Are We Returning to the Law of the Stronger? #China#Europe#Global Competition#Russia#USA
Fukuyama believed that after the fall of communism, humanity had reached the end of ideological development – that liberal democracy was the final model. Today, however, we live the exact opposite: the return of history in the form of harsh competition between great powers, authoritarian models and spheres of influence. We are entering an era that resembles the 19th century rather than the 1990s.
Note: The article was originally published in the journal .týždeň
The End of the Rules-Based System
Since the end of World War II, we have had an international rules-based system built on the foundation of the UN Charter. This was never ideal, but the powers competed only in proxy conflicts and avoided direct confrontation. The foundations of the UN were laid as early as January 1, 1942, when 26 countries in Washington signed the „Declaration by United Nations.“ The name „United Nations“ was coined by F.D. Roosevelt and was also the official name of the war coalition that committed to defeating the Axis countries and not agreeing to a separate peace.
From August to October 1944, a USA-UK-USSR-China conference was held in the USA, which created a proposal for the UN structure – General Assembly, Security Council, great power veto rights, International Court of Justice. This laid the technical foundation of the UN, which was politically confirmed by the great powers at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. The USA, UK and USSR agreed on the final form of the UN Security Council, confirmed veto rights and agreed on entry conditions for members. On June 26, 1945, in San Francisco, 50 states signed the UN Charter and after ratification by all great powers on October 24, 1945, the UN was officially established.
Unfortunately, as soon as World War II ended, the Cold War began. The world split into two competing blocs and a massive bloc of non-aligned countries. These were silent observers of the competition between the main blocs, objects of their efforts to win them to their side, and occasionally the scene of proxy wars. The USA and USSR led or managed their blocs, kept each other in check and avoided direct confrontation. The UN never functioned as its founders envisioned in 1945. During the Cold War it was paralyzed, after its end it had a brief golden era and today it is again overshadowed by great power rivalry. It is not a guarantor of peace, but an administrator of global chaos.
In Europe, the principle of immutability of post-war borders prevailed for a long time. This was further strengthened by the adoption of the Helsinki Final Act and the creation of the OSCE. The Helsinki Final Act was a paradox: in the short term it stabilized post-war borders and confirmed the Soviet sphere of influence, but at the same time it inserted principles into the system that eventually decomposed the Soviet bloc from within. Helsinki was thus both the peak of the post-war rules-based system and the beginning of its transformation. The 1975 Act was a „grand bargain“ between East and West. The OSCE became the institutionalized guardian of this order, until Russia began systematically destroying it after 2014.
All of this definitively fell on February 24, 2022, when Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and embarked on a path of revision and attempts to restore the former Soviet sphere of influence through brutal military force. Rules suddenly don’t apply, Ukraine is to cease to exist. The UN Security Council was paralyzed and unable to take a position and act against the aggressor. The EU, NATO, G7 and the democratic community condemned Russian aggression, military aggression cannot be a tool for revising state borders or liquidating their sovereignty. However, they did not find the strength and courage to end the aggression.
Powers like China and India were unable to take a clear stance on the aggression, and Iran or North Korea openly support Russia. North Korea directly joined the war. A shock comes from the USA with the advent of Donald Trump. He replaces the previously cautious principled stance with transactional pragmatism and acceptance of the use of military force. This thinking is based on the principle „everything is allowed if you have the cards.“ US leadership believes that peace is an enforced state based solely on force regardless of moral issues, legitimacy and justice.
A Dangerous Multipolar World
President Trump told the New York Times that he doesn’t need international law and that the only limit to his global power is his own morality. This is a fundamental departure from American post-war tradition and a serious signal for allies who rely on a rules-based world. This departure was formally expressed by the USA in its new security strategy and confirmed by the strike on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro. Despite Maduro’s depravity and his regime, such an operation has no place in international law. Trump used the law of the stronger and gave arguments to defenders of Russian aggression, as well as motivation to China and other potential aggressors.
The international rules-based system that the USA painstakingly built when putting together the United Nations is paradoxically collapsing thanks to the current US leadership. Current threats of violent takeover of control over Greenland also threaten key alliances that ensured that all of Europe did not fall into the hands of USSR-led communists. President Trump justifies considerations about taking over Greenland with US national security needs. This is an unacceptable argument similar to Vladimir Putin’s arguments and factually doesn’t fit. Arctic space security is vitally important not only for the USA, but also for their NATO and EU allies. Compared to the Cold War, only that China is more active in this space today has changed. But the basic military premises and arguments remain unchanged.
American presence in Greenland is neither new nor symbolic. The USA has been operating there since World War II. During the greatest threat from the USSR, the USA, by agreement with Denmark and in accordance with NATO interests, built a network of military bases in Greenland. The most important of them, today’s Pituffik Space Base, is still active and is among the key sensors for early warning against missiles and space monitoring. It operates based on a valid agreement with Denmark, within NATO, and is the northernmost American base.
Besides it, Americans had other large facilities in Greenland. Sondrestrom was a transit and meteorological base that the USA used until 1992. Narsarsuaq was important during the war for transatlantic flights and naval operations. And then there is Camp Century – an experimental city built in the glacier, even with a small nuclear reactor. All this shows that the USA had enormous possibilities in Greenland, which they later reduced themselves when their strategic priorities shifted elsewhere.
If Washington claims today that Greenland is necessary for American national security, then first it must be said that legal mechanisms already exist. The USA has a valid defense agreement, has a base, has access to infrastructure and can expand it in cooperation with Denmark and the Greenlandic government. Therefore, it is very difficult to defend rhetoric about annexation or military pressure against an ally. The United States does not need to own Greenland – it is enough for them to use the possibilities they already have, and which they themselves did not fully utilize in the past.
A US attack on Greenland would not be just another NATO crisis, but a systemic break: an alliance built on trust would lose its meaning. A world would emerge in which Europe would have to quickly learn to be a great power. Not out of ambition, but out of compulsion.
In reality, the world began changing as early as 2008. Authoritarian models began returning and gradually asserting themselves. Although the Communist Party rules politically in China, authoritarian capitalism has established itself in the country. Russia was taken over by revisionism and military imperialism. Theocratic expansionism is asserting itself in Iran. These models don’t want to be liberal democracy, are capable of surviving and cooperating. Power politics gradually began returning and manifested itself in the annexation of Crimea, the war in Syria, the war in Ukraine, Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific. There is an increasingly sharp competition for the Arctic, Africa, or Latin America. Spheres of influence are returning to the scene. Russia wants to forcibly control the post-Soviet space, China the Indo-Pacific, Africa and Latin America. The USA wants to control Latin America, Europe and the Pacific. Regional power projects of Turkey, Iran and India are joining these main powers.
Ideological competition has also returned. It is no longer about the competition between communism and capitalism, but liberal democracy and authoritarian capitalism compete, open society and closed society, rule of law and power state. These are today’s decisive ideological clashes that define the new multipolar world in which military force is again becoming a key tool of competition and advancing interests. Powers compete for their spheres of influence using military force, technology and economics.
Competing Powers and Their Ambitions
In a multipolar world, powers strive for a redistribution of the world. It is about defining not only new spheres of influence in a geographical sense, but mainly power, economic and technological influence. With increasingly sharp competition, the role of military potential grows and the willingness to actually use it to advance one’s interests or protect one’s sphere of influence. Not only arms races are beginning, but also the risk of serious military conflicts. Let’s look at what the main poles and powers are in the new multipolar arrangement, what their goals are and the main military development trends.
USA – Striving for Dominance
The first Trump administration still talked about great power competition. The second, however, moved to a doctrine that has no equivalent in post-war US history: unilateralism that relies on an aggressive reinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The attack on Venezuela and threats against Greenland show that the USA is no longer talking about competition, but about dominance. And this changes the entire global system.
President Trump comes with a shocking demand for a military budget of $1.5 trillion. This would be a year-on-year increase in defense budget by 66%. This is more of a political signal than a realistic budget. Congress will probably reduce it, but it will still be the largest increase since the Korean War.
The goal of the USA is dominance in oceans, technologies and in the Western Hemisphere. The USA can realistically achieve dominance in the Western Hemisphere, which is their traditional sphere of influence that Washington considers „untouchable.“ The USA will want to maintain the largest projection of power at sea and the position of leader in technological standards in the field of AI, chips, cloud services and software. They will want to maintain their dominant influence in the Anglophone sphere – UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. They will compete with China over the Indo-Pacific region. Europe can, according to the development of American politics, be either a solid ally or a zone of some kind of delegated security.
The USA is today undergoing the largest transformation of armed forces since the end of the Cold War. The goal is to prepare for conflict with an equal adversary, especially China. The Pacific is the main battlefield of the 21st century. The USA wants to reduce vulnerability to hypersonic weapons, move from a „heavy“ army to an „intelligent“ one.
Military dominance is to be ensured by key modernization projects. Americans are striving for a missile defense and space revolution. Golden Dome (new missile defense against hypersonic and ballistic threats) represents a massive project to create a „protective dome“ over the USA. It is to have a satellite layer for tracking hypersonic targets, space interceptors are also planned. The goal is to neutralize Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons. The space hypersonic and ballistic sensor layer is to have satellites capable of tracking hypersonic missiles in real time. The goal is to gain information and decision superiority in the first seconds of an attack.
Navy modernization is to be ensured by the Golden Fleet project. The USA is building a fleet for the Pacific, which will include new classes of destroyers, modernized nuclear submarines, unmanned surface and underwater platforms, satellite and network systems for „distributed naval operations.“ The goal is to maintain dominance in the Pacific against the rapidly growing Chinese fleet. The new generation of aviation is to consist of new 6th generation stealth fighters F-47 „Dream Fighter“ and NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance). The F-47 has AI-assisted control and the ability to lead swarms of combat drones. Extreme emphasis is placed on electronic warfare. NGAD is to be a „system of systems,“ i.e., a piloted machine plus autonomous wingman drones, which are essentially unmanned combat fighters. The goal of aviation modernization is to maintain air dominance after 2030.
The ground forces await the largest reorganization in a generation. The USA is implementing a fundamental reform that changes structure, equipment and the way of fighting. Old programs will be eliminated or limited. New priorities are long-range fires, autonomy and drones, AI in combat control, network command, anti-drone defense. TIC brigades (TIC = Transformation in Contact) are to be developed. This is a completely new type of brigade having hundreds of drones, autonomous vehicles, AI tools, satellite communication, new organizational structures. The goal is a brigade that fights like a swarm – quickly, distributed, autonomously.
China
Will concentrate on the core of Asia, the global South and economic ties. China will try to gain and maintain a dominant position in East Asia both economically and technologically. In the South China Sea area, it wants to achieve gradual control. It wants to dominate the Global South, i.e., Africa, Latin America and the Middle East economically, not militarily.
China’s main areas of competition will be in the Indo-Pacific with the USA, Japan and India. In Central Asia with Russia economically and with Turkey politically. However, China probably will not win India – it will always be autonomous, or Europe – it is too distant, too connected with the West. It will try to gain Russia as a vassal. Russia will be dependent, but not completely obedient.
The People’s Liberation Army is to be „world-class“ by 2049 – i.e., an army that can operate globally and defend Chinese interests anywhere, not just at its own borders. China’s strategic goals in the military are to ensure the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by 2049. The army is a key tool to guarantee sovereignty, territorial integrity (especially Taiwan) and protection of Chinese interests at home and abroad. By 2027, it should achieve the ability to force Taiwan to submit and deter the USA from intervention. By 2035, a fundamental completion of modernization is expected – joint integrated forces capable of conducting „informatized and intelligent“ warfare. By 2049, it should be a full world-class force at the level of the USA in key domains such as navy, missiles, space, cybernetics and nuclear weapons. China’s ambition is a transition from local wars on the periphery to global power projection, i.e., to protection of sea lanes, investments, diaspora and corridors.
Russia
Russia’s strategic ambitions are to maintain the status of a great power and nuclear pole against the USA, to have the ability to militarily dictate to the near abroad and be a factor in Europe, the Arctic and the Middle East. The political goal is to have armed forces capable of supporting revisionist politics, i.e., changing borders, maintaining sphere of influence, blackmailing the West with nuclear and conventional forces. The operational goal is to be able to quickly deploy well-prepared forces in the neighborhood (Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus), intervene in crises outside the region (Syria, Africa). The long-term goal is to have an „at least sufficiently modern“ army – not necessarily as a technological leader, but capable of actually fighting and maintaining pressure on NATO and neighbors.
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine fully revealed Russia’s persistent weaknesses. However, despite problems in Ukraine, Russia is adapting and rapidly modernizing. The country is in a regime of economic mobilization of war production and the political leadership does not give up the ambition to militarily restore its sphere of influence in Central and Eastern Europe.
Europe
Europe’s security pillar is still NATO and the USA, not the EU. The discussion about „strategic autonomy“ returned after February 24, 2022, but the reality is that without the USA, Ukraine and the eastern wing can only survive with great difficulty today. Putin brutally reminded us that military force is back as the main language of politics, and thus paradoxically launched not only NATO, but also new debates about the European Defense Union. Trump and volatility from the USA, especially Trump’s statements that he „will not protect delinquent NATO members,“ were a shock and at the same time a catalyst. The EU today openly talks about Europe having to learn to „take care of itself,“ which can serve at least as insurance. The EU is therefore an economic giant, a regulatory superpower, but a military semi-finished product. This can be a deadly combination in multipolar competition.
Europe today stands in the middle of a great power storm as a rich but militarily immature actor. If it doesn’t want to be just a space that Washington, Moscow and Beijing decide about, it must do what it has avoided for 30 years: build its own defense capacity, unite the arms industry and protect its democracies as critical infrastructure.
What Awaits Us?
If today’s dynamics continue, the world will not be divided into territories, but into ecosystems. The USA will maintain oceans and technologies, China Asia and the global South, India autonomy, Russia only its region and Europe will have to decide whether it will be a pole or periphery. The division of the world in the 21st century is a competition for influence and power, not just for maps.
The world is heading toward harsh competition between three military poles – the USA, China and a nuclear-armed but weakened Russia. The decisive factor will be whether we manage to maintain competition in the regime of managed rivalry, or whether we break down into a fragmented, conflict environment in which small states will only be pawns in the game of great powers.
NASPAŤ