1989年，美国社会学家珍妮特·阿布-卢古德预言，西方霸权时代将被“13世纪世界体系展现的多中心相对平衡的回归”所取代。现在评估阿布-卢古德的预言在多大程度上正确为时过早，但如果说子孙后代会把正在进行的俄乌战争视为力量对比从西方向东方转移的重要时刻，似乎并不牵强。

主要大国之间的力量再平衡始终伴随着大规模且具划时代意义的显示武力之举。然而，与以往历史相比，现在存在一些明显的不同。最重要的是，全世界当前正经历着人口指数级增长、气候变化、生物多样性丧失和自然生境遭破坏等诸多问题。这些并非是不可预知的异常事件，也就是纳西姆·尼古拉斯·塔利布所说的“黑天鹅”，而是正在推进的一些实实在在的进程。在重新定义全球秩序及秩序背后的权力中心方面，这些进程将发挥重要作用。

尽管如此，到目前为止，与气候相关的担忧尚无法影响全球秩序走向，煤炭的卷土重来似乎也无法对这个层面产生影响。相反，“势力范围”的概念——也就是阿米泰·埃齐奥尼所说的一国拥有相对其他国家而言的优势力量的国际格局——继续发挥着关键作用。例如，2018年2月1日，时任美国国务卿雷克斯·蒂勒森宣称，1823年提出的门罗主义“如今与它当初成文时一样意义重大”。

70年来，门罗主义警告外部势力，美国不会容忍任何外部势力干涉“美国事务”，这一思想影响了美国政府在被它视为关系最密切的势力范围奉行的许多政策。例如，中南美洲多国政府被一届又一届美国政府推翻或打垮。古巴1950年的人均收入在西半球位居第五，它或许是“势力范围”如何概念化并强加于美洲半球的最值得关注的例证。

尤其是对美国而言，“势力范围”远远超出它所在半球的范围。近几十年来，相当比例的一批非洲和亚洲政界领袖试图应对美国的这种优势地位，但他们要么遭受军事上的打击并被赶下台，要么受到美国的孤立与抵制。这一模式不断在各种口号的推波助澜下得到强化。这些口号有着不同但往往相互重叠的内容，经常道出了众多美国人的直觉反应：“这是善恶之战”“他们因我们的价值观而憎恨我们”，或者稍作修改后变成“我们正面临历史的终结”。

许多非洲国家、印度和中国没有与西方国家一道，对俄罗斯实施制裁。世界上人口最多的两个国家之间缓慢而曲折的和解进程，以及伊朗与中国的紧密关系是两个最新例证，体现了新的地缘政治平衡和为推动“选择性再全球化”所做的努力。

选择性再全球化的目标是形成世界经济的宏观区域重组，这种重组会削弱美元的主导地位，缓解主要经济体实施的对等制裁。

虽然大多数亚洲国家政府承认发生在乌克兰的战争是违反道义的，不过用印度分析家希夫尚卡尔·梅农的话说，这些政府认为这场冲突是“欧洲安全秩序（之战）——而不是具有划时代意义的全球战争”。

更广泛地讲，世界上人口最多的一批国家的政界代表对全球金融体系（全球95%的货币储备以西方货币形式持有）越来越持批评态度，主张反思国际关系和全球秩序。

有时几十年没有大事发生，有时也会在短短数周内发生几十年的剧变。过去一个月发生的事情似乎有力地证实了这一观点。不过，正如许多人所言，俄乌冲突并没有“改变一切”。说到全球秩序，最重大的变化或许是越来越多的西方观察家终于意识到安德鲁·巴切维奇所说的“主要存在于西方观察家头脑中，而不是现实世界”的“秩序”的终结。

在现实世界，或者说正在形成的这个世界，连贯性和用来转移视线的“那又怎么说”主义并不是一回事。换句话说，问题不在于坚决谴责所有势力范围和各种形式侵略的人，而在于这样的一群人，他们只有在势力范围、地缘政治秩序和战争触及自己的利益时，才会使用明确而严厉的措辞，同时有选择地挑选激起他们愤慨的对象。

by Lorenzo Kamel

Rebalancing between major international powers has always been accompanied by massive and epoch-marking displays of violence. However, there are some clear differences in comparison to previous historical eras. Most importantly, the world is currently experiencing an exponential growth in population (which doubled between 1969 and 2012), climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and the disruption of natural habitats. These are not unpredictable outlier events—Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “black swans”—but tangible ongoing processes that will play a significant role in redefining global orders and the centers of power that underlie them.

Regional “Spheres of Influence”

Nonetheless, to date, climate-related concerns are not yet able to shape global orders, and the return of coal and gas does not seem to be able to affect this aspect. Instead, the idea of “spheres of influence”—or, to quote Amitai Etzioni’s definition, “international formations that contain one nation (the influencer) that commands superior power over others”—continue to play a key role. For instance, on February 1, 2018, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared that the 1823 Monroe Doctrine is “as relevant today as it was the day it was written.”

Over the past seventy years, the Monroe Doctrine, which warned external powers that the United States would not tolerate the interference of any external power in “American affairs,” has influenced many of Washington’s policies in what it considers its closest sphere of influence. For example, dozens of governments in Central and South America have been overthrown or bombed by successive U.S. administrations. Cuba, which in 1950 had the fifth-highest per capita income in the Western hemisphere, is possibly the most interesting example of how the concept of a “sphere of influence” has been conceptualized and imposed in the American hemisphere.

Global “Spheres of Influence”

Particularly in the case of the United States—which has over 750 military bases in eighty countries, representing 85 percent of all overseas military bases—“spheres of influence” extend far beyond its hemisphere. In recent decades, a notable percentage of African and Asian political leaders have tried to tackle such ascendancy but were either militarily attacked and ousted, or isolated and boycotted by the United States. It is a pattern that has been consistently fueled by slogans that, in different and often overlapping forms, have often spoken to the gut instincts of millions of Americans: “it is the battle between good and evil,” “they hate us because of our values,” or, mutatis mutandis, “we are facing the end of history.”

Yet, while the United States frequently condemns aggression against foreign states—such as in Ukraine, Iraq, or Yemen—it also rejects the legitimacy of spheres of influence, both its own and others’. On the one hand, this is a reminder of the need to embrace a more coherent understanding of global politics, and, on the other, to realize that the “Atlantic world order” is no longer sustainable, in as much as it is increasingly resented or rejected by a vast percentage of humanity.

Selective Re-Globalization

This is also the reason why African countries (1.2 billion people), India (1.4 billion), and China (1.4 billion) did not join the West in imposing sanctions on Russia over its criminal and nefarious invasion of Ukraine. The slow and tortuous process of rapprochement between the two world’s most populous countries—confirmed by the visit paid by the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi to New Delhi on March 24—as well as Iran’s alignment with China, mirror two of the latest examples of a new geopolitical equilibrium and the attempt to foster a “selective re-globalization.” The objective of selective re-globalization is to shape a macro-regional reconfiguration of the world economy that dilutes the dominance of the U.S. dollar and mitigates the reciprocal sanctions imposed by leading economies.

While acknowledging that the war unfolding in Ukraine is illegal and immoral, most Asian capitals regard the conflict, in the words of Indian analyst Shivshankar Menon, as a war “over the European security order — not an epochal global conflagration.”

More broadly, the political representatives of the world’s most populous countries (not just “some autocratic countries”) are increasingly critical of the global financial system (95 percent of global monetary reserves are held in Western currencies) and advocate a rethinking of international relations and global orders.

Coherence is Not “Whataboutism”

Vladimir Lenin famously claimed that “There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen.” The events of the past month appear to be a powerful confirmation of this notion. And yet, the invasion of Ukraine has not, as many claim, “changed everything.” In relation to global orders, the most meaningful change is possibly the fact that a growing number of Western observers are finally becoming aware of the end of an “order” which, in Andrew J. Bacevich’s words, “existed mostly in the minds of Western observers rather than the real world.”

In the real world, or the one that is taking shape, coherence and “whataboutism” are not the same. In other words, the problem is not those who firmly condemn all spheres of influence and all forms of aggression, but those who use clear and harsh terms only when spheres of influence, geopolitical orders, and wars touch their interests, while selectively cherry-picking what outrages them.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/has-russo-ukraine-war-really-changed-global-order-201835