Is 'post-Kantian' order beginning to emerge?

Is 'post-Kantian' order beginning to emerge?

Bantarto Bandoro, Editor, 'The Indonesian Quarterly',
Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta,
bandoro@csis.or.id

In an article in this newspaper on March 20, Soedjati
Djiwandono wrote that the war on Iraq could lead to a new world
order, a multipolar one without a single major power occupying a
dominant position. In this new world order, no single power would
act unilaterally, especially in military terms.

While there is some truth in the argument, the Iraq war has
instead strengthened the abandonment of nonintervention -- hence
unilateralism might still be a characteristic of the new order.

As the war entered its second week, there were few signs that
it would end shortly. The mid-war diplomatic maneuverings at the
United Nations Security Council failed to yield to the wish of
members of the international community that the U.S. stop the war
immediately.

War and a breakdown in diplomacy are symptoms of a transformed
political order struggling to emerge. We are in the transition
period between the end of one order and the beginning of another,
perhaps one that will be robust, flexible and interventionist.
Such a new order has arisen as a consequence of the weakness of
the United Nations.

The current war reflects the U.S. as a Hobbesian sovereign,
providing security and protection to a world in need of conflict
management and conflict resolution. Thomas Hobbes conceived
sovereign power as justified, as it delivers security and safety
to its people. But the U.S. policy and strategy do none of these
things, endangering its citizens, especially abroad, further
dividing and polarizing international affairs and weakening the
international institutions of peace and justice.

Because of its war on Iraq, the Bush administration might be
accused of being a "traitor" to its country, because it no longer
respects its exclusive jurisdiction over its own territory and
people. One might also see the Bush regime as being a
sophisticated one, because it knows the ways of the world, cares
for those outside its territory and is open to the customs and
ideas of those outside its own nation.

In that sense, the U.S. regards the whole world, particularly
Iraq, at least for the time being, as its native land and has no
national prejudices. The current war has placed the U.S. at the
center of new political arrangements. It is through such new
political arrangements that we can witness a new alliance of
neoconservatism and liberal interventionism.

The current war has indeed given birth to a new order, but one
that depends heavily on the U.S. and like-minded states. The new
order recognizes that the old international system has lost both
salience and legitimacy. It is emerging amid the confusion caused
by the dying institutions and systems inherited from the end of
the Cold War. New coalitions of the willing have already
stretched to near breaking points the more formal structures of
the UN, NATO and the European Union.

These institutions are not witnessing an emergency phenomenon
that can be resolved by adaptation. The combination of the
"crisis" in those institutions points to a wider transformation
in the entire political order, a transformation of which each is
a part.

The new world order sees international institutions in crisis,
because it failed to become an anchor for the international
system. The UN is indeed the main concern of the international
community.

Immanuel Kant wrote in 1795 that international peace was more
likely between free states rather than between authoritarian
ones.

The philosopher also favored a league of free nations rather
than a world government that tried to impose rule and order upon
nations. But now, with the war on Iraq, even the organizations of
free nations are no longer enforcers of the rules, and have been
weakened as a source of legitimacy for international action.

The additional US$75 billion that Bush requested from Congress
for the war assumes that the war will last longer than expected,
meaning that the world will see an order in which the development
of rule and its enforcement is carried out by coalition only
semi-attached to, or detached from, the UN system.

Such an order goes beyond Kant's league of free nations
precisely because it is willing to intervene in the domestic
affairs of other countries, and it relies on a framework of
international rules of behavior and their enforcement. The
coalition of the willing and able led by the U.S. seems to be
central in such an order.

The "post-Kantian order" is characterized by flexibility and
is anchored on a government system biased toward "peaceful
relations" and a readiness to intervene if necessary. Such an
order produces principles that will serve as some sort of
guidance for its members to act internationally, and thus provide
their own legitimacy.

The U.S.-led coalition in the war against Iraq has chosen not
to prioritize the development of international law and UN
institutional arrangements, and not to stress the urgency of
building institutional bridges between its geoeconomic and
geopolitical interests, and the priorities of political and
social justice.

Now that the new order is emerging, the geographical factor no
longer matters politically. What matters now are policy terms in
which states view the world beyond their own frontiers. We will
also see the replacement of rigid forms of military alliance with
flexible and informal ones, thus moving away from exclusive and
treaty-based clubs with fixed membership rules to a flexible
"coalition of the willing".

The new world order will also see international laws being
replaced by the informality of coordinated national laws, and
principles of nonintervention will no longer be upheld.

The rush to war on Iraq gives priority to a narrow security
agenda which is at the heart of the new U.S. security doctrine of
unilateral and preemptive war. This agenda contradicts most core
tenets of international agreements. It threw out of the window
respect for open political and diplomatic negotiations.

Because such a world order cannot ignore the importance of the
factor of force, it will operate on the basis of forceful
enforcement to support international rules, thus degrading and
eroding further the role of international institutions.

The crisis in the UN is extremely serious. It could set back
the cause of global governance for many years. The question now
is, can the new world order later open up the possibility of a
new era of multilateral institutions based not on U.S. hegemony
-- but on much more solid international support?