The concentrated efforts at deglobalization are apparent via nationalist politics as well as the realignment of historically Western allies with questionable political actors in the global community that is undergoing a major reconstruction. This chapter provides historical context as to the rise of balance of power theory in the international community. The chapter will conduct a thorough literature review to explain the historical transitions in balance of power and the accompanying political environment and circumstances leading to the reshuffling of power dynamics.
TopIntroduction
We must remember the only time in history of the world that we have had any extended periods of peace is when there has been balance of power. It is when one nation becomes infinitely more powerful in relation to its potential competitor that the danger of war arises. So I believe in a world in which the United States is powerful – Richard Nixon (1973)
The Thucydides’ Trap describes the tendency and prevalence of war when an emerging power threatens to displace the existing global power as hegemon. Graham Allison notes that there have been only sixteen cases in which an emergent power threatened to surpass the existing hegemon over the course of the last five hundred years, yet twelve of the sixteen resulted in war (2017). This trap is an important concept to be aware of as the process of deglobalization occurs the liberal democratic order that has been sustained by multipolarity and institutionalism to maintain security and relative global peace, there is occurring a balance of power struggle between the Russia-led, semi-Communist bloc, which includes the increasingly critical Shanghai Cooperative Organization, and the Western bloc, which is no longer under the sole leadership of the United States. The concentrated efforts at deglobalization are apparent via nationalist politics as well as the realignment of historically Western allies with questionable political actors in the global community that is undergoing a major reconstruction. O’Sullivan refers to the concept of levelling which entails (among other things) the redistribution of power, influence, and wealth between nation-states leading to a levelling (implies a plateauing of power that becomes relatively evenly distributed amongst global powers) (2019, P. 19). By the same token, O’Sullivan acknowledges that this attempted levelling will “provoke a swell of nationalism, regionalism, and friction, and in turn a great swirling competition of ideas” (ibid).
As noted, much of this turmoil, conflict, and friction within the deglobalization movement stems from an economic foundation, in countries that have traditionally benefitted economically from the lesser developed nations. O’Sullivan (2019, P. 38) summarizes the issue,
Attacks on globalization appear to stem from the simple fact that its winners have largely been in developing countries and its relative losers have been in countries like the United States…[further]…The beneficiaries of globalization have been the lower to middle classes in emerging countries like China and Indonesia and the wealthier classes in the developed world.
The nature of economic globalization resulted in detrimental effects for westernized, industrial nations such as the United States, which sought to maximize its role in the global market economy and deindustrialized, or moved the production of goods overseas to cheap, more efficient labor markets. This offshoring of industry, first necessitated the sharing of digital technologies and tools of modernization in order for ‘underdeveloped nations’ to provide an environment conducive to manufacturing what the Western world required, but also (as previously stated) has led to the developing world and its ability to produce cheap products to displace the West in supplying numerous items to the global community because the West has not been able to compete with the low prices. The economic circumstances of those that are most vocally antiglobalization have been made worse by the current crisis of inflation that is being felt around the world, for example, the United Kingdom marked the highest inflation rate in forty years in August 2022, with the consumer price index rising 10.1 percent annually (Smith, 2022). The obvious consequence of rising prices, antigovernment demonstrations stemming from pandemic restrictions and regulations, as well as sharp distrust of international institutions has bred animosity and volatility among the citizens towards globalism, and has resulted in the sharp turn to nationalist (in some cases extreme nationalism, or fascism) electoral politics (discussed further in Chapter 8).