Walter Russell Mead: The Death of the West
[Walter Russell Mead is Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. He blogs at The-American-Interest.com.]
Between 1950 and 1989, the world was divided into clearly demarcated groups of countries. There was the “First World” of advanced industrial democracies also known as ‘the West’: western Europe; the British and European diaspora in North America, Australia and New Zealand, Japan; the “Second World” of countries under communist rule; and the “Third World” of developing countries emerging from colonial rule.
More recently, that old division has been breaking down; in the 2010s these old categories will largely disappear. The Second World, of course, has already been relegated to the junkyard of history. Some of its members have headed west — joining the EU and becoming, or at least trying to become, advanced industrial democracies. Some, like China and Vietnam, have gone east and no longer form a coherent ideological or economic bloc. Others, like Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, are unhappily wondering what they can or should do.
Less dramatic, but more important, is the accelerating breakdown of what used to be the “Third World.” Latin America, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and South Asia were once very much more like each other than they are now. Many Asian countries now enjoy living standards once reserved to the ‘West’ and many others hope to do so in the near future. Latin America and Africa are following economic and political courses very different from each other and very different from what is happening in East or South Asia. The Middle East, again, is moving in a direction of its own.
In retrospect it seems clear that the very concept of the Third World was a hangover from the era of imperialism. Before European imperialism brought peoples from all over the world under the rule of a group of European powers, someone from Indonesia and someone from Mexico had very little in common. The experience of foreign domination and exploitation followed by revolt and the effort of state building (along with the linguistic and cultural consequences of the imported European educational systems) created some commonalities, but over time these are fading and the natural, historic diversity of human cultures and interests is reasserting itself. The new decade will likely see the disaggregation of the Third World; the term will sound increasingly old-fashioned and even patronizing.
Within the old Third World, countries are likely to divide issue by issue based on economic and strategic concerns. Countries that are exporters of primary commodities have a set of common interests; rapidly growing exporters of manufactured goods have another. As we saw at Copenhagen, poor countries with low lying territories do not see eye-to-eye with rapidly industrializing nations like China — much less with the oil exporting economies of the Middle East. India, China and Brazil currently believe that they have either arrived at the VIP lounge in the nightclub of world politics or are shortly about to be ushered through the velvet ropes; these countries increasingly believe they can best advance their interests on their own, rather than through large and cumbersome coalitions like the Group of 77.
The biggest surprise, however, in the 2010s may be the breakup of the West. Just as the glue that once held the Third World is dissolving over time, the forces that once brought western Europe, the United States and Japan into a single economic and political bloc are gradually losing their strength. On the one hand, the economic and even the political differences that once marked this group as unique are beginning to fade. There are non ‘western’ countries now who enjoy the kind of middle class-based affluence that once only the western countries could boast. Europe is no longer the center of gravity for American foreign policy; increasingly Americans find their most serious foreign policy concerns and their most vital interests in East and South Asia and the Middle East rather than in western and central Europe. Indeed the concept of ‘the west’ as a diplomatic and even a cultural term is probably a liability for an American foreign policy that is increasingly focused on building relations with countries for whom ‘the west’ represents the colonial past...
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Between 1950 and 1989, the world was divided into clearly demarcated groups of countries. There was the “First World” of advanced industrial democracies also known as ‘the West’: western Europe; the British and European diaspora in North America, Australia and New Zealand, Japan; the “Second World” of countries under communist rule; and the “Third World” of developing countries emerging from colonial rule.
More recently, that old division has been breaking down; in the 2010s these old categories will largely disappear. The Second World, of course, has already been relegated to the junkyard of history. Some of its members have headed west — joining the EU and becoming, or at least trying to become, advanced industrial democracies. Some, like China and Vietnam, have gone east and no longer form a coherent ideological or economic bloc. Others, like Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, are unhappily wondering what they can or should do.
Less dramatic, but more important, is the accelerating breakdown of what used to be the “Third World.” Latin America, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and South Asia were once very much more like each other than they are now. Many Asian countries now enjoy living standards once reserved to the ‘West’ and many others hope to do so in the near future. Latin America and Africa are following economic and political courses very different from each other and very different from what is happening in East or South Asia. The Middle East, again, is moving in a direction of its own.
In retrospect it seems clear that the very concept of the Third World was a hangover from the era of imperialism. Before European imperialism brought peoples from all over the world under the rule of a group of European powers, someone from Indonesia and someone from Mexico had very little in common. The experience of foreign domination and exploitation followed by revolt and the effort of state building (along with the linguistic and cultural consequences of the imported European educational systems) created some commonalities, but over time these are fading and the natural, historic diversity of human cultures and interests is reasserting itself. The new decade will likely see the disaggregation of the Third World; the term will sound increasingly old-fashioned and even patronizing.
Within the old Third World, countries are likely to divide issue by issue based on economic and strategic concerns. Countries that are exporters of primary commodities have a set of common interests; rapidly growing exporters of manufactured goods have another. As we saw at Copenhagen, poor countries with low lying territories do not see eye-to-eye with rapidly industrializing nations like China — much less with the oil exporting economies of the Middle East. India, China and Brazil currently believe that they have either arrived at the VIP lounge in the nightclub of world politics or are shortly about to be ushered through the velvet ropes; these countries increasingly believe they can best advance their interests on their own, rather than through large and cumbersome coalitions like the Group of 77.
The biggest surprise, however, in the 2010s may be the breakup of the West. Just as the glue that once held the Third World is dissolving over time, the forces that once brought western Europe, the United States and Japan into a single economic and political bloc are gradually losing their strength. On the one hand, the economic and even the political differences that once marked this group as unique are beginning to fade. There are non ‘western’ countries now who enjoy the kind of middle class-based affluence that once only the western countries could boast. Europe is no longer the center of gravity for American foreign policy; increasingly Americans find their most serious foreign policy concerns and their most vital interests in East and South Asia and the Middle East rather than in western and central Europe. Indeed the concept of ‘the west’ as a diplomatic and even a cultural term is probably a liability for an American foreign policy that is increasingly focused on building relations with countries for whom ‘the west’ represents the colonial past...