India islocked-down because of COVID-19. It has severely curtailed its physicalcontacts with the rest of the world. Many countries have undertaken similarmeasures to prevent this virulent virus from coming further into theirterritories. Like most compatriots I am also spending time at home wondering ifCOVID-19 has brought the world to a major inflection point. To gain from thepast I have let my mind roam over some of the inflection points ininternational relations over the past fifty years. For much of that period Iwas a member of the Indian Foreign Service. Hence, the motivation for goinginto the past five decades of the global evolution.
The end ofWorld War II in 1945 set in motion the process of the passing away of theEuropean empires in Asia and Africa and elsewhere. The war’s end also witnessedthe establishment of two antagonistic and ideologically opposed groups ofcountries led by the United States and the Soviet Union which became armed withthermo-nuclear weapons. The two blocs engaged in a cold and at times proxy warseven as they sought, inter alia, to enhance their influence in the newlyindependent countries. While many of these states joined one bloc or the other,some, including India, attempted to chart a non-aligned course howeverineffectual it may have been in shaping global event which were decided by theinteraction of the two super powers, the US and the Soviet Union.
Thus, theworld order at the beginning of the 1970s continued to be dominated by twosuperpowers and partly impacted by their European allies. Developing countries,including the world’s two most populous states—India and China—grappled withissues of economic and social transformation and cementing their politicalsystems. Certain developments occurred, as the decade proceeded, which, inretrospect, can be called inflexion points in global evolution. Otherdevelopments which seemed would decisively change the world did not do so. Itis never easy to contemporaneously ascertain the long-term consequences ofevents howsoever large they may loom in the imagination of the times.
Theconsolidation of the Oil Producing and Exporting States (OPEC) under thestewardship of King Feisal of Saudi Arabia in 1973 greatly pushed oil pricesupwards and set in motion the transformation of West Asia. That alsofundamentally impacted the power structure of the Islamic Ummah which is onlybeing partially challenged. The India-Pakistan war of 1971 changed thegeography of South Asia and put India on the road, tortuous and long anddifficult though it was, to regional pre-eminence. The Iranian revolutionchanged the regional balance but in global terms the entry of the Soviet Unionin December 1979 was of far greater consequence; it contributed to demise ofthe Soviet Union. Also of great import was Deng Xiaoping’s coming to power inChina in 1978 and the beginning of its economic de-ideologicalisation evenwhile ensuring Communist party retaining full political and social control.That put China on the path of prosperity.
The US beata humiliating retreat from Vietnam in 1975. It had then seemed that communismwas on the march and that the bastion of liberal capitalism was a waning power.The question in most minds related not to US resources but its will for theVietnam war was lost because it had become deeply unpopular at home. The SovietUnion seemed resolute, able to decisively marshal all the elements of statepower. It seemed a certain inflexion point but a decade and a half later theSoviet Union was swept away into the dustbin of history and the US had won thecold war.
There aremany causes for the end of the Soviet Union but primacy has to be given to thefact that the US became the engine of technological change which became evidentby the 1980s. The Soviet Union was on the frontiers of military technologiesincluding nuclear and space but the US was able to spread digital technologiesacross the economy, adding to its prosperity. Gorbachev realised this andsought to open up and restructure the Soviet governance and economic systemsbut could not control the forces so unleashed. In 1991 the Soviet Union was nomore and a diminished Russia remained. The cold war was over and communist andsocialistic models lost their appeal as country after country sought to adjust tothe forces of globalisation beginning with the decades of the 1990s.
The pastthree decades have witnessed two developments which have fundamentally impactedthe world. The first is the maturing of the digital age and the second is theastonishing rise of China. The applications of digital technologies are now thebasis of modern life in all its dimensions. It is therefore difficult topinpoint a precise inflexion point in this area but perhaps the setting up ofthe internet can be considered as one. China’s rise has been going on rapidly.It is now the world’s second largest economy and the world’s factory. It isalso gaining ground in frontier technologies though the US is far andcomprehensively ahead. The two countries have now locked horns.
WillCOVID-19 be an inflexion point to take the world away from globalisationitself? That is difficult to visualise in view of the nature of digitaltechnology but some changes in the location of manufacturing processes willtake place. What is more likely is that it may be a major inflexion point insharpening US-China rivalry which will have far reaching internationalconsequences.