04 Sept 24. Protests across Turkey against a US Navy port visit and continuing US military presence in the country have served as the most visible battleground in this new “Cold War”, with the unrest masking Turkey’s application to join BRICS and Beijing’s efforts for a new world order.
Just as the dust of the Second World War was beginning to clear, the United States and Britain, along with the representatives of 44 allied nations, convened at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to begin building the framework for a post-war international order.
Where the previous incarnation of an international order had failed during the inter-war years – characterised by an impotent League of Nations and a volatile international economic system – that while interconnected, was still in large part dominated by the often, bitterly competitive European empires of the mercantilist era.
In seeking to avoid the failures of the global economy, in particular the period of economic volatility and competition experienced in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and ensuing Great Depression, the impact of leaving the Gold Standard and ensuing periods of inflation and hyperinflation that resulted in political extremism across Europe, the Bretton Woods Conference would establish the economic and financial foundations for a new world order.
This would give rise to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and lesser-known International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, later part of the World Bank to help stabilise the global economy in the aftermath of the war and provide a mechanism to effectively rebuild the war-ravaged nations across Europe, the Mediterranean and Asia.
Concurrently, the formalisation of the United Nations, an international arbitration body, was being worked on by representatives of the Allies to be formally established in late October 1945, seeking to avoid the pitfalls of the League of Nations proposed by US President Woodrow Wilson in the aftermath of the First World War.
At the apex of this new world order sat the United States, which had emerged as the world’s industrial and economic powerhouse and at least for a time, sole nuclear power with uncontested control over the global maritime commons as the primary medium for international commerce and trade.
Fast forward eight decades and the international order built on the rubble of the old world is running out of steam in the face of accelerating multipolarity and a world order no longer dominated by a handful of European or European adjacent powers, with a rising collection of formerly “second rate” powers emerging to become the new centres of economic, political and strategic power in the 21st century.
This has largely been driven by the rise of parallel organs like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, spearheaded by the world’s rising superpower, the People’s Republic of China, flanked by Russia, India, South Africa and Brazil as founding members and increasingly joined by a host of nations across the developing worlds of the Americas, Middle East, Africa and Asia.
For the parallel BRICS organisation, 2024 alone has been a big year, with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates officially joining on 1 January, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has recently announced its application to join, giving rise to a wave of anti-American sentiment throughout the country, including attacks on US Navy personnel during a port visit and protests calling for an end to US military presence in the country.
A sign of things to come
From the port city of Izmir to the capital of Ankara, Turkey has been swept by a number of protests and direct incidents involving US military personnel on shore leave, the worst of which saw a group of 10 men attack two US Marines in plain clothes, with an attempt to kidnap one of the Marines being thwarted by other US military personnel.
Cries of “Yankee go home” could be heard throughout the video, with an arm of Turkey’s disparate nationalist movement claiming responsibility to the ambush, building on similar attacks going back into the 2010s across the country as part of discontent with the ongoing US military presence in the nation which dates as far back as the earliest days of the Cold War.
As a NATO member and prospective member of the European Union, the move by Turkish President and pseudo-strongman Erdoğan to formally apply to become a member of BRICS came as a surprise right out of left field, at least for the US-led, Western alliance order, and heralds a major shift in the global balance of power.
Despite still being a while off in directly competing with the post-Second World War order, the application by Turkey, particularly as a NATO member, sets a worrying precedent, particularly in light of broader realignments, with a growing number of Middle Eastern nations signalling their interest in joining the multilateral organisation.
In particular, growing Saudi interest in joining BRICS, alongside their recent decision to no longer solely trade Saudi oil in the US dollar, has served as a major challenge to the global pre-eminence of the US dollar-backed global order, combined with the abject failure of US sanctions on Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, thanks to the coordinated and combined effort of China, India, Iran and other revisionist powers.
But back to Turkey, as a NATO member, key bases like Incirlik have provided the United States and allies with tactical and strategic mobility across the Middle East and Central Asia, while also serving to provide a strategic foothold to counter Soviet and then Russian moves against Western Europe.
However, since Erdogan’s assent to power, Turkey has been edging ever closer to Russia and to a lesser extent China, attracted by the “trade not aid” approach taken by China through BRICs, the SCO and initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) under the auspice of the broader collaboration between China, Russia, and Iran providing mutually beneficial outcomes and opportunities for domestic economic stabilisation and growth.
This all goes a long way to enhancing the economic, political and strategic integration and collaboration between the new tripartite organisation, while also establishing a powerful model for expansion to the broader BRICS and SCO member states, bringing it into direct conflict with the often heavily conditional Western aid funding that traditionally helped to uplift the emerging world.
Yet the Western world and the US-led post-Second World War order itself seems to be lacking in ambition, purpose and values, while nations across the developing world are knuckling down, doing the hard work to put their interests first and build robust economic capacity and opportunity.
Final thoughts
In this era of renewed competition between autarchy and democracy, this is a conversation that needs to be had in the open with the Australian people, as ultimately, they will be called upon to help implement it, to consent to the direction and to defend it should diplomacy fail.
Dr Ross Babbage of the Center for Strategic Budgetary Assessments explained to Defence Connect, “I think what we’ve got to show what’s the vision for Australia, you know, what can we achieve and what you know if we go on the trajectory we are on at the moment. I’ll tell you what, you know, a lot of people, a lot more people in a decade’s time are likely to be either in really dumb jobs or maybe not have jobs at all, and in the society be a lot weaker and will be a lot less prosperous.
“So what we want to say is, look, there’s plenty of scope for doing more and smarter things, encouraging investment to do that, and then there will be some very, very interesting additional jobs and opportunities, a lot of high tech, and so on, I can tell you that, you know, talking to foreign investors, they’re quite keen on principle to work here, and do a lot more here and provide a lot more good jobs for Australians,” he said.
So Australia is going to have to become far more ambitious, transactional and focused on securing our national interest in an increasingly volatile, divided and competitive global and regional order.
This requires a greater degree of transparency and a culture of collaboration between the nation’s strategic policymakers and elected officials and the constituents they represent and serve – equally, this approach will need to entice the Australian public to once again invest in and believe in the future direction of the nation.
(Source: Defence Connect)