The G7 can no longer call the shots

TORONTO—The world is in crisis mode as urgent issues compound while the capacity to address them continues to decline, raising the chances of future catastrophe with ugly consequences for all. There seems to be an insurmountable gap between what we know must be done, and what we actually do. We lack visionary leaders. Rather than seeking a new multilateral world where different systems can peacefully coexist and solve common problems, we are being led down the dangerous path of division as the United States, cheered on by Canada, works to divide the world into competing blocs. But the real priority must be to build a level of trust that will enable countries to solve shared challenges even if they don’t share values. The West is not the only impediment. China is not helping, and Russia has plunged the world into a disastrous war with global consequences. So we are on the wrong road, one that leads to crises, not solutions. This fractured world is a dangerous one. And while India may bask in a seeming success of the recent G20 summit it hosted, the ambitious closing communique—while praiseworthy in intent—is likely to end up the same as previous communiques: more promises never implemented. The ultimate goal of statecraft is, as former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger wrote more than 60 years ago, is peace and the avoidance of war. But this depends on what he called "legitimacy," a word he said should not be confused with justice. “It means no more than an international agreement about the nature of workable arrangements and about the permissible aims and methods of foreign policy," he wrote. "It implies the acceptance of the framework of the international order by all major powers, at least to the extent that no state is so dissatisfied that, like Germany after the Treaty of Versailles, it expresses its dissatisfaction in a revolutionary foreign policy.” Yet, policy today seems to have the opposite aim. Rather than give China or other emerging powers greater influence in global governance to better reflect their interests, and an expanded voice and role in global institutions such as the UN Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, the goal of the U.S.-led West seems to remain the hegemon by trying to force others to accept Western values and rules by dominating global institutions, and by pressuring countries to choose sides between global superpowers, and isolating and weakening China. Moreover, we are now entering a new and high-risk arms race, expanding weaponry to new levels of threat, including the militarization of space. Last year, global military spending reached US$2.24-trillion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. This imposes a new fiscal demand at a time when countries have more critical issues to deal with. In Canada, there is growing pressure to significantly raise defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP or even higher at an estimated increase of $13-$18-billion a year for the next five years. While recent attention has been on the G20 summit in India, another summit, this one held in late August in South Africa and attended by leaders of the so-called BRICS, merits much attention. It was another sign of global division, but also perhaps of the transition to a needed new global order. The original BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) expanded to include Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates, with Indonesia holding out the passivity of membership. As a group, BRICS+ would represent about 46 per cent of the world population, and 29 per cent of world GDP. By comparison, the G7 represents about 10 per cent of world population and 27 per cent for world GDP. BRICS+ will face major challenges. It must define its identity and purpose, as well working around differences among members (Egypt versus Ethiopia on the Nile, and Saudi Arabia and Iran competing for power and influence in the Middle East, for example). But BRICS+ represents a long overdue step toward a new world order where the interests of the developing world have much greater weight and influence. Its unity, it’s argued, comes from a long list of complaints about the West ,and the damage done to non-Western countries. Today, the West’s policies that led to inflation have meant much higher interest rates in poor countries that can’t afford them, forcing a number of nations into debt crises. At the same time, the West's near-shoring or friend-shoring penalizes poorer countries. We like to flatter ourselves by chanting, "the world needs more Canada." But for developing countries, they feel the world needs more of them, not us. Long accustomed to setting the rules, the G7 can no longer call the shots. Power and potential is shifting to BRICS+, and more generally to the developing world. More than ever, we face a future world with many consequential implications for all, whether we call ourselves democracies or are labelled autocracies. The most obvious are the dangers of wider wars and climate change. The threats from climate change are becoming much clearer day by day, creating challenges that can only be resolved through global action. The global economy will not be immune from future financial crises, pandemics or conflict. Competition in space will accelerate, but who will set the rules? We will need international codes dealing with artificial intelligence and new forms of life. And as former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once remarked, “there are known unknowns, that is to say we know there are some things we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” Global government is not the answer today. But a shared global governance system that can preserve peace and address the many known and unknown threats human society may face is crucial. Our biggest danger is that we are on course to increase world divisions at a time when there’s never been such an urgent need for shared solutions. David Crane can be reached at crane@interlog.com. The Hill Times

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The G7 can no longer call the shots

BRICS+ represents a long overdue step toward a new world order where the developing world's interests have greater influence.

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