New Cold War and the Crisis of the Liberal Global Order

Abstract

Currently, international relations and the global order are in turmoil and disorder. The bases of the international order and the means by which it was regulated are in the process of being dismantled, such as the central considerations of the Treaty of Westphalia that guided international politics and diplomacy for centuries. As the world becomes increasingly polarised into different opposing and competing geopolitical camps, the question needs to be asked, why is this happening? The answer seems to lie, at least in part, in a rapidly evolving and changing system of global political hegemony, where liberal democracy is on the wane. This is also further influenced by the declining economic and military power of the West, where the US is still the unipolar hegemony, but is declining in its hard power and ability to manage/control international affairs as it was able to do in the 1990s (such as the First Gulf War in 1990–91 and Kosovo in 1999). This paper analyses the rise and decline of the West, and the international consequences and results. A conclusion of this paper, although the West is significantly weakened in terms of its political, military and economic power, it is trying to stave off its decline. Therefore, the ‘New Cold War’ is an important element in this strategy as a means to try and unite a divided and wary domestic audience by attempting to invoke the spectre of a foreign ‘threat’ and to do this through the concept of a crisis. A crisis represents an extraordinary situation, which if accepted, becomes the basis for applying extraordinary measures to ‘rescue’ the public from the hazard. It is a means to try and bargain the public’s freedom for their sense of security.