Features
Economic stress set to heighten globally as conflicts rage
The IMF makes the principal observation that overall these tensions could, ‘affect long term growth, threaten the resilience of supply chains and create difficult trade-offs for central banks.’ Small states particularly need to sit up and take notice.
‘The level of uncertainty surrounding the global economic outlook is high’, the IMF warns, among other things, in its wide-ranging report. The challenge emerging from such cautioning for the global South in particular is that it must see the current ‘geopolitical’ conflicts as unprecedentedly undermining its best interests and economic survival.
For sensible opinion anywhere, such warnings are a veritable ‘wake-up call’ to the relevant governments, policymaking bodies and international collaborative organizations to explore urgently the possibility of managing effectively and bringing to an end the current conflicts and wars. Needless to say, the principal theatres of such wars are located in the global South.
The most volatile and unmanageable of such conflicts thus far is the multi-dimensional and multi-frontier war in the Middle East which is already having a globe-wide economic impact. The indications are that the conflict has evolved into a regional war which is seeing the involvement of a multiplicity of regional and international actors, both state and non-state.
It need hardly be said that besides the rising human cost of the conflict, the inability to manage the conflict could have highly disruptive consequences for the world’s oil supplies. Indeed, the global economy is staring an ‘oil shock’ and other distressing results from the conflict squarely in the face.
The Ukraine conflict is no second in severity to the one playing out in the Middle East. In both theatres the world is confronted with wars of attrition that could drastically drain it of its resources and kill its growth prospects.
While the major powers figuring in these conflicts, could, for the present at least, ward off some of their more dire ill consequences, the same does not apply to the South which is home to struggling developing economies. An ‘oil shock’, for instance, could completely disrupt the economies of the latter and render them helpless.
Accordingly, there needs to come into being in the South a collective resolve to manage the relevant conflicts and to help in seeing an end to them, in whichever way possible for the hemisphere. Ideally the South should come together unitedly in this enterprise and ensure that it enjoys independence from ‘outside interference’.
A principal question that arises from these considerations is in which international organization or collective body the global South could come together. For all intents and purposes the Non-aligned Movement and other connected Southern formations are ‘dead’.
This columnist hopes that he would be proved wrong on this score and that the South would awaken to the challenges before it and work vibrantly and unitedly under the Non-aligned banner to meet them. However, thus far we lack the evidence that a truly Non-aligned collectivity could be formed to further the main causes of the South.
It would be irrelevant at this juncture to examine whether Non-alignment in its traditional sense exists or not. It obviously doesn’t. The task before the South is to creatively reinterpret the concept and give it new life by defining it as cordiality with all the states of the world. In the process, ideological blinkers would need to be got rid of. The best interests of the South should be seen as bringing the hemisphere together.
There is a near rush among Southern countries to seek membership of BRICS. On the face of it, there are no problems, so to speak, in such haste, but the issue that needs addressing most is whether the vulnerable of the South could exercise any independence in foreign policy decision making in particular by coming under the BRICS collectivity.
The latter point requires mentioning in view of the fact that BRICS heavyweights, such as China and Russia, are stakeholders in most major wars and conflicts that are ongoing in the world today. The challenge for the weakest countries of the South in this connection is to maintain substantive independence while enjoying the economic empowerment that may come as a result of BRICS membership. Aligning strongly and uncritically with the East is as counterproductive and harmful for the South as veering towards the West in the area of foreign policy.
Accordingly, the South is obliged to revive the more progressive programs of the Non-aligned Movement and connected organizations and seek its economic independence and empowerment free of external, big power interference.
Meanwhile, all is not going to be well on the Western front as well, as international economic disruptions begin to impact the countries of the North. US presidential hopeful Donald Trump shows adequate signs of sizing-up this situation. This accounts for his repeated rhetorical threat, issued in the course of his campaigning, that he would be ensuring the disentanglement of the US from the Ukraine war within ‘24 hours’ of his re-gaining the US presidency.
The US’s military backing for Ukraine is costing the US taxpayer a monumental sum of money and this will eventually lead to a groundswell of popular discontent against the country’s administration. Over the next few remaining days of campaigning, Vice President Kamala Harris would need to give Trump a convincing reply on this thorny question or risk losing the support of more discerning Democrats. After all, economics drives politics.
However, Trump also has a lot of explaining to do to the more scrutinizing sections of the US public. If the US pulls out of the Ukraine tangle at this juncture under a Trump presidency this would amount to ushering a major foreign policy defeat for the US. That is, Russia and its allies would be allowed to pursue their divisive agenda in the Ukraine and eventually maybe ensure the permanent annexation of the Ukraine by Russia. In other words, the principles of national sovereignty and self-determination, two cornerstones of International Law, would be blatantly compromised in the Ukraine.
Thus, the Ukraine is bound to confront any incoming US administration with a compounded crises from which there would not be any easy disentanglement. On the other hand, Russia is, for all intents and purposes, on a suicidal course in the Ukraine because it is hardly making any gains there. Meanwhile, the UN is in a virtual state of paralysis in the face of these crises. The world’s vulnerable are left to their devices as a consequence, unless they act constructively to end their helplessness.