Transcription
So let's start with geopolitical shifts. Um, could you summarize what you think to be the the great shift in geopolitics since the millennium, really, and in the with gathering speed in the last 5-10 years?
I think we can divide uh the world history uh into uh in into discernable phases of history. Uh the the period uh say uh up to 1500 was dominated of course by uh the history of Eurasia uh and the centrality of China in that history.
The period from 1500 to around 1750 uh can be seen in retrospect as the period of European imperial ascendancy. Uh that from a modest start uh in a age in 1500 when there were many uh significant empires across Eurasia. Uh the uh uh regimes of uh the far west of Eurasia of Europe uh became ascendant in global power and influence and uh that period of ascendancy can be dated roughly for 250 years.
After that was a a period of European dominance over the world system from uh 1750 to around the year 2000 with the proviso that for the last 50 of those years the United States was the dominant power. So it really became a North Atlantic dominance, not strictly speaking a European dominance. That is what has ended uh around the year 2000.
We uh entered for a variety of reasons uh a multipolar world uh with the two uh uh critical uh determinants. One was uh the nuclear age, which is a great equalizer because with the nuclear weapons, uh the entire idea of a global hegemon like the United States or Britain becomes impossible when other countries bear nuclear weapons that are credible deterrence or threats. Uh the second is the rise of China, uh which is a uh return of uh one of the world's great civilizations to the center stage of uh global politics and that really did not happen uh until the 21st century, but now it's plainly happened and uh China's not alone in this new role because India's rise is also significant and will be more significant in coming years and Africa will play a surprisingly large role 25 years on from today, but China's rise is the definitive, most visible uh and most important single break with the North Atlantic ic dominance of the world.
So we're in a moment that is transformative from many points of view. Uh it's the end of the US dominance that we see quite clearly in the US-China conflicts. Uh but it's more generally the end of the so-called Western dominance, which uh has a 500-year period, albeit one of dominance only half of that time from around 1750, but this is a very big deal. We're certainly not at the >> [snorts] >> uh in in a clearly defined new age because this is a transitional period. I think Gramsci's quotation that "the old world is dead, but the new one is not cannot be born" is quoted daily around the world. Uh the sense that uh we've reached the end of uh a long historic cycle, a long day, but we are not in a clearly defined new era. Right now is correct.
Um, certainly uh in mentality, the uh Western world keeps a lot of its habits of the past. The United States still dreams of its unipolarity, uh its ability to boss the rest of the world around. Even Europe, which is in a much, much weaker state, still has the presumptions and the the uh uh pertinences of imperial power, even though the empires are gone for uh three-quarters of a century. And in this sense, uh we don't have yet a set of institutions and a a mentality globally that defines the new order uh that's taking shape, but a new order is definitely uh on the way.
The big question is not multipolarity, that is uh the real existence of many major powers. That's already a fact. Uh that doesn't need to be born. We're already in a multipolar age. But we are not, as I put it, in a multilateral age where we have rules uh that govern the behavior and norms that govern the behavior of the major powers. And therefore, we are in conflict and in risk of major conflict in many places in the world. That is a legacy both of the past system and this transition period.