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Entropy in Geopolitics
Remarks prepared for a discussion at Energía México 2017
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr.
(USFS, Ret.)
Senior Fellow, the Watson
Institute for International and Public Affairs
February 1, 2017, Mexico City, Mexico
A hundred
and fifty years ago, a German physicist derived the concept of “entropy” from
the second law of thermodynamics. Since
then, entropy has stood for the idea that everything in the universe eventually
moves from order to disorder, from structure to formlessness, and from
predictability to uncertainty. Entropy
is the measurement of that change. It is
also the most fitting description of current trends in geopolitics and
geoeconomics.
The
strategic stabilities of the old order are all in various stages of decay. Some in my country and abroad had come to
view the United States as the next best thing to a world government and global
policeman. But, even before tweets replaced
policy papers in Washington, this conception had become preposterous. The established presumptions no longer operate.
Washington
led the way in creating global institutions after World War II. It fathered the United Nations, the
International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and
the G-7, among others. But these
institutions have ceased to rise effectively to the challenges before
them. The world increasingly ignores
them, bypasses them, or seeks to replace them with new deals struck at the
sub-global or regional level. New
organizations, banks, and coalitions are emerging to address new needs.
Think of
the New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the various
Silk Road funds, China's initiative to connect everything on and adjacent to
the Eurasian landmass, the proposed Free
Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, the G-20, and the Pacific Alliance. More often than not, institutional innovation has been taking place despite the
United States, which has diminished credibility and seems to have run out of
ideas for global governance, the money to fund it, and the will to lead
it. President Trump’s bilateral and transactional
approach to foreign policy is dealing a final, fatal blow to the United States as
the global rule-maker.
The
European Union, whose coalescence was a major contributor to world order, is
now shrinking rather than expanding.
According to President Trump, it could even disappear. Britain has set itself adrift. Turkey and Russia have ended centuries of
effort to redefine themselves as “European.”
Turkey has given up on the EU accession process and is affirming a
non-European, authoritarian, and Islamist identity. Russia now emphasizes its
civilizational distinctiveness. Ukraine
continues to wobble in place. War in
Europe is no longer unthinkable.
Ankara and
Moscow have begun to work together with Tehran to pick up the pieces of a
Middle Eastern order shattered by ill-conceived U.S. interventions and their
aftermath. The region is further shaken
by Saudi-Iranian rivalry. (Iran appears
to be coming out ahead.) Former US
client states (Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia) are only somewhat less
estranged from the United States than Iran has been. The Middle East is less pivotal to a global
economy in which concerns about peak demand --not peak oil -- predominate. But the rise and spread of transnational
Islamist terrorism has put the region at the center of worldwide anxiety about
homeland security.
After a
few bad centuries, Asia is back as the global center of economic gravity. It is home to three of the world’s great
economic powers – China, India, and Japan – as well as formidably competitive
societies like south Korea and a flourishing group of Southeast Asian
countries. It is also full of
intensifying rivalries and potentially explosive confrontations, including some
that pit China against the United States.
China is fast becoming a technology leader. India is now the largest destination in the
world for foreign direct investment.
Despite its amazing earlier success, Japan remains economically becalmed. Korea is in political distress. The Association of Southeast Nations is
increasingly divided. The sound of jet
engines and gas turbines in the East and South China Seas foretells the
possibility of catastrophic armed conflict between major powers that could
erase decades of socioeconomic progress.
Meanwhile,
Africa is on the rise. It has some of
the world’s fastest growing economies.
What it blessedly does not yet have is a direct role in the escalating
rivalry between the great powers of America, Asia, and Europe.
This
brings me to where I stand – en México,
una ciudad , una cultura, y un país que llegué a admirar hace más the medio
siglo, cuando estudié aquí en la UNAM.
This is a city, a culture, and a country for which I have had special regard
since I studied here at the national university fifty-six years ago. No nation matters more to the United States
than this one, and none is so sadly misunderstood or neglected. México está a punto de descubrir que tiene muchos más amigos y simpatizantes en el
extranjero de lo que sabía. ¡Afortunado
México! Tan cerca de los dioses del
comercio y tan lejos del pantano en Washington.
Like the
president of this country, I do not believe in walls. As a great poet[1] from Vermont once urged:
“Before I
built a wall I'd ask to know
What I
was walling in or walling out,
And to
whom I was like to give offence.
Something
there is that doesn't love a wall,
That
wants it down.”
"Antes de levantarlo, yo quisiera
saber a quién incluyo, a quién excluyo
a quién, quizás, ofendo con el muro.
Algo hay que no es amigo de los muros,
que quiere derrumbarlos."
But some
sort of wall on the border is the opening gambit of the Deal-maker-in-Chief who
has just taken up residence in the White House.
This should be treated as a proposal for more effective border
control. That is something that is in
the interest of both Mexico and the United States. In diplomacy, the best answer to an unwelcome
proposition is to reframe it so that both sides can gain. There is a bargain to be struck, perhaps
including commitments from the United States to finally do something about the
uncontrolled demand for illegal narcotics and traffic in guns that have been so
disastrous for domestic tranquility in
Mexico.
There
are, of course, broader questions raised by the surge of populist, protectionist politics in the United
States and some other industrialized democracies. Mexico is not alone in its concern about the
implications of these policies for trade, investment, and the global energy economy. Neither the United States nor the world can
afford to dismantle global supply chains.
There is a limit to how many trade wars any country can manage at
once. If the United States takes on the
world, the world is likely to unite in pushing back. Mexico will have many allies.
I don’t
want to take any more time from my fellow panelists. I was asked to speak about geopolitics. But, since this conference is about the
transformation of oil and gas markets, let me offer a parting observation about
energy in the new world disorder. As is
the case with many other issues these days, no one is in charge. Saudi Arabia is now the swing producer for
OPEC but not for the world. The role of
a global swing producer has fallen to US frackers, a motley group driven by
market forces rather than policy. They
can and will rapidly increase or reduce production in response to shifts in
demand. Barring civil strife and
terrorist attacks that prevent oil from coming to market, this heralds lessened
price volatility in future.
To
conclude: Increased entropy in
geopolitics means that the world will either return to respect for the UN
Charter, international law, and the sovereignty of nations or anarchy will
allow might to make right in world affairs.
In either case, middle-ranking powers, like Mexico, have no choice but
to seek greater independence, to maneuver internationally, to seek new allies, and
to play a larger role in global and regional governance. We are entering an era in which regional, not
global balances will clearly be the dominant feature of the international state
system.
The last
century was claimed by the United States.
My country is voluntarily forfeiting its claim to this one. The 21st century is now up for grabs.
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