“We are at the same time in the 1910s, those of the competition of empires, in the 1930s, that of the threat of fascist states, but even more in the 1950s, those of the emerging cold war”, writes Bruno Tertrais , specialist in geopolitics in his work War of the Worlds (Ed. of the Observatory). According to the deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, we are witnessing more precisely a “lukewarm war” between the world of autocracies and that of democracies, which do not constitute homogeneous blocks, but families with shifting contours. Enough to fuel many conflicts and crises. Interview.
L’Express: While tensions between the United States and China are at their highest, do you believe that we have entered a new cold war?
Bruno Tertrais: The analogy with the Cold War is only partially relevant, for reasons relating to China’s economic power, the interdependence that exists – and will exist for a long time – between this country and the West, and the lack of organization into real blocks. If the “Western family” is, with NATO and the OECD, relatively structured, that of authoritarian regimes is much less so, since it does not have a system of rigid alliances like the Warsaw Pact. or economic cooperation organization similar to that of Comecon during the Soviet era.
Beyond the competition between great powers for world leadership, we are witnessing today, between the West and China, a clash between two civilizations, without it being a struggle for civilization. The challenge for the Chinese Communist Party is not to convince the planet that Chinese culture is superior to Western culture, even if, and this is where the analogy with the Cold War becomes interesting again, the avowed goal of China still remains the “final victory of communism”.
We are therefore rather in a “warm war”, a hybrid struggle, which will extend over spaces deeper than those of the Cold War, which will go from outer space to the seabed, with issues which will not be not the same as those of the Cold War: the competition for access to the materials necessary for the energy transition is a new parameter.
With a contested international order, particularly by the countries of the South, are we witnessing a “de-Westernization” of the world?
I am skeptical of this idea that the liberal order no longer exists and that we are witnessing a de-Westernization of the international system. First, because all the major institutions created after 1945 by Westerners are still standing. If the UN no longer mattered, Russian and Chinese diplomats would not seek to invest in it as they have done over the past thirty years. Likewise, the IMF and the World Bank remain essential for developing countries, even if China also wants to be a lender of last resort. Let us then note that so-called Western standards prove more attractive for a majority of the planet’s inhabitants than those defended by Russia or China.
The notion of individual freedom does not appeal to autocratic governments, but it continues to appeal to their populations. Those who, in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America or Asia, decide to emigrate, go more to the United States than to China or Russia! Ultimately, the world is, of course, less Western than it once was. A power rebalance has taken place. But when have Westerners been the only ones to decide since 1945? There was only a brief period – during the 1990s – when the West was triumphant. This was an exception.
What place will China take in this new world order?
China has three futures to choose from. Either it continues to want to reform and influence the international system from within, including in terms of standards; or it creates a competing system (which it has started to do on a financial level with its loans), but this has little chance of succeeding and we can already see its limits. Finally, faced with growing resistance to its influence, it could withdraw into its neighborhood to dominate it, to the detriment of global hegemony.
Let us point out in passing that the Chinese objective of becoming the greatest world power could be thwarted. For two or three years, economic models seem to indicate that China may never surpass the United States in terms of gross domestic product, due to its demographic weakness.
For the first time in more than a century, the sum of the GDP of democratic countries weighs less than half of world GDP. Will the “war of the worlds” between autocratic and democratic states take place?
Economically, the democratic family today represents a smaller proportion. But the reason is not the reduction of its power: it is the fact that that of other countries is increasing. The game is not zero-sum. The ratio you mention is symbolic, but it is not necessarily indicative of a weakening of the West in absolute terms.
On the political level, we can think, when we look closely at the evolution of regimes since 1990, that it is more a question of a stagnation of democratic progress than of a regression. It’s true, democracy appears fragile, it faces challenges, particularly in the field of information. In this regard, the process of renewing political personnel is increasingly subject to pernicious influences. We will see it in the coming months, since there will be many political elections around the world. 2024 will be a year of tests for democracy.
How to maintain confidence? I really like these words from Arthur Kœstler: “History knows no perfect causes, no situation opposing black and white. Totalitarianism is black, its victory would mean the end of civilization. Western democracy is not not white, but gray.” This is an interesting view because it rejects the idea that we are in a clash of good and evil. It is only on condition of rediscovering this sense of nuance that we will be able to lead a lucid fight, without the ideological excesses which were, for example, those of the Bush administration.
In your book, you predict a “world without a king”, in which the ambitions of the great powers of the 20th century are called into question, but where the West could do well.
It seems difficult to me to imagine that any country, whatever it may be, could tomorrow reign as much over the planet as was the case in previous centuries. In the future, it will undoubtedly be the least weak who will prevail, the one who wins what I call “the test of weakness”. However, in this regard, Westerners have resilience and assets of which they are not always aware. Thus, the United States retains very important structural advantages in this competition, starting with its geographical position and its demographic situation, which are much more favorable than those of China or Russia. They also have the only global language and the only global currency. Note also that the capacity for invention, adaptation and integration of technology into the productive system is generally more favorable to democratic cultures. Case study, Covid 19. The Russian and Chinese vaccines were not a scientific triumph… Likewise, we may be amazed at the number of patents filed by China, but they are essentially national patents. The competition over international patents is still won today by Western countries.
By attacking Ukraine, Has Vladimir Putin opened a “Pandora’s box”? Have we entered the era of irredentism?
Good question, because since the 1970s, the world had managed to establish a taboo on changing international borders by force. When Iraq absorbs Kuwait, it unleashes the largest global coalition against it since the Korean War. Today, Russia, but also Azerbaijan, Venezuela and certain leaders of illiberal democracies, such as Turkey or Hungary, are inclined to reconnect with the adjective “Great” affixed to the name of their country. And let’s not forget China, which is pursuing an expansionist policy at sea.
After Ukraine, the war in the Middle East Does it accentuate the divide between North and South?
The war in the Middle East unfortunately validates my reading grid, namely that we are today in a confrontation between an imperfect democracy and an authoritarian, terrorist and revanchist entity, supported by two neo-empires, Iran but also in to a certain extent Turkey, whose ruling party comes from the same movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Like the war in Ukraine, transformative for the European security order, the war in Gaza, whatever its outcome, will be transformative for the Middle East. I am one of those who believe that the shock is such that there could be a positive outcome for the Palestinian question, provided that there is a renewal of leadership.
But I am not sure that this conflict accentuates a divide between the West and what we call the “global South”, which in my opinion is more of a space than an actor. And this for two reasons. First, the most populous country in the world, India, has rather committed itself to Israel’s side, which clearly shows that there is not a “southern family” pitted against the West. . Then, the symbolic dimension of the Palestinian question is not necessarily reproducible elsewhere. Finally, we can clearly see that the strategic choices of a key country, Saudi Arabia, which wants to maintain good relations with both China and the United States, have not been called into question by October 7 .
In a context of wars, will the nuclear risk increase in 2024?
Today, many major conflicts or crises have a nuclear dimension, but they do not necessarily lead to a mechanical increase in the risk of using this weapon. It must be remembered – and this was not a given thirty years ago – that all nuclear actors advocate a logic of deterrence, including Russia. I do not believe that Moscow is really posing a nuclear threat. However irresponsible it may be in many areas, the Kremlin in fact remains very reasonable in this area, both in terms of speech and in terms of actions, since there have been no particularly worrying exercises nor, above all, change in force posture.
One downside, however: the normalization of fiery discourse on nuclear power from certain personalities, such as former president Dmitri Medvedev or ultranationalist presenter Vladimir Soloviev, is worrying. Because nuclear power is first and foremost a speech, and words have consequences. The risk is to see Russian strategic culture trivialize nuclear weapons, with the effect of weakening, in the medium term, the taboo on the use of this weapon.
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