Next global order in light of Coronavirus, op-ed

I had the pleasure of participating in a virtual remote seminar, using electronic technology, organized by the General Secretariat of the Alliance of Arab thought and culture centers. The meeting discussed the topic of "Global order in light of the Coronavirus pandemic." Many ministers, statesmen and intellectuals participated in it.

We, the members of the coalition from the Gulf countries, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan, rewarded the initiative launched by the Isa Cultural Centre (ICC) in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The symposium was named "The Symposium of His Excellency Dr. Jamal Sanad Al-Suwaidi," Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Alliance, in fulfillment and appreciation of his scientific and administrative efforts rich in giving.

Our meetings, which did not stop for several years, signaled the need to adopt intellectual strategies in the first place. These strategies require an intellectual alliance from us to formulate an effective strategy to answer the dilemmas of the developmental, renaissance and unitary construction within a flexible rational framework that pervades the form and content, political structures and their institutions, mentality and behavior of groups and inpiduals in the present and future, and to change the political reality from the moment of political stalemate to the moment of resurrection and the establishment of security and stability bases.

Hence, the topic of the symposium on the new world order, which the interlocutors from the East and West of the Arab world did well to address. What is happening is that the new international environment has become more hazy, more complex, and more ambiguous than ever before. I said in my intervention that power in the old sense will not have any meaning, as wars in the form of electronic attacks or the deployment of unseeable viral weapons whose source is unknown will suffice to wipe out everything.

Also, some powerful countries such as the United States of America will not have the same economic, military, protectionist, and even cultural deterrence as they had in the past. Bipolarity or unipolarity will not return to the same meaning with the rise of the economies of Asian countries and other economies, the expansion of the global financial crisis and global trade competition, the growth of global crime and the globalization of services and the growing role of inpiduals in future international relations.

China and then Russia will emerge in light of this complex international environment in the form of two powers that will trust in themselves and may use smart weapons that international relations have not experienced before. Russia, for example, has begun to significantly affect the course of political processes in the most powerful democratic countries, and it seeks to take the data and information it wants.

The Russian president is well aware of the concept of power and precisely the concept that the great American theorist Joseph Nye gave, it is the ability to achieve the results one wants. The resources that produce this power vary in different contexts; Spain exploited its control over colonies and gold bullion in the sixteenth century, the Netherlands profited from trade and finance in the seventeenth century, France benefited from the large population and armies in the eighteenth century, and the United Kingdom derived its strength from its predecessor in the industrial revolution and its freedom in the nineteenth century, this century is marked by a young revolution in information technology and globalization.

I am sure that the Coronavirus pandemic may result in a relative decline for the United States in the coming years, especially. All this and that will lead to the continuing erosion of the liberal world order and the return of fascism in some parts of the world. But this will not prevent the rebirth of liberalism.

Big crises can sometimes lead to unpredictable results. The Great Depression led to the resurgence of isolationism, nationalism and fascism. It also led to the outbreak of World War II. However, that recession inevitably resulted in the launch of a set of economic programs in America known as the "New Deal", the emergence of the United States as a global superpower, and the eventual decolonization.

The vision of international policymakers today must include an objective view of the current environment, and a pre-evaluation of the results of continuity and change within this environment, in a way that ensures the prosperity of interests in the future.

Although we are with the school that says that the future cannot be predicted with precision, I firmly believe that it can be influenced and shaped to reach results that achieve its strategic interests. This is the rule in which Western countries and Russia believe in a precedent in cyber attacks and in a world of features based on quadruple volatility, apprehension, complexity, and ambiguity.