New world order without a hegemon: compete and co-operate

On one hand, the negotiations between Russia and America to replace the recently expired START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty I) are reportedly going well. On the other hand, the national security strategy that the Kremlin adopted in May 2009 describes the main threat to Russia as the US acquisition of a first strike capability - a prospect that has not disappeared by the concession made by the Obama administration on replacing Bush’s land-based anti-missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic with sea-based anti-missile missiles.

Whereas the Kremlin’s relations with Washington are far from warm, its ties with Germany, the leading member of the 27-strong European Union, the world’s largest trading entity, are uncommonly cordial. Transcending party politics, they remain as strong with the conservative government of Angela Merkel as they were during the Social Democratic administration of Gerhard Schroeder.

In the course of finding alternatives to oil in the aftermath of the quadrupling of petroleum prices in 1973-74, West Germany decided to buy natural gas from the Soviet Union in 1975. Now Germany receives almost half of its gas supplies from Russia’s Gazprom.

It was in Europe that the concept of multipolarity of power was born during the Napoleonic Wars in the early second decade of the 19th century. The major European powers resolved never again to allow the emergence of another Napoleon to conquer the continent. Out of this concert arose the doctrine of the balance of power. It held in Europe for a century, until the start of World War I. What is happening now is the global extension of this doctrine, with major powers co-operating and competing with one another to ensure that none of them emerges as the sole superpower.