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世界は大惨事へと流されていっているのか？ おそらく いまの世界情勢には明確な変化が生じている。その契機を書き出してみると、 ・ユーロ危機への対処策の失敗が、ＥＵの政治体制を著しく不安定なものにした。 ・昨年までだれも予想していなかったことだが、中東からの移民のＥＵへの流入が ＥＵからガバナビリティを奪ってしまった。 ＊＊＊ ・「アラブの春」(2011年）はアフリカから中東にかけて、それまでの独裁体制を 結果的に崩壊させ、よりひどい独裁と内乱状態をもたらした。 ・この衝撃がシリアに及んだ時、それはアメリカのイラク統治の失敗と 重なり、イスラム国を生み出し、結果的にいまではシリアは世界的な 支配闘争のるつぼと化すことになった。 ・とりわけ、昨年の９月以降、ロシアの姿勢がかなり強硬になり、いまでは 大国ロシアを希求するに至っている。 ・気がつけばアメリカ１国支配の世界は完全に終わりを迎えている。２００３年 ブッシュがフセインを倒したあたりまでで、この時代は終焉している。 ・オバマは、ブッシュの強圧的な戦争侵略を終わらせることを彼の外交的目的 として大統領になった。そして彼はそれを実行してきた。イラクからの撤退、 アフガンからの撤退という方針である。しかし、彼にとって不幸なことは、上記の ようなこれまででは予想もできなかったことが次々に進展し、その結果、 多くのプレイヤーが自己主張を行うことで、事態の収拾への力を喪失させる に至ったことである。 ・この記事にあるように、アサドが化学兵器を用いたとき、オバマがそれに 介入しなかったことが、プーチンがアメリカを軽くみるようになったきっかけ となった。 ・いま中国が進めている南シナ海で無人島でのミサイル基地建設も、そうした アメリカを見越しての行動であるとも言える。 ＊＊＊ これからの世界は非常に見通しがよくない。ロシア、中国は益々大国的主張を 拡大していくだろう。それに対抗することがアメリカがどこまでできるのかだが、 いまの大統領選挙をみるかぎり、非常にあやしい、おぼつかない。 ＊＊＊ ・この記事では、台頭する中国、減退するアメリカ、復帰するロシア、引退のＥＵ のような表現が用いられている。 ＊＊＊ ・１年前の今頃、 ロシアはまだ受け身であった。クリミア、ウクライナ問題で経済制裁を受ける 身であったが、９月からがらりと状況が変わり、シリアという場で国際覇権を 求めるようになっている。トルコがシリアに陸上部隊を送る（サウジとともに）と なると必ずロシア空軍は猛爆を行うことであろう。これはかなり危険な兆候である。 １年前の今頃、 中東からの難民の大量流入がＥＵという組織をも崩壊させかねない 問題になろうとは、だれも予想していなかった。 来年の今頃、 世界はどうなっているだろうか。やはりだれも予想できなかったような ことが生じているのだろうか。Not probably, but maybe. *** 経済的なメルトダウン問題を考慮に入れないでも、こういう険悪な 状況である。これを考慮に入れると事態はもっと複雑で深刻なものに なる。 ＊＊＊ Is the world drifting towards disaster? Maybe Europe has grown accustomed to being babysat by the US - but profound global power shifts put us all in danger David Cameron is using most of his own energy, and a lot of his EU neighbours’ time, to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Europe Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images Michael White Thursday 18 February 2016 11.44 GMTLast modified on Thursday 18 February 201611.46 GMT • So this is how it happens, how great states drift towards disaster. Is it happening again today? It might be. A lot of bad things are coalescing all over the place and no one seems to be in charge. A combination of opportunist ambition, of myriad weaknesses, systemic and personal, and of profound global power shifts put us all in danger. We have been here before. You must have read with alarm, or watched flickering black and white newsreels, how imperial Europe, rich and complacent, drifted towards fatal civil war in 1914. Schoolchildren are taught how 25 years later it all happened again, this time after self-deluding efforts to duck unpleasant realities ended in Hitler’s war. “How could they be so blind?” we wonder as we read the latest history book or watch those TV documentaries. Yet look at us. Our own elected national leader, David Cameron, is currently using most of his own energy, and a lot of his EU neighbours’ time, to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Europe. There’s a case for that, of course. Europe could do with a shake-up. But context matters. Everyone knows that Cameron’s primarily motive is parochial calculation of domestic party management on a battleground of his own devising. When not trying to cut a deal that will satisfy all 28 member states (they have elections too), those EU leaders grapple ineffectually with more pressing existential problems – the eurozone crisis and the refugee crisis to name but two. Compared with 20, or even 10 years ago, the EU is short of substantial leadership. Angela Merkel, sheet anchor of both Germany and Europe, looked so strong a year ago and now looks vulnerable to her own self-inflicted error, that open door to 1 million non-European migrants. New Labour’s equivalent miscalculation in 2004 were mostly Poles. The unsettling effect has been much the same. In AfD and Pegida Germany now has its Ukip and its French Front National. Since those terrible wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45 Europe has grown accustomed to being babysat by the Americans, lynchpins of Nato, which protects the otherwise rich-but-vulnerable EU. Don’t bank on it for much longer. Obama thinks his foreign policy legacy will be to have ended America’s string of ill-judged foreign interventions and brought a non-nuclear Iran in from the cold. He “tilts towards Asia” (pdf) on whose economic axis the world increasingly turns. Europe, old and lazy, doesn’t even pay its Nato subs. Obama may be wrong about all that. When British MPs voted against military action in Syria in August 2013 they gave the White House cover for doing the same. It may be Ed Miliband’s only contribution to the course of world history. Since the Assad regime had crossed Obama’s declared red line by using chemical weapons against the voters, Moscow saw that Washington could be faced down. Obama is a sermonizer, averse to projecting US power to keep the peace. Russia (like Austro-Hungary in 1914) is an aggrieved former superpower seeking to assert itself. Steadier oil prices might add some welcome stability to the global commodity markets where the slowdown in China’s economy (how slow? No one can trust official figures) has undermined emerging economies, FTSE corporations and the banks where so much of our money is parked. Fingers crossed against a second Great Recession, which we would enter in far worse shape. No room here to mention China’s own economic woes. Its central bank governor has just broken his silence (“I’m not God or a magician”). Nor are his counterparts elsewhere. No space either to discuss how serious are those new Chinese missiles being deployed (shades of Cuba 1962?) on one of the fragile reefs it claims in the South China Sea. Could that be the Sarajevo spark to ignite something bigger that ruins us all? Japan and other neighbours are unhappy about China’s claim (known as the nine dot line) which straddles key shipping lanes and which is out to arbitration in The Hague. China is a rising power, the US a faltering one, Russia revanchist, Europe in retirement. In Shinzo Abe Japan has a nationalist leader. Taiwan has just elected a more assertive president in Tsai Ing-wen. Is this good or bad for peace? Where is America, which has dominated the eastern oceans since the fightback from Pearl Harbor (1941)? Good question, but not a reassuring one. Cautious Obama may not be an internationalist in the mould of presidents from FDR to Bill Clinton via General Eisenhower, architect of D-Day. But he’s much more so than what may come next. In their very different ways Donald Trump and Bernie Saunders both represent the latest revival of the isolationist strand in American public life. Either just might be president. I know, it probably won’t happen. None of this litany of potential woes and flashpoints may come to pass. Hillary Clinton may beat Senator Marco Rubio or vice versa. Michael Bloomberg may step in and save the Republic for the techies. Europe may survive intact and recover to better times. Syrian refugees may be able to go home. Rightwing populism might not spread through Europe. But don’t bank on it and do carry an umbrella. The weather may be about to change. It was a lovely summer in 1914. |
