By: Prof. Abdul Shakoor Shah
We are living in the most anxious, convoluted, multifarious and uncertain world. The present world yearns for past pattern transitions like 1815, 1919, 1945, and 1989, when the route was hazy and the world was looking forward to some doable rosy future. The past rapid transitional changes are vivid proof of the fact that the ongoing change will be accelerated in posterity with a double pace. There seem to be four basic scenarios for the future world in the coming decade. The state monopoly seems to be dying out in the near future as the trends, copious forms of media and international interference will cripple the state monopoly in front of the nonstate world. The second possibility is that the interstate confrontation will merge to a new edge as a part of a new greater game globally and especially from an Asiatic perspective. The western interests, interference and interaction in Asia have justified that Asia has become a global arena for power-wrestling. It is likely to curtail the global scenario via absolute breakdown or turnaround of globalization. Such murky and mysterious judgments akin to world wars are anticipated but the consequences might be reversed to the past. In the case of chief global powers’ wrestling in Asiatic Arena will provide the tangential powers the juncture to emerge to the global scene to strive for trends to halt the divergence. The world’s major powers’ conflict will create an economic and political vacuum which will boost the middle class or developing countries to emerge on the scene. The futuristic technological world is going to eradicate economic and interdependency worldwide. The power threads seem interwoven by non-estate world rather than state hegemony. Such change will curtail Western imperialism. Energy independence will ensure the power grip which is the backbone for the economic upturn. It seems that Europe, the US and China will plunge in some greater conflict in Asia and the intervention of peripheral powers will smoother the fidget. The new political, economic, strategic and regional blocks will take place.
The boxing for political and world leaders will remain consistent. The world organizations will be compelled to inculcate certain others and their reformation is certain. The margin of developed and developing countries will remain the same but Chinese per capita income will boost if it follows its present policies for middle-income contraries. The world is on its extreme margins dominating and dominated. If such a situation is not reversed, the inequalities cannot be minimized in the coming decades. The nonstate world will trigger it harder than the past. The empowerment of the non-estate world will intensify the global political, economic and social tensions. The non-competitive countries will be gulped up by non-state giants. From key world powers, the one who stays away from conflicts and gains energy independence will get the best in global decision making. The world will become wealthy, advanced but darker and insecure which will impinge on domestic as well as international affairs. Non-state actors, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), cosmopolitan businesses, academic institutions, and affluent dwellers as well as megacities, burgeon and surpass in brazening out worldwide disputes. Boosting global public opinion harmony among cream of the crop and many of the growing middle classes on chief global challenges-poverty, the environment, anti-corruption, rule-of-law, and peace-form the base of their support. The nation-state does not ebb but states ever more systematize and devise amalgamations of state and non-state actors which budge depending on the problem.
Totalitarian rule unearths its durable function in this world, anxious with asserting political predominance at home and respect in a progressively more fully democratized world. Even autonomous countries, which are connected to the notion of dominion and autonomy, find it thorny to maneuver lucratively in this multifaceted and sundry world. Minor, Luther states in which the privileged are also more incorporated are pertinent to do better than larger countries that are deficient in social or political solidity. Formal governance institutions that do not acclimatize to the more unlike and prevalent allocation of power are also less probable to be victorious. cosmopolitan businesses, IT communications firms, international scientists, NGOs, and others that are used to cooperating across borders and as elements of network bloom in this hyper-globalized world where proficiency, sway, and nimbleness count for more than weight or position. This is nonetheless a hodgepodge and a very rough world. Some universal troubles get cracked because networks cope to combine and a few collaboration transpires both state and non-state divides. In other cases, non-state factors might endeavor to deal with a defy, but they are thwarted because of opposition from key powers. Security intimidations pretense an escalating challenge. Entrée to deadly and troublemaking technologies inflate, enabling individuals and small groups to bring about hostility and commotion on a large scale. Economically, universal expansion does faintly better than in the Gini Out-of-the-Bottle scenario because more cooperation occurs on major global challenges in this world.
The world is also more secure and socially cohesive. The radical changes in the world organizations, new economic, political, strategic and regional blocks have become the need of the hour to crack down the hard nuts of the global problems. Asia is the least integrated region in the world and it cannot bear the brunt of the global powers wrestling. the unresolved long-standing issues which are the bone of contention among several states globally should be resolved instead of creating new fuss for power thrust. The smaller states and developing countries must step forward to format a novel platform for resolving their issues and conflicts. The world power in the hands of a few will forcefully push the unwilling to colour their hands with human blood in various campaigns.
The Writer is Prof. in English and Freelance Columnist, based in Lahore, Pakistan. He can be reached at [email protected]