ISPI REPORT 2020 ISPI Report 2020 ISPI Report Alessandro Colombo A world has ended. It was the world we once knew, is Full Professor of lnternational the liberal world of Western hegemony that emerged Relations at the University of Milan in the aftermath of WW2 and that we thought had WORK IN PROGRESS and Head of the ISPI Transatlantic triumphed when the Cold War finished. Founded in 1934, ISPI is Relations Programme. Today, we live in a period of transition to a new world, THE END OF A WORLD, part II an independent think tank the shape of which we cannot yet clearly discern. committed to the study of Paolo Magri international political and Ours is an age of ‘work in progress’, of the gradual edited by Alessandro Colombo and Paolo Magri is ISPI Executive Vice-President conclusion by Giampiero Massolo economic dynamics. and Director, and Professor of construction of a yet undefined international order. It is the only Italian Institute lnternational Relations at Bocconi ISPI’s 2020 Report is an attempt to decipher this – and one of the very few in University in Milan. He is a member incompletely formed world by exploring three questions. W Europe – to combine research of the Europe Policy Group Who are the key actors working on the construction of the IN PROGRESS ORK of the World Economic Forum, and activities with a significant also member of the Strategic new international order? In what areas are they working, commitment to training, events, Committee of the Minister of or rather competing and collaborating? And what shape and global risk analysis for Foreign Affairs and lnternational does this competition and collaboration assume on the companies and institutions. Cooperation. regional chessboards of Asia, the Middle East, Africa ISPI favours an interdisciplinary and Latin America? and policy-oriented approach made possible by a research team of over 50 analysts and an international network of 70 universities, think tanks, and research centres. In the ranking issued by the University of Pennsylvania, ISPI placed first worldwide as the “Think Tank to Watch in 2020”. euro 15,00 WORK IN PROGRESS the end of a world, part II ISPI Report 2020 edited by Alessandro Colombo and Paolo Magri conclusion by Giampiero Massolo The ISPI Report 2020 was published thanks to the financial support of Fondazione Cariplo Editors: Alessandro Colombo and Paolo Magri Project & Editorial Coordination: Matteo Villa Translation from the Italian version Lavori in corso. La fine di un mondo, atto II: Grace Hason Editorial Coordination & Editing: Renata Meda © 2020 Ledizioni LediPublishing Via Alamanni, 11 – 20141 Milano – Italy www.ledizioni.it [email protected] Work in Progress. The End of a World, part II edited by A. Colombo and P. Magri First edition: March 2020 The opinions expressed herein are strictly personal and do not necessarily reflect the position of ISPI. The cover image has been re-elaborated by Diana Orefice Print ISBN 9788855261906 ePub ISBN 9788855262163 Pdf ISBN 9788855262170 DOI 10.14672/55261906 ISPI. Via Clerici, 5 20121, Milan www.ispionline.it Catalogue and reprints information: www.ledizioni.it Table of Contents Introduction....................................................................... 7 Alessandro Colombo, Paolo Magri PART I – THE STAKES 1. The Decline of the Liberal Order and the Rise of China.....................................................25 Alessandro Colombo 2. Multilateralism Between Crisis and Revival.................... 35 Andrea Locatelli 3. The Economic and Financial World: Globalising or Fragmenting?.......................................... 45 Franco Bruni, Lucia Tajoli Cyberspace and Great Powers Competition........................ 74 Fabio Rugge 4. Competition in the “Global Commons” (Sea, Air, and Outer Space)............................................ 77 Emidio Diodato 5. The Hunt for the Strategic Resources............................. 87 Ugo Tramballi Energy and International Politics........................................93 Alberto Clô Water, Climate Change, and Conflict.................................96 Emanuele Fantini PART II – THE PLAYING FIELDS 6. Asia..................................................................................100 Guido Samarani 7. Africa...............................................................................109 Giovanni Carbone 8. Latin America...................................................................120 Loris Zanatta 9. Middle East......................................................................130 Armando Sanguini PARTE III – THE PLAYERS 10. The United States and China: An Inevitable Conflict?...................................................142 Mario Del Pero 11. Russia Between US and China: An Inconvenient Third Power?.......................................152 Aldo Ferrari 12. The European Union and the Arduous Search for a “Geopolitical” Role................................................162 Sonia Lucarelli Conclusion. “G Zero”, Italy and National Interest................ 175 Giampiero Massolo The Authors..........................................................................187 Introduction The decline and possible fall of the liberal world order opens the door to a new phase of transition, in the same way that the sud- den collapse of the bipolar order led to transition. In last year’s ISPI Report, we started examining the signs of breakdown of the political, economic and institutional order conceived at the end of the Second World War and finally set free at the end of the Cold War. That world looked like an almost ideal model of coherence. The keystone of the structure, at least from a po- litical and military point of view, was the United States’ will- ingness to translate its overwhelming power into hegemony, in other words its willingness to lead the international community both in peace and war. In turn – and despite the “revolt against the West” that was one of the most significant developments of the XX century – American hegemony perpetuated the cen- trality of the West in the international system, both in terms of power and in terms of the ability to spread political, ideo- logical and legal models. The “civil religion” of unquestioning faith in the transition to democracy and the market economy and, more profoundly still, the liberal cultural hegemony that emerged between the 1980s and 1990s, were both manifesta- tions of this ability. In keeping with this framework, the inter- national order we inherited had a clearly multilateral structure, supported by a proliferation of international organisations (the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, European Union, etc.) and by the introduction and subsequent development of international economic, environmental, trade and security regimes and arrangements. Lastly, this global ar- chitecture also encompassed various regional orders, which were shaped partly by “local” dynamics, but at least as much by 8 Work in Progress the ability of global dynamics to filter down into local contexts. In this year’s report we start looking at what might take the place of this crumbling edifice. And we do this by starting from the other spectacular change that has accompanied and coun- terbalanced the decline of the liberal world order over the past 20 years, namely the rise of China. The competition between the US and China in itself marks a huge shift in the world’s po- litical and economic dynamics. For years, there appeared to be just two future paths that the international system might take: either it would remain unipolar under American leadership or it would become multipolar. The emergence of China as a po- tential peer competitor of the United States, however, forces us to consider – against an evolving backdrop, with uncertain outcomes – at least the possibility of a “new bipolarism”, albeit of a very different type to the bipolarism of the recent past. This is partly because, as things stand, bipolarisation is still a long way off, in view of the continuing disparity between the two players in terms of military capabilities and the major role that other powers (from Russia to the European Union) still play in certain dimensions and certain regions. The biggest distinction, and hence the clearest reason for caution, lies in the fact that today’s competition between the United States and China is entirely unlike the competition between the United States and Russia during the Cold War. The first chapter of this yearbook, by Alessandro Colombo, examines these differences. Colombo acknowledges that, like any bipolar or potentially bipolar structure, the one now emerg- ing appears to be conflictual in nature, at least in the sense that both the declining power and the rising power tend to be suspi- cious of the present or future intentions of the other. The risk of such a situation (which is by no means inevitable) is that it can rapidly deteriorate into a spiral of competition known as the “security dilemma” in International Relations circles. But the author immediately warns against drawing comparisons with what we still think of as the archetypal bipolar relationship, namely the one that played out between the US and the USSR Introduction 9 in the second half of the XX century. The first reason for this is that, for better or worse, China is not the Soviet Union. In certain respects, in fact, it is almost the opposite of the Soviet Union. Its power structure is not comparable, its ideological orthodoxy is not comparable and it does not have that “mis- sionary” vocation