Who Will Lead the Upcoming Democratic World Order?
Who Will Lead the Upcoming Democratic World Order?
America, The West, or The Anglosphere?
Now there exists an identity crisis for America, the global superpower is showing signs of exhaustion and those nation states under the protection of American military might are beginning to question the legitimacy of America’s position as a global power. Perhaps America will trudge through this crisis of character and emerge again as the unquestionable domineering nation state of the world. That, unfortunately, is still too early to answer. What is clear now is that the United States has been developing foreign relations with all nation states across the globe. So much so, that it’s now becoming apparent that America is disconnecting from their Western tribe in pursuit of creating their own world order that is nested under its own wing.
There are three possible paths forward for America in terms of which civilization it may choose to associate itself with the most. The first of these three is America itself, or better put, no one. In this case, America would have to become further entrenched as a world power than it already is today. With the further democratization of the world that has been witnessed since the dawn of the 20th century, the prospect of establishing a world democratic order is not far from possible. To illustrate this, here is a graph of democracies vs autocracies since 1900.
A democratic world order is indeed within the reach of America’s ambitions if it chooses to pursue them. This however will come with a cost, and that cost is pressure to maintain the status quo. We may not want America to become the Neo-Roman Empire. We are aware of the ensuing Dark Ages that proceeded the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 CE. Placing America as the safeguard of democracy would be akin to placing all of your eggs in one basket. Even though America is wholefully capable of becoming a world democratic hegemony, it would be at an incredible risk that we’ve seen before in history. The rise of democracies in the world doesn’t seem like it will be stopping anytime soon, so if America alone chooses not to lead this new democratic world order, then who will?
Our second option, which is the response to the above question, is having The West partake in leading this new democratic order. This certainly seems more plausible than having one powerful nation such as the United States doing all the heavy lifting. In this scenario, the West, which consists of America, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Continental Europe, would work together in establishing a global democratic order. Now this option does seem more pleasing, America can still maintain its dominant position on the world stage whilst some of the pressure is alleviated to the other Western nations of the European Union and the Anglosphere. An issue does occur when analyzing this scenario. The European Union has become over the years more concerned as a regional power than a global power. China is now the most looming threat to the global world order as it remains the last major communist state. Dismantling of the Chinese Communist Party would remove all barriers to establishing our democratic world order. The European Union is a major problem when it comes to mounting an offensive to the CCP. The EU has too warm of a relationship with the CCP and isn’t interested in taking China head on. Are there any options for America on who to share the power with? There is one more option.
Our third option is for America to create a democratic world order with the Anglosphere. That is the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Essentially, the West without Continental Europe.
This is the most appealing option of the three since the Anglosphere sees eye-to-eye on the China threat. The Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which includes the five Anglosphere countries, understands the Chinese threat and the recent AUKUS alliance is just more credence to the Anglosphere’s increasing offense against the communist Chinese state and the Anglosphere countries are more open to exerting their power outside its borders than the European Union.
If America chooses to associate itself with the Anglosphere, a perfect balance is struck between options one and two. In option one, too many of the eggs are placed in one basket, but in option two, the eggs are distributed all across Europe in which the residing nations refuse to exert themselves against the CCP threat. However, option three has the best of both in which only a handful of nations lead the democratic world order, but also has the added benefit of having all the leading countries of this order be similar in culture, language, and economy.
If an Anglosphere hegemony is best for establishing a democratic world order and the dismantling of the Chinese Communist party, then how should the Anglosphere go about accomplishing these two tasks? There are three things in which the Anglosphere must do in order to achieve this goal:
First is to lead a defense against the Chinese Communist Party. We are in the early phase of this step. The AUKUS alliance is a clear first step towards this goal. The four Anglosphere countries of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand ought to further integrate into a more personal union with the recent advent of Brexit, since all four of these countries are vulnerable to the CCP threat when alone. Perhaps a CANZUK union would be the solution, but at the minimum, a closer military alliance (closer than AUKUS), at least temporarily, would make for a good solution.
Second is to pursue in dismantling the CCP, the Anglosphere certainly has the military and cyber-warfare capabilities to accomplish this. However, the manner in how the Anglosphere ought to go about in accomplishing this is too difficult to surmise at the moment, but one can take comfort in knowing that the Anglosphere has the upper-hand in this confrontation.
Third is to begin the establishment of the democratic world order. The Anglosphere countries could accomplish this by leaving the United Nations and creating their own intergovernmental organization that respects the sovereignty of nations, maintains democratic regime as the status quo, and protects the Western ideals of liberty, freedom, and property; then invite like-minded nations into this new organization. The United Nations has proven to be pathetically incapable of maintaining world peace and liberty over its lifetime, we must dismantle it to create an organization with some teeth while at the same time promoting peace and freedom.
Unfortunately, I don’t see the EU as world power material. They may perhaps dabble with exerting its influence in the future, but the late 20th and early 21st century has proven that the EU will likely remain a regional power. This doesn’t mean that the Anglosphere nations should ignore the EU. We could, in fact, maintain warm relationships with the Western European countries and they will likely promote democracy within their regional area of influence. However, most of the heavy lifting in promoting democracy will be done by a domineering United States and possibly a domineering CANZUK.
Some are skeptical of the future of Western Civilization, but I see the trend of democratization of the last 121 years as evidence that democracy is vouchsafed from a calamitous decline. I’m quite confident that this decade will be critical in determining America’s place in the world. Who America chooses to associate itself with will likely determine the future of Western History for the remainder of the century. Let us hope that we can do what needs to be done and the Anglosphere can realize its place on the global stage.
Fair Winds
Guy Cross