WDM ARTICLE OF THE YEAR

International law and norms of international relations are no longer holding nation-states accountable for their bad conduct and behaviour in world affairs. The United Nations is dysfunctional. Political and ideological polarization between great powers is acute and uncompromising. Two existential wars are going on in Europe and the Middle East. Daylight genocide by states is taking place in Palestine and Myanmar and elsewhere. Great powers aren’t now only accomplices in modern-day genocide, but supervisors whose multifaced assistance leads to dangerous and devastating consequences. Small, poor, and weak nations’ sovereignty is at peril or already violated (Lebanon, for example). The idea of nuclear disarmament is long gone. Instead, there is a threat to use nuclear weapons. Misleading stories and misinformation about events go overdrive. Biased and fake news become the norm in print and airwave media.

Storms are wiping out community settlements out of existence – climate change caused by man is to blame. History teaches us that current crises are similar to those of the World I and World II conditions. Artificial intelligence (AI) tops the atomic bomb in terms of its potential danger to human civilization. We aren’t that crazy to say this is the end of the world like religious fanatics do in their wild prophecies, but things aren’t looking good for the continued existence of mankind on Earth if current trends aren’t arrested and reversed as soon as possible. It will be hard to do that under the prevailing political climate.

One would ask why all things are happening at the same time. And why now?

We have no exclusive answers to these legitimate questions. But, we are pretty sure that the World was much safer under a poly-polar or bi-polar (USA & Soviet Union) system. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the United States remained the only global superpower with large swathes of the globe and countries under its influence. This is called hegemony. What is happening now is some countries including the former Soviet Union, China, and India are rising up to challenge the status quo called the “New World Order”, sometimes a “Rules-based Order” led by the USA. Formation of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) Bloc is part of that global power play. US dollar, World Bank, and IMF face potential stiff resistance. USA hegemony is under threat. But it is fighting back. That means wars everywhere, and vetoes at the UN Security Council.

Equally, other weaker nations and non-atate actors behave as proxies of the USA, Russia, Iran, or even Israel. They, too, are looking to establish their hegemony in their geographic locations in developing countries. Thus, international peace and security are threatened like never before. The world is at a crossroads.

[ This article has been edited after posting].