THE RETURN OF THE GREAT POWERS

They’re baaack…

There was a time, not so long ago, when, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the old age of the superpowers was said to be gone, replaced by a single mega-hegemon, the U.S. Cambridge geopolitics scholar Simms takes a reading of the current scene to advance his thesis that, since the mid-2010s, the great-power scenario has returned, with a U.S. national security brief holding that the rise of China and Russia posed more of a threat than terrorism. In this regard, Simms writes archly, “it was Vladimir Putin who was ahead of the times,” though Putin threw caution to the wind in invading Ukraine for what appear to be purely geopolitical and not economic reasons. Indeed, Simms adds, though the great powers are indeed great, to varying degrees, they “sometimes fail to get their way”: The Taliban effectively defeated the U.S. in Afghanistan, and Ukraine has held Russia back for four years. The current configuration of the great powers, then, might include nonstate actors—and current strategizing might include preparation for the nuclear worst, for “just because such a conflict is unthinkable does not mean that it is impossible.” Through it all, Simms foresees numerous possibilities, including a European Union that can hold its place in the manner of a former single state, a China that is increasingly influential in places such as Africa, a reinvigorated Japan that “needs to shape up if it wants to survive in North-East Asia, the world’s most dangerous neighbourhood,” and an isolationist U.S. that has lost some of its sway in the wake of bad decisions. Even so, Simms concludes, the game is America’s to lose, as no other country can match it in economic and military strength.

A provocative way of looking at current and future developments on the international political scene.