The Shift Toward 'Multi Polarity': Multi Polarity and the Non- Aligned

Chapter 3 The Shift Toward ‘Multipolarity’: Multipolarity and the Non-Aligned Movement (nam)

If participating nations had been rich or militarily powerful enough, Bandung 1955 would have been the starting point of Africa’s ‘multipolarity’ in the international arena. From the viewpoint of international politics, multipolarity is defined as a distribution of power in which more than two nation-states have almost equal amounts of military, cultural, and economic power and influence. Economists claim, for example, that emerging nations such as China, India, and Brazil represent a multipolar axis. Indeed, a study of the World Bank (2011) pointed out that the world economy is in the midst of a transformative change. One of the most visible outcomes of this transformation is the rise of a number of dynamic emerging market countries to the helm of the global economy. The global financial institution predicted:

It is likely that, by 2025, emerging economies—such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and the Russian Federation—will be major contribu- tors to global growth, alongside the advanced economies. As they pursue growth opportunities abroad and encouraged by improved policies at home, corporations based in emerging markets are playing an increasingly prominent role in global business and cross border investment.1

The concept of ‘polarity’ could simply be explained in international relations as a powerful state with a sizeable population and territory, one that excels in resource endowment, economic capability, military strength, political stabili- ty, and competence.2

1 The Bretton Woods institution explained: “The international monetary system is likely to cease being dominated by a single currency. Emerging-market countries, where two-thirds of official foreign exchange reserves are currently held and whose sovereign wealth funds and other pools of capital are increasingly important sources of international investment, will become key players in financial markets.” “In short,” the World Bank maintained, “a new world order with a more diffuse distribution of economic power is emerging—thus the shift toward multipolarity.” “Global Development Horizons 2011, No. 62698: Multipolarity: The New Global Economy,” The World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011. 2 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2010), 131.

According to author Andrea Edoardo Varisco, these power capabilities enable a nation to exert its economic, military, political, and social influence on a global scale. “The distribution of power capabilities in the international system determines the number of the great powers and, consequently, the polarity of the international system,” Varisco writes. “If the great powers are more than two, the system will be multipolar; if they are two, it will be bipolar, while sys- tems with only one great power are considered unipolar.”3 An example of ‘unipolarity’ was the United States’ position after the Cold War, following the dissolution of the ussr.4 According to the World Bank, the emerging “new world order” will enable “a more diffuse distribution of economic power … thus the shift toward multipolarity.”5 A multipolar world would provide more choices to African nations in search of new economic and financial partners. In 1955 the vast majority of participants in the Bandung Conference were young nations with little to no political and military power, and thus no ability to form a bloc. However, by positioning themselves as a group, and resisting the existing East-West blocs sustaining the Cold War era, Bandung 1955 nations initiated a movement that mirrored the concept of multipolarity. Bandung 1955 nations’ focus on multilateralism helped them oppose co- lonialism and neocolonialism, support people’s self-determination, and pro- claim their attachment to peace and security in the world as a whole, as sine qua non conditions for economic and social development. Their approach to international relations constituted an ideology that may, in the future, sustain the creation of an independent ‘pole’ in Africa or in Asia, or in the two con- tinents altogether. Ideally this pole should be able to influence international relations, and as such support the concept of multipolarity. Bandung 1955 is also considered the most immediate antecedent to the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement (nam), a driving force behind twentieth-century multipolarity. The movement emerged less than a decade

3 Andrea Edoardo Varisco, “Towards a Multi-Polar International System: Which Prospects for Glob- al Peace?,” E-International Relations website, June 3, 2013, www.e-ir.info/2013/ 06/ 03/ towards- a- multi-polar- international- system- which- prospects- for- global- peace/ (Accessed July 24, 2018) 4 Ibid. The author wrote: “With the end of the Cold War and the collapse and dissolution of the ussr, the bipolar international system transformed in unipolarity and the US emerged as the only superpower. In a unipolar system the power of a state is not balanced and controlled by the other states, [and] this inequality allows the hegemon of the international system to influence and shape the rest of the world. After 1989 the US has been considered the militarily, economically and technologically leading country of the world (Brooks and Wohlforth), a lonely superpower ‘able to impose its will on another country’ (Huntington, 39) and, in some cases such as the 2003 war [in] Iraq waged without the United Nations (UN) Security Council consensus, to act outside the laws of the international community.” 5 Ibid.