Chapter 3 - The great split

Summary

The Political West usurps the rights and prerogatives of the international system. The rules-based order set itself up as an alternative to international law. This in effect means that the Political West has become revisionist, although it is a revision of a system that it had itself earlier established, generating what has been called ‘internal revisionism’. This self-defeating revisionism undermines the foundations of the system that allowed the Political West to exercise its hegemony in a flexible and multidimensional manner. Hegemony is becoming the assertion of a divisive and militaristic dominance. In response, resistance not only challenges US primacy but also more broadly the hegemony of the Political West in its entirety. A global anti-hegemonic world order is emerging. Russia, China and other countries insist that they are not challenging the UN-based international system, and hence are status quo, even conservative, powers. However, their challenge to the rules-based sub-order means that in the sphere of international politics they are indeed revisionist – resisting the primacy of the Political West and its presumed usurpation of the privileges and prerogatives of the UN-based international system. This hybrid form of anti-hegemonism is neo-revisionism: opposing the claims of the Political West at the level of international politics, but supporting the institutions and norms of the international system in which international politics is embedded.

The Political East

The Eurasian powers of Russia and China are at the core of the challenge, and the two increasingly aligned as Cold War II intensified. Both fear the defeat of the other at the hands of the United States and its allies. Unless they stand together, they are liable to be hanged separately. The two Eurasian powers are part of what can be called the Political East, the counterpart of the Political West but operating according to very different principles. The characteristics of the Political West include militarism, hermeticism and ontological closure, issues that will be explored in more detail later. By contrast, the rhetorical focus of the Political East is on development and peace. It is anti-hegemonic, repudiating the logic of hegemonism in international politics, rather than simply counter-hegemonic, challenging the specific form of hegemonism represented by the US and its allies. However, in the intensely competitive culture of Cold War II, the nascent Poltical East generates hegemonic strategies of its own.