requirement of social peace, corruption and theft of state funds is called the traditional method of oiling the economy, can be considered equivalent to our Western culture, with all respect for the principles of correctness? Politically this thesis raises justified objections. So this is probably not the way to go.
Finally, the third way to prevent global rule by the poor is world government. Someone once explained to me that the suspicion with which Southern strategists view the idea of a world government is due to the fact that they see it as a trick with which the West would extend its political domination in a situation where the so-called objective premises would condemn the West to a secondary role.
But more significant for understanding the state of the modern world than changes in the hierarchy of powers is power diffusion. As a believer in the theory of political entropy, this convinces me indisputably. The international environment is becoming so dense and complex that it naturally limits the freedom of action of states as subjects of international politics. States are losing their monopoly on the use of force and on controlling the flow of people and information. The human individual entered the international arena as an independent actor. Various state institutions are entering into contacts, breaking down the monolith of the state as an entity, direct contacts between cities and regions are being established, and the activism of non-governmental organizations is growing. A new global network is being created. And the basic feature of a healthy network, no matter what, is that everyone is connected, but no one can control it. International relations have entered (to quote Bauman) into a state of fluidity. Everything is spilling out, flowing in an unpredictable current, breaking the established shores. There is no possibility to turn it back towards the source or let the currents carry us freely, because every now and then there is a shallow end, a blind creek.
Moises Naim announced the end of his power a few years ago. And this was to be true in all areas of life, both in the economy and in politics. The micropowers began to limit the dictates of the macropowers.
Years later, it can be said that Naim exaggerated. But the truth is: the old definition of power based on military force is becoming less and less useful. Because, paradoxically, the excess of it currently accumulated (nuclear weapons) is becoming more and more difficult to use. The wealth of countries is growing, but the costs of war are becoming more and more horrendous. States can afford a quick military operation, but a long-term war can only be withstood by countries that have an uninterrupted cash flow (the cash flow that Russia enjoys, for example, from the export of raw materials, may encourage Putin to prepare for a long war, but if the West shows solidarity in supporting Ukraine, Putin will not sustain this confrontation economically). And the circle of societies is growing where acceptance of human sacrifices resulting from war (not only on their own side) is decreasing. It was written two decades ago that today’s wars are the wars of the poor, in which one does not put one’s own well-being at stake as the price of war, because there is nothing to lose anyway.
Whatever the changes, it is still important to take care of the traditionally understood sources of power. We still need to care about the size and quality of the economy. About the state of the army. About the quality of alliances. Also in Poland.
Our economic growth was a guarantee of Poland’s growing power. The previous government, generating huge debt and neglecting the share of investment in GDP, objectively complicated the processes of building our power.
And then there is the purely political factor. Poland is the sixth largest economy in the European Union, but our position in the EU has become politically marginal due to the policies of the previous government.
Even if generous investments in army armament have brought Poland to the third place among NATO members in terms of the personnel of the armed forces, and the sixth place in the ranking of military power within NATO (i.e. higher than Germany), this does not yet translate into our influence on the Alliance’s policy.
It is clear that our “soft power” has clearly lagged behind our “pure power” aspirations in recent years. The Polish political elite undoubtedly lacked finesse in foreign policy. There was a lack of understanding of the world, there were no instruments (including language, also in the literal sense) to communicate with the world. Polish parliamentary life smacked of provincialism. When I was in Armenia, a very introverted and self-centered country, I found that ministers and deputy ministers in all ministries, even the third-rate ones, knew at least two foreign languages. And at least in a good way. What about us? There was a time, even during recent years, when our ambassador in one of the institutions important to us did not conduct any conversations with partners without an English interpreter.
And in the view of many experts, Polish diplomacy looked terrifying in its everyday activities with its provincialism. Our diplomats reportedly focused only on the so-called Polish affairs, i.e. the contacts with Polish diaspora, Polish clergy, and organization of visits by officials from Warsaw. Diplomats devoted their time primarily to managing property, personnel and consular affairs. When in 2016 I was invited as a guest to the annual meeting of Polish ambassadors, I had the impression that administrative managers were only there because only financial and administrative issues could liven up the atmosphere in the room. One of the foreign ministers of Poland wanted once the Polish ambassador to always “box above his weight class”, i.e. mean even more in his place of office than his country. Was there even one such “boxer” left in our diplomatic service by the end of 2023?
Many people believe that Polish diplomacy has completely deteriorated in recent years. It was put into a vegetative state.
But is there a so-called public demand for more ambitious diplomacy in Poland?
Polish media are interested in the world mainly through the prism of disasters, wars and celebrity scandals. Domestic issues dominate. There is no world at large. Here is another illustrative digression: to justify this thesis, I once spread out copies of Neuer Zuricher Zeitung and Gazeta Wyborcza in front of a friend. NZZ is by no means the Financial Times or FAZ, and Switzerland is apparently a country focused on itself, still less integrated with Europe and the world, and more than four times less populous than Poland. And Poland is known as the “heart of Europe”, the intersection of transcontinental routes, a strategic place. GW is undoubtedly a daily with the broadest international horizons on the Polish market. And yet, the comparison of the quantity and quality of materials devoted to international issues in these two dailies was crushingly bad for Poland.
A simple conclusion: as Poland, we will not be able to build a healthy “soft power” and revive diplomacy without overcoming provincialism in our thinking about the world.
