The world’s ability to confront and solve global crises has been severely weakened as multilateralism is being crushed under the weight of great power rivalries. Yet, the war in Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic, and humanitarian crises created by civil wars in the Middle East demand unified, global responses. This week, we look at the pressures multilateral institutions face, the power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran in the Middle East, and the policy implications for a geoeconomic approach to the West’s competition with China.

What’s Next for Multilateralism and the Liberal International Order?

World Politics Review

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Multilateralism across the world is under strain. The capacity of the United Nations – one of the most prominent manifestations of multilateralism – to meet its objectives has been hampered by its member states in recent years. The organization was established to balance sovereign equality and maintain international peace, but the five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council – the US, Russia, China, Great Britain, and France – have used their positions to severely limit the UN’s involvement in global crises and conflicts as global power competition has heightened. The Security Council’s limitations have been highlighted most recently by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia has been able to use its veto power to block all efforts of the Security Council to intervene or condemn Russia’s war of aggression which is very clearly in violation of the United Nations Charter. Beyond the inefficiencies of the Security Council, many of the UN’s additional specialized agencies, such as the World Health Organization, are facing funding shortages, constraining the UN’s ability to protect human rights, deliver aid, and achieve its goals. Other multilateral bodies, like the G-20 and G-7 which were designed to facilitate unified responses to global crises, have also been repressed by geopolitical rivalries, particularly between the US, Russia, and China. It remains to be seen whether the world will be able to repair the damage done to its multilateral institutions and formulate a cohesive approach to the pandemic recovery and the war in Ukraine.

Iran and Saudi Arabia Battle for Supremacy in the Middle East

The Editors, World Politics Review
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The competition for regional dominance between Saudi Arabia and the Middle East has manifested itself in many regional issues over the last decade. Saudi Arabia has entered into proxy conflicts with Iran-backed regimes and non-state armed groups, including in the Syrian civil war and war in Yemen. The power struggle has also become entangled in the conflict between Israel and Palestine as Saudi leaders have been willing to remain silent on the Palestinian issue in return for Israel’s support in containing Iran. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran reached new heights in 2019 when a missile and drone strike on Saudi oil facilities was blamed on Iran, bringing the two countries dangerously close to a direct conflict. In 2020, former US President Donald Trump further heightened tensions with his very confrontational approach to Tehran which brought the US and Iran dangerously close to a war that would have had direct implications for Riyadh. However, there has been a recent shift toward lowering tensions across the region. The Biden administration has re-engaged diplomatically with Iran, a cease-fire agreement (though tenuous) has been reached in Yemen, Syria has entered a less bloody “extended endgame”, and Libya has seen a pause in its civil war as a transitional government was elected last year. Several Arab countries have also normalized diplomatic relations in Israel over the last several months. While these measures by no means guarantee long-lasting peace, they are efforts to mend the ties that have been frayed by the region’s many conflicts and the Saudi Arabia-Iran power struggle.

The West Should Stay Focused on Geoeconomic Rivalry With China

Peter S. Rashish, World Politics Review
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China has challenged the West’s market-based economic order by becoming a global superpower through its state capitalist model, changing the main battlefield in international relations from geopolitics to geoeconomics. However, here are three reasons why some may say the war with Russia has perhaps brought the systemic economic rivalry between China and the West to an end before it ever really started: 

1. The West has used financial and economic sanctions to challenge Russia’s hard power politics, whereas in the past the West has used economic policy to maintain a rules-based global economy.
2. Russia’s aggression focuses world politics on the rivalry between autocracy and democracy and away from strengthening the global economic order.
3. Driven by the response of the G-7, the exclusion of Russia from the global economy has put power politics above economic competition and interdependence as the primary motivation for interstate relations.

Although these components seem to shift the focus away from geoeconomics to geopolitics, the US and its allies should maintain their focus on geoeconomics when it comes to China. If the West wants to have a fairer and more stable relationship with China, it needs to focus not on eliminating dependencies but on evolving its interconnections. The author of this article, Peter S. Rashish, suggests this strategy has three primary implications for policy: 

1. The US-EU Trade and Technology Council on May 15-16 will broaden its efforts to account for Russia’s behavior. Still, they must not neglect the fact that China’s economic actions challenge the West’s financial security more than Russia.
2. The mandate of the Trilateral Initiative comprising the US, the EU, and Japan should be broadened to include responses to China’s economic coercion.
3. The World Trade Organization (WTO) hasn’t had any significant rules added since 1995. The West should not push the WTO to the side but instead, enhance and broaden its abilities. After all, the decision to revoke Russia’s most favored nation status was made in the WTO context.

The West should continue to view its relationship with China through a geoeconomic lens rather than through a geopolitical one as long as China doesn’t offer any direct military support to Russia’s war efforts.