Out with the new order, in with the old

New Indian Express

03-07-2025

In 1992, Francis Fukuyama, in his acclaimed book The End of History and The Last Man, argued that the collapse of the Soviet Union marked the 'end point of mankind's ideological evolution' and that the liberal template would be the default world order.
However, in 1996, Samuel Huntington wrote The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, in which he argued that the epoch of ideology had reached an inflection point, and thereafter, humankind would regress into an age delineated by cultural conflict all over again. Clashes would be along religious, ethnic and cultural lines.
Both Fukuyama and Huntington were gazing into the crystal ball, trying to predict the ebb and flow of historical impulses in shaping the post-communist world order that had led to a unique situation of unipolarity in international affairs.
On September 11, 2001, when semi-state actors put the only omnipresent hyper-power, the US, on notice by crashing passenger-filled jets into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, liberal democracy certainly had not emerged as the global choice. The events of 9/11 inaugurated a new chapter in global affairs, wherein 'war on terror' became the new buzz phrase.
The events in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021 demonstrate that despite the US spending $2.3 trillion on the war, or almost $300 million a day, the country did not turn into a democratic haven for the Afghans. In fact, Afghanistan was a classical test case for the Fukuyama thesis, courtesy the direct involvement of the US for over 20 years.
Neither was it a clash of civilisations—for, if that had been, the US would not have engaged with the same Taliban it ousted 20 years ago. The Doha Agreement of February 29, 2020 paved the way for the return of the Taliban. It was a classical case of raison d'état at play.
The invasion of Libya in 2011 under the rubric of Right to Protect did not turn that country into a democracy. The impulse was to get rid of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's despotic regime, as the Iraq invasion in 2003 was to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Likewise, after the collapse of communism in the 1990s, China did not become democratic, nor is its ominous rise a civilisational struggle with other cultures. It is again purely driven by what China perceives as its national interest—the Middle Kingdom's destined place in the natural order of things.
Therefore, the affairs of people and nations are still governed by two fundamental precepts, both dating back to the 17th century. The first, raison d'état, and the second, the balance of power doctrine and alliance system. Technology and economics can be drivers, but are not determinants. The determinant is still state sovereignty.
We are indeed back to the old order. This would, unfortunately, be the fundamental underpinning of the new world order in the decades ahead.
Manish Tewari | Lawyer, third-term MP and former Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting
(Views are personal)
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