IN-DEPTH BRIEFING // #75 // JUNE 24
DUE SOUTH:
AUTHOR
Harriet Johnson is a former Army officer now teaching in the UAE and holds a Master’s degree from University College London
The Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research is the British Army’s think tank and tasked with enhancing the conceptual component of its fighting power. The views expressed in this In Depth Briefing are those of the author, and not of the CHACR, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Ministry of Defence, British Army or US Army. The aim of the briefing is to provide a neutral platform for external researchers and experts to offer their views on critical issues. This document cannot be reproduced or used in part or whole without the permission of the CHACR. www.chacr.org.uk
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WHY IT’S TIME TO LOOK DOWN
MITRY Trenin was previously the Director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Center in Moscow in the early 2000s. He was a strong advocate for Russia joining the EU and NATO and “what Trenin said mattered”. However, in a recent RT article he highlighted Russia’s reorientation away from the US and the West towards “the world majority”; a revolutionary and deliberate foreign policy move. Trenin now accuses the West of running the world order for their own benefit and constraining and punishing those who don’t align themselves to it. In a view highly likely to be state sponsored, he suggests that Russia must transform from being a disrespected outlier to the US system into a self-sufficient state, built on pragmatic relationships of convenience and mutual interest with other afflicted states. This highlights the emergence of two significant trends coalescing and having a dramatic impact
on the current ‘rules based’, international system. The first trend is China and Russia’s publicly stated aim of breaking US hegemony and generating a multi-polar world. The second is the growth of a more assertive group of countries historically referred to as ‘the Global South’. The two trends are connected by an increasingly sophisticated system of disinformation that commentators warn should not be considered inconsequential or underestimated in its disruptive power. The challenge for the US and Western powers is to reduce Chinese and Russian influence in the Global South and, in doing so, rebuild their own credibility and relationships with key partners. Whilst many Western and European countries benefitted economically and socially from the effects of globalisation and the post-Cold War ‘peace dividend’, the benefits were not equally felt. This inequality, overlooked in the declaration of a universal ‘rules based international order’ was keenly felt by countries in what became known as the Global
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South, countries that are now assertively seeking alternative partners. At the Voice of Global South Summit on 17th November 2023 Indian Prime Minister Modi demonstrated India’s endeavour to provide a voice to the Global South. However, the effort to reshape the universal system, viewed as a synonym for US hegemony, is in reality being led by China. President Xi has been explicit in his desire for a “global community of shared future” that opposes US hegemony, enabled by a “Cold War mentality”. In mid-May 2024 he pledged during the summit with President Putin to promote “multi-polarity in the world”, a clear challenge to the assumption of US unipolarity. To achieve this, Xi can increasingly rely on “mutually beneficial cooperation” with Russian President Putin. This takes many forms including at the increasingly dysfunctional United Nations Security Council, where Russia has in the past year vetoed humanitarian aid to rebel-held areas of Syria, sanctions on Mali and a UN mission to monitor North Korean compliance with