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Time Magazine
a day ago
- Politics
- Time Magazine
The G-7 Is Outdated. But It Still Matters
It's easy to dismiss the G-7, a club of wealthy democracies set up in 1975 to coordinate trade and global economic policy. This year's summit —held on June 15-17 in Kananaskis, Canada—comes at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump is upending the global economy with tariffs and has repeatedly threatened to make the host nation America's '51st state.' The G-7 is also an anachronism. It was set up five decades ago to include the world's largest economies, but today China and India, two economic heavyweights, are not members. The G-7 has simply not kept pace as the global distribution of wealth and power shifts from West to East and North to South. Nonetheless, the upcoming G-7 summit is still a valuable and promising diplomatic format. First, it brings together many of the world's leading democracies. If the liberal, rules-based international order is to survive and thrive, this collection of advanced democracies will need to play a prominent role. Trump seems determined to bring this order down, but the summit offers a chance for America's prized allies to talk him out of that, or at least limit the damage done. Second, the G-7 is small and informal, enabling it to foster sustained dialogue and build consensus. The G-7 in important respects resembles the 19th century Concert of Europe, a steering group of major powers that had no charter or formalized procedures, but relied on ad hoc consultation and coordination to preserve great-power peace over decades. At a time when geopolitical division hamstrings large and formal bodies like the U.N. and World Trade Organization, small and informal contact groups are becoming the diplomatic vehicles of choice. Although a clutch of other countries—including Brazil, India, and Ukraine —are expected to attend the G-7 as guests, the format lends itself to intimate and constructive conversation. When it comes to getting things done, small is beautiful. The world's wealthiest democracies are not alone in turning to bespoke and informal groupings to conduct diplomacy. Indeed, China and Russia have been leading the effort to form steering groups, such as the BRICS, to serve as counterweights to the G-7 and other bodies dominated by the West. The BRICS includes not just autocracies like China and Russia, but also developing democracies like Brazil, India, and South Africa. The G-7 and BRICS are suspicious of each other, in a way that splits the major powers into competing diplomatic camps. Yet such division is a huge problem in an interdependent world that faces collective challenges—including climate change, nuclear proliferation, pandemics, and the threats posed by AI. The G-20—which includes democracies and autocracies as well as developed and developing economies from all parts of the world—exhibits the diversity that is needed. But it is also too big and bulky, and its summits produce only anodyne communiques. So what should come next? The way forward is more bespoke groupings like the G-7 that focus on specific challenges. One could focus on ending the war in Ukraine; a second on ending the current war in the Middle East; a third on tackling climate change; and a fourth on the growing threat posed by unregulated AI. Such concerts should include democracies and non-democracies alike, bridging, rather than deeping, ideological and geopolitical divides. These bespoke groupings would not supplant the U.N. and other international bodies. They would backstop them by providing a forum for a sustained dialogue that is hard to come by in big and bureaucratic institutions. And they would tee up decisions that would be implemented in more official settings. It is precisely this function that the G-7 summit should aim to fulfill. At the top of the agenda will be Ukraine and trade. If Trump is to succeed in his effort to end the war in Ukraine, he will need to confront Vladimir Putin with tighter economic sanctions and more weapons for Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky is hoping for a meeting with Trump in Kananaskis, a conversation that can help set the stage for a successful NATO summit in The Hague later this month, where the big item on the agenda is defense spending. On trade, the world is teetering on the edge of a precipice. A 90-day pause on Trump's sweeping 'reciprocal' tariffs ends on July 8, and some 17 nations are still reportedly in trade talks. The summit will give G-7 members—who still account for more than half of global GDP—an opportunity to get Trump to back away from the ledge. The world is at a dangerous inflection point as the demand for global governance increasingly outstrips its supply. The U.N. and other existing institutions have an important role to play—but they are not enough on their own. They need to be complemented by a system of concerts aimed at facilitating compromise, cooperation, and collective action. The G7 is one of those. Let's hope more of them follow.
Express Tribune
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
The ghost of the Concert of Europe
Listen to article As the world transitions from the post-Cold War unipolar moment into an increasingly multipolar era, the question of how major powers can manage competition without conflict becomes urgent. With geopolitical tensions rising from Ukraine to the Indo-Pacific, many wonder if a historical model might offer insight. The 19th-century Concert of Europe, though deeply rooted in its own time, offers both a precedent and a warning for the challenge of great power cooperation today. The Concert of Europe was formed in 1815 during the Vienna Congress, comprising Britain, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and later France, after the Napoleonic Wars. This loose coalition's purpose was to ensure balance of power and continental peace. It did almost achieve four decades of peace, however it was deeply flawed. The arrangement maintained imperial control and suppressed nationalism. It was functional mostly due to members not trusting each other and instead coming to understand the consequences of a pan-European war. However, the entire system was dependent on Eurocentric views which turned the Concert into an uncontrollable monstrosity. This was the case until the early 20th century when it utterly failed in the colossal war it sought to "protect" Europe against. Moving towards the present day, the world is not only multipolar but is also more intricate than ever. The great powers now function in different continents under different regimes, in a system governed equally by economic interdependence, information flows and military power. Climate change, pandemics, cyber threats and transnational terrorism have blurred the lines between domestic and international security. Multilateral forums exist from the UN Security Council to the G20 but their effectiveness is often challenged by gridlock, vetoes and competing agendas. Nevertheless, the reasoning for maintaining a concert-style mechanism is still appealing. If concert diplomacy was effectively managed, it could offer a controlled and highly adaptable schedule for dialogue amongst the powerful, one that seeks understanding over conflict. Scholars like Richard N Haass and Charles Kupchan propose creating a contemporary concert of five active regions identified by their strategic powers and not regime type. Their suggestions focus on non-religiously organised structure principles, placing regional organisations in an advisory position. While it does not solve problems, this idea helps for reflection towards stabilising an increasingly fragmented international system. Trust remains severely deficient. The war in Ukraine, China's increasing assertiveness and fractures in Western alliances depict a volatile global system. Internal polarisation strikes democracies while authoritarian states escape external surveillance. Stability is not provided by a dominant nation or ideologies that were provided in the 19th century, rendering it no longer dependably enforced. Instead, it's crucial to understand that collaboration, even amongst adversaries, needs to occur, before disaster strikes. This doesn't mean idealism; it means realism with lessons from history. A contemporary concert would not be abolitionist competition but it could institutionalise the rules of engagement, lower the propensity for miscalculation and provide a forum for confronting shared problems. And let's not aim for harmony, aim for managed rivalry. A lack of a mechanism for regular strategic dialogue makes global crises more explosive and harder to grip. The ghost of the Concert of Europe should not be romanticised, but neither should it be dismissed. It reminds us that a peace is not the result of good intentions alone, but of good structure, of the willingness to restrain, and of a recognition of mutual boundaries. In a world where power is diffuse and the stakes are higher, the question is not whether great powers can cooperate but whether they will realise, before it's too late, that they must.
New York Times
08-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Who's Afraid of the Post-American Order?
The American-led world order that has prevailed since at least the end of World War II has long been precarious. Under President Trump, it is finally starting to crumble. Mr. Trump is pursuing a sustained assault on allies and adversaries alike. Last week, he announced tariffs on vast categories of goods from even America's closest trading partners, leaving global markets reeling and effectively ending the decades-long American commitment to international trade. He has repeatedly made his distaste for multilateral institutions clear, including the United Nations, North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union, and has fundamentally damaged the bedrock of the trans-Atlantic alliance. He has dismantled U.S.A.I.D. and silenced Voice of America. There are good reasons for pessimism about the future — a world in which China, Russia and Mr. Trump's America carve out spheres of influence and control through leverage and fear. But chaos will not inevitably follow the end of the American order. That fear is partly based on two errors: First, the past seven decades or so have not been as good for everyone on the planet as they have been for the West. And secondly, the very precepts of order are not Western inventions. That's a reason for optimism. To understand that the American order is not the only possible system — that, for many countries, it is not even a particularly good or fair one — is to allow oneself to hope that its end could augur a more inclusive world. Defenders of the current order argue that it has prevented major wars and maintained a remarkably stable and prosperous international system. And for a select club of countries, it has. Evan Luard, a British politician and scholar of international relations, calculated that, of more than 120 wars that took place between 1945 and 1984, only two occurred in Europe. But the corollary of this, of course, is that during the Cold War more than 98 percent of those wars took place in countries outside of the West. If the first and main promise of the postwar order is peace, many countries might be forgiven for asking: Peace for whom? Not only has the West succeeded in shielding just its members (and some others) from chaos, disorder and injustice, but it has at times contributed to that disorder, as in the U.S. interventions in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Equally, the idea of cooperation among nations long predates the rise of the West. Henry Kissinger's book 'World Order' portrays the Concert of Europe consensus that emerged after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 as a model for the preservation of international stability. But great-power diplomacy and cooperation go back to some 3,000 years earlier, when the great powers of the Near East — Egypt, Hatti, Mitanni, Assyria and Babylonia — developed a system known as Amarna diplomacy, which was based on principles of equality and reciprocity. The Concert of Europe lasted less than a century, until around World War I. The Amarna system kept peace about twice as long. The oldest known written pact of nonaggression and nonintervention was concluded between Egypt and the Hittites around 1269 B.C., and humanitarian rules of warfare, including the protection of civilians and the treatment of defeated soldiers, can be found in the Code of Manu of India from 2,000 years ago. When a warrior 'fights with his foes in battle,' it stipulated, let him not strike one 'who joins the palms of his hands (in supplication), nor one who (flees) with flying hair, nor one who sits down, nor one who says, 'I am thine.'' There are additional rules for warriors who have lost their coats of mail, or who are disarmed. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 contain strikingly similar prohibitions against mistreating 'members of armed forces who have laid down their arms.' The comfort in acknowledging the roots of these concepts in antiquity is in the reciprocal promise that they can still exist in a world that is not dominated by America. Order has always been a shared endeavor, and many nations of the global south are eager to participate in a world in which there are fewer double standards and more fairness. In the postwar period, many of these states gained independence and became active participants in international politics and in the multilateral institutions that America is now undermining. And when non-Western powers pursue their own agenda through groups that exclude Western nations, they are not necessarily motivated by resentment. For example, the BRICS group of emerging economies has expanded its membership significantly in the last year, but most of its new and founding members are not anti-American; they seek to use the bloc to reform and expand, rather than subvert, global cooperation and promote a more equitable system. The old order is not dead yet. America remains the most powerful country in the world thanks to a combination of unparalleled military strength, the dominance of the dollar and a formidable technological base. It will remain a — perhaps the — global superpower. But the world which it has built is unlikely to survive deep into this century. A world shaped not just by the U.S., China or a handful of great powers, but by a global multiplex of countries, would not be a paradise, but then nor has been this one. A fairer world is possible.
Arab News
02-03-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
What We Are Reading Today: The Invention of International Order by Glenda Sluga
In 1814, after decades of continental conflict, an alliance of European empires captured Paris and exiled Napoleon Bonaparte, defeating French military expansionism and establishing the Concert of Europe. This new coalition planted the seeds for today's international order, wedding the idea of a durable peace to multilateralism, diplomacy, philanthropy, and rights, and making Europe its center.
The Independent
01-03-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
After Trump's outburst, the free west needs a new leader… and it should be Keir Starmer
The unprecedented and premeditated outburst of President Trump and Vice President Vance against President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Friday shocked the world. But it should not have come as a surprise. Prime minister Keir Starmer the day before had given a pitch-perfect performance with Trump, even if the substance from their encounter is still to be decided. Starmer had elected to listen to his foreign policy experts who know how a prime minister does diplomacy. Had he listened to similar voices on domestic policy, he would have largely avoided wasting his first six months. Harsh, maybe – but true. The Friday meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy, in contrast, was a car crash. The Ukrainian president came across as naive. Unlike Starmer, he hadn't studied how to hold the high ground against the irascible and unpredictable Trump. But he was not the one at fault; Trump and Vance are wholly to blame. We might fulminate about how unpresidential and inappropriate Trump's behaviour was for the most powerful man in the world. But it won't change anything. The expressions of horror and indignation across the world at Trump's explosions are water off the duck's back. Trump, a force of nature, is a million miles apart from the great US presidents of the last century: Woodrow Wilson, who committed his country to the First World War; Franklin D Roosevelt, who brought the US into the second; John F Kennedy, who travelled to Berlin at the height of the Cold War to say this is the US's front line; or Ronald Reagan, who looked Soviet leaders in their eyeballs and saw off them (and their taunts of World War III). No American president had less understanding of history and liberty than Trump. And he doesn't care. The free west now needs a new leader. The message for Britain is clear. The special relationship, for all the warm words, is over. Yes, there will continue to be selective genuflections towards Britain, and more generally to Europe. Yes, Starmer needs to cosy-up to Trump, not least to ward off tariffs. But Trump and his administration have their eyes fixed elsewhere, to China and the Pacific. Like Hitler signing the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in 1939, he wants to square-off Russia while he turns his attention west. Whoever succeeds Trump as president – likely JD Vance, who could be in office until 2036 – will not alter this fundamental reorientation of US policy: Europe will be useful in this quest only in so far as Europe is useful. Everything in history comes to an end. The 'Concert of Europe' that kept peace across the continent after the Napoleonic wars eventually fell apart. Some 150 years later, the overly bureaucratic and anti-entrepreneurial European Union is also now falling apart. The prize will go to the European leaders who realise it, and who articulate a new, looser and wider union. Change in history comes at times of disruption: now is such a time. They will be the heirs of figures like Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, who devised the EU out of the still-burning embers of the Second World War. Keir Starmer, hosting a conference of European leaders in London this Sunday, is ideally placed to lead this process. He's not a natural at domestic party politics, but his lawyerly mindset is adept at large structural change. To get him ready – as I have previously suggested here – he should convene a day-long seminar of historians and thinkers at his country residence, Chequers. Ex-head of MI6 John Sawers, historian Margaret MacMillan and former EU supremo Cathy Ashton should be on his list. Lead Starmer, lead. You've just had your best week since you've become prime minister. Make it only the beginning, and do something magnificent for Britain, Europe and for peace in the world. The prize is there for the grabbing. Anthony Seldon is walking across Europe, creating a path of peace: his next book on the quest, 'The Path to Light', is published in October
