Skip to main content

Opinion: Great Power Competition in the 2020’s – Objectives for the smaller nations



World has moved from the unipolar US Dominated order, that emerged from the Cold War after the collapse of the Soviet Union, into a new great power competition with two major players and multiple smaller powers that aspire to rise to the top tier. China has already successfully challenged USA in the economic sphere. Russia and Turkey among others try to establish a localized area of dominance, while avoiding directly challenging the big dogs.

There seems to be a lack of coherent objectives for the US political leadership in this competition. But the minimum viable objectives were well presented by Martin Skold:

“The adversary means to either collapse us or coopt us, discrediting our governance model and turning our elites toward it.

Any day that doesn’t happen is a good day. Any day we do that in reverse is better.”

He also quoted Tanner Greer to explain the issue further:

As Beijing sees it, China’s success depends on discrediting the tenets of liberal capitalism so that notions like individual freedom and constitutional democracy come to be seen as the relics of an obsolete system.”

But how does this competition affect the smaller nations? The economically struggling countries in Africa, Asia and South America are mostly forced to pick a camp to be able to obtain the economic and/or military support they need. But European countries have real options.

If we look at what a hegemony of either of the major powers would look like, we can deduct the answer. An American hegemony, with its constitutional democracy and emphasis on civil liberties, has been a decently good for the smaller countries that have been able to conduct independent domestic and economical policies, while enjoying the stabilizing effect of the US military hegemony between 1991 and 2008.

A Chinese hegemony promotes authoritarian leaderships and exploits dominated regions natural resources. The goal is to solidify the Chinese dominion via. supporting the local autocrats with both economic incentives and tools of repression to control the population. This would be a drastic change to the smaller European democracies.

Thus, the prime objective of the European democracies should be to prevent Chinese influence in all spheres of the society: Economic, military, political, research and education. In addition to the local situation, the democracies should also co-operate to slow and if possible, reverse the Chinese control on the countries with strategic locations or resources.

Pursuing these objectives will cause some short term economic hardships, but in the long term the ability to avoid becoming a peripheral exploited client of the Communist China will outweigh the short-term costs. The biggest problem in this equation is the short-sighted political apparatus that is very focused on an election term, instead of the long-term benefits.


-Petri Mäkelä

Comments

  1. I admire this article for the well-researched content and excellent wording about writing tips. I got so involved in this material that I couldn’t stop reading. I am impressed with your work and skill. Thank you so much.
    Abcyacom games
    friv Games for school
    frivland.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks to the author's clear description, I understood everything I needed to know about my concern after reading this post. You can read my review of a writing service in the UK. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Go to Slope Wallet official website and select from Android or iOS for mobile application and select Chrome for desktop. You can also go directly to the Chrome Store, Google Play, or App Store. Then, search "Slope Wallet" and install.
    Atomic Wallet |

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks you for sharing this wonderful,informative blog|
    it was really a great post.hope to read many such posts|accidente de moto maryland

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quick guide to identifying the Russian tanks Part 1: Updated Dec. 2021

  As most of the western nations have reduced their inventories to a few or mostly one type of main battle tank model in their active inventories, the myriad of tank platforms and distinct versions employed by the Russian armed forces may feel overwhelming. Here is a quick guide to identifying Russian MBTs. When you come across an image (or the actual thing), follow the steps to identify it properly. Updated 15.12.2021: T-90 modifications Family of the tank Russian Armed Forces currently operates, or at least storage, the following tank platforms/families: -            T-55 (<2000 in storage) -            T-62 (2000 in storage) -            T-64 (2000 in storage) -            T-72 (2000 active duty, 8000 in storage) -            T-80 (2000 active duty, 5000 in storage) -            T-90 (350 active duty, 600  in storage) -            T-14 (20 in field testing) So how can you identify what type of a tank are you looking at? There are two features that can be used to distinguishing th

The Russian ”Tank Circus”

The Russian media has published several articles about the latest round of live fire drills by the Russian tank forces. The first brief mentions caught my attention as they described a new tank tactic based on the experiences of the Russian expeditionary force in Syria.  T-72B1 at Pogonovo (Photo: © RIA Novosti / Andrey Stanavov) The details about the new tactic were scarce but there were mentions of continuous movement and a steady barrage of main gun fire. On 4th of July, the RIA published an in depth article about the 20th combined Arms Army’s field training of the new tactics (Translated to English by Sputnik ) The “Tank Carousel” is simply a drill in which a tanks of a formation, be it a platoon or a company, move around a set perimeter firing the from vantage points or openings in a berm and then move off to safety while another one moves in to the same spot to fire.  This does allow the unit to maintain sustained 125 mm tank gun fire at a target area. Another

Russian Tanks 2022: Thicker and Blinder

  Since the all out invasion of Ukraine the Russian army has lost at least 1700 tanks. This has caused the Russian army some supply problems, when they are re-forming their mauled units. Fighting has also revealed the need for upgrades on most of the Russian tank designs. The most obvious issues with the existing Russian tank fleet are the insufficient armor protection, the lack of reverse mobility and the vulnerability of the automatic loaders and their ammunition carousels. Although the last one has gifted us the sport of Turret Throwing. T-72B obr 2022 tanks Very little can be done for the mobility with the limitations of the existing transmissions and the autoloaders can’t really be replaced with better designs or human loaders either. The armor part on the other hand can be improved during the activation and refurbishment of the deep stored Soviet-era tanks. The first new design that appeared in the battlefield was an upgraded T-72B3 with additional armo,r mimicking the T-90M layo