The Biggest Loser

In his Wall Street Journal column this morning Walter Russell Mead says that the biggest losers this year have been China’s Belt and Road Initiative:

After Beijing forced Sri Lanka to hand over control of its Hambantota port facilities for 99 years to satisfy its debt late in 2017, this year saw China’s most important BRI targets cancel existing agreements (Malaysia), demand better terms (Pakistan) and scale back projects (Myanmar). Chinese ties to South Africa’s Gupta family (widely blamed for facilitating the corruption of former president Jacob Zuma) and other corrupt figures have contributed to a more skeptical view of Beijing’s intentions across Asia and Africa. The pushback has only begun. China’s debt-trap diplomacy will face more obstacles in 2019.

the United Kingdom:

The United Kingdom slowly twisted in the wind in 2018, unable to negotiate an acceptable European Union exit package or to make up its mind what to do next. At year’s end the future of Brexit is as uncertain as it was 12 months ago. None of the available options—accept the EU’s offer, crash out of the EU in a “no deal” Brexit, hold a second referendum, or give up and remain in the EU—command a parliamentary majority. Within living memory Britain was one of the world’s leading powers and its parliamentary system lauded as the most successful model of democratic governance. At the start of 2019, British prestige and power are touching new lows.

Emmanuel Macron, president of France:

The French president, whose 2017 election animated hopes of a “new political center” in the West, had a horrible year in 2018. His problem wasn’t merely that his poll numbers plummeted or that “yellow jacket” protests forced him to make an embarrassing public apology and roll back some of his agenda. The theory of his presidency failed in 2018.

and Mohammed Bin Salman:

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia managed to keep his job in 2018, but otherwise the year was a nightmare for him and his country. Staging the brutal murder in Istanbul of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, may have been intended to deliver a message to the Turkish leader, a Saudi rival. Instead the Turks outplayed the Saudis and dripped out one damaging revelation after another as the Saudi public-relations machine struggled to contain the fallout. Saudi prestige bled further as the kingdom’s war in Yemen wrought havoc on civilians.

but the biggest loser was the liberal international order:

The biggest loser of 2018 was the post-Cold War system that the U.S. and its closest allies hoped would shape global politics. The idea was that liberal democracy, market-based economic systems and the rule of law would spread from the West into the postcommunist East as well as into the Global South. International institutions would increasingly replace the anarchic competition of states by developing rules-based approaches to issues from trade to climate change.

Great powers like Russia and China never liked this approach, seeing it as a thinly disguised form of U.S. hegemony and a threat to their illiberal political systems. The aspiration for a liberal world system has faced growing headwinds for many years; in 2018 it buckled further under stress.

Even Japan, long a zealous upholder of the rules-based order, exited the International Whaling Commission; Russia solidified its hold on southeastern Ukraine; China fortified its artificial islands in the South China Sea; the U.S. flouted WTO procedures in pursuit of what the Trump administration calls “fair trade”; and one country after another failed to comply with its commitments under the Paris climate agreement. A modern Voltaire might quip that the old system was neither liberal nor international nor an order, but its absence will be felt if it disintegrates.

I think that Britain’s problems are less a result of Brexit than of the British authorities’ undemocratic recalcitrance in following the will of the people. Indeed, that’s a common theme in the political stories of 2018. Liberal democracy is highly desireable unless, of course, it results in freedom or democracy in which case never mind.

It’s too early to tell whether MBS was a winner or loser this year. We just don’t know enough about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s internal politics to make an assessment. He may well have been a tremendous winner and the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi may have been instrumental in that victory. Or he may be a loser. We just can’t tell.

And the post-Cold War system being a loser is old news. That has been obvious for at least 25 years. It was obvious that it had failed in 1999 when NATO planes bombed Yugoslavia without Security Council authorization but I could point to any number of other events including German reunification, the adoption of the euro, China’s failure to live up to the commitments it made to join the WTO, and any number of others as evidence of the failure. The liberal international order’s acme was marked by the Gulf War and it’s been going downhill ever since.

Picking the biggest winners is harder. Nancy Pelosi is an obvious candidate as is Chinese President Xi Jinping. Who or what else?