The Challenge Of The Anglo-Saxon World Order – OpEd

By

Strategic bottlenecks in US domestic and foreign policy over the last decade sounded the alarm about an imminent world order change in Obama and Trump’s Presidency. The AUKUS Pact seems to be the way out of Washington and London’s strategic impasse of the post-World War II order which should begin the process of paving the way for the emergence of a new Protestant White Anglo-Saxon Order (WASP).

Although security and intelligence cooperation between the Commonwealth Countries had already been established in areas such as the Five Eyes, this cooperation has now entered a new phase that essentially requires the consolidation of Anglo-Saxon leadership power, and is realized through the restoration of the WASP superpower. 

Huntington had already spoken of the need to revive and consolidate such an order in his books Theory of the Clash of Civilizations, as well as in Who We Are. Historically, the establishment of such an order had been reflected about two thousand years ago in the most important European myth, “Aeneid” by Virgil. In this work, Emperor Augustus, who was contemplating the mission of civilizing the world, was challenged on how to connect the idea of a republic with the challenging realities of the empire. Even the US federal seal called “the Great Seal” is inscribed with “a Novus ordo seclorum”, a slogan borrowed from Aeneid which means “a new order for all periods”.

It is perhaps worth noting that in 1992, Joe Biden, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a member of the European Affairs Subcommittee, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “How I Learned to Love the New World Order.” It’s similar to Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” in which he shows how he learned to let go of fear and fall in love with the bomb. In this film, the character of Dr. Strangelove, who seeks to remove the Soviet Union from the Cold War bipolar system, launches a self-willed nuclear attack against the former Soviet Union and then goes out of its way to get out of this predicament and stop the attacks.

In his paper at the time, Biden proposed the creation of an American world order using economic leverage instead of naked force, domination and influence in world markets, and diplomatic influence in the international community. This order, of course, was backed by the unrivaled US military and the use of war and sanctions against dissident countries and actors. The order brought about by American peace (pax Americana), in addition to the use of economic leverage, must provide such a military force that no rival can pose any threat. In other words, the United States, as the world police, determined the puzzles of this new order and solved them as it desired.

With this approach, the United States in the current situation does not see itself as a country with equal rights with other countries but basically sees itself as a country that needs to maintain its global dominance at all costs to protect its interests. Basically, in this new world order, the right of defining a common friend and foe only belongs to the United States. Therefore, apart from Russia, which was the common enemy of the West for the post-World War II order, another enemy- this time China- must be defined to demonstrate this new Anglo-Saxon order.

In other words, it is only the United States that has the right to tell its European and East Asian allies who their common friends and enemies are. The monopoly of friend and foe is something that must be maintained in the new order. In such a way that even in the event of war or peace other consultative partners without political will, such as Europe and NATO, are exploited and without their consent and authority are forced to follow the United States.  

The current collapse of the world order has led to the spread of crisis centers around the world, threatening global security and peace like a fire smoldering under the ashes. Controversial hotspots such as Taiwan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, the Baltic region, the battle for influence in the Arctic and Pacific, even transnational and global threats such as the spread of pandemics and the possibility of biological warfare and bioterrorism, and even complex cyber wars or threats to space security are among the things that can add fuel to fire. So what is now being proposed in the paradigm of the New Order by the United States and Britain is a new Anglo-Saxon order that others must either join it or suffer from it.  

In a speech at the Export-Import Bank Conference on April 5, 2013, in Washington, DC, Biden stressed that given the changes in the world order, the United States should think about creating a new world order. The Anglo-Saxon order is an escape from the legacy of the American and British order, which has challenged the interests of both countries. It is an escape from endless wars or open-ended wars, from symmetric and asymmetric governmental, trans-governmental and sub-governmental threats. It is an escape from the inefficiency of the idea of nation-building with fighter jets in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Middle East in general. It is an escape from the failure to counter the chain of terrorism from Central Asia to North Africa.

In the Anglo-Saxon order, working with European allies and partners is unlikely to be as important as it used to be. Ousting France from the AUKUS Treaty, Washington’s earlier support during the Trump era for its longtime ally, Britain, to secede from the EU, as well as the occasional threat and humiliation of the EU with pulling out of a multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, warning EU against violation of US’s unilateral sanctions, as well as the exclusion of Europe from decisions that even Europe itself was a significant part of, such as the Western coalition war against Iraq, withdrawing from Afghanistan without informing Europeans in advance, and the outbreak of war in the Middle East, which has imposed the greatest vulnerability on European countries in the form of a wave of refugees, all suggest that Washington and London are leaving Europe alone and moving towards a new Anglo-Saxon order.

Gradually, the nations of the world and especially Europe must accept that the paradigm of the current world order is shifting to a dangerous new Anglo-Saxon order. This order, which is probably largely sea-based and nuclear, in the form of the AUKUS Treaty and centered on the English-speaking order, including the United States, Britain, Australia, and even India seeks to establish a security matrix around the axis of fighting against China and then Russia as their pre-determined and -defined enemies.

However, the Europeans have never asked themselves whether they would rejoin the United States if war broke out again, and whether they will be able to let go of their addiction to the United States or not. Of course, even among the members of the AUKUS Pact, the Australians themselves still do not know exactly what hostility they have to China and must join their older brothers, Britain and the United States.

Nonetheless, it seems that the replacement of the old order with the birth of the new Anglo-Saxon order has started. The question is whether Europe and its former non-English-speaking allies are once again seeking to balance their interests with the Americans and ignore closer, more immediate, and potential threats as part of the American game of global supremacy. Of course, time will show if Europe will move towards balancing this English order or will join and finally melt into it. Given that the passage of time clearly indicates the fall of this post-American Cold War order.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told a meeting of EU defense ministers in Ljubljana, Slovenia, that the EU should “learn many lessons from the turmoil of leaving Afghanistan” the most important of which is to “create an intra-European coalition to quickly respond to military crises.” Criticizing the White House, he said that “the US president did not pay any attention to the demands of the Europeans in the process of leaving Afghanistan.”

*Greg Pence is an international studies graduate of University of San Francisco

Greg Pence

Greg Pence is an international studies graduate of University of San Francisco.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *