Where Does the Philippines Stand in the Emerging Multipolar World Order?
Intuitive wisdom suggests that the United States of America, while still a dominant superpower, is grappling with its own special kind of dilemma. Multipolar arrangements in global affairs are something high-ranking U.S. officials have known for quite some time. Now, multipolarity enters a new age.
With it comes some interesting implications for the Philippines. Contrary to those stating that multipolarity is very recent, its birth pangs can be argued to be as old as time.
The Phenomenon
Multipolarity is not a new phenomenon. In fact, one could make the case that as long as great powers exist throughout history, it will always be a phase or an era of its own.
In a couple of instances, this can be seen in the dynamics of the Gunpowder Empires of the 1600s, be it the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals, or the complicated web of rivalries and often tenuous relations between the ancient Three Kingdoms of China (the Shu, Wei and Wu) in the 3rd century A.D. Ages of multipolarity tend to be thought of as transition points, from one dominant power to the next dominant power.
Perhaps the most recent multipolar arrangement seen in modern times is the Vienna Congress, which lasted from 1814-1914. Facilitated by the Austrian Foreign Minister, Klemenz von Metternich, this system of international relations relatively adhered to the balance of power between great powers as a standard, and for a period, was reinforced by the wealth of the British Empire.
Born out of the ashes of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the pact endured and prevented a simultaneous direct conflict between the great powers of that period. The rise of Germany, the unification of Italy, Japan’s entrance to modernity, Russia’s rapid expansion in Central Asia, and the growing might of the United States of America put strain on this consensus. Several of these factors would make the First World War inevitable.
While such a conflagration was met with shock and horror, a few astute minds already recognized the writing on the wall. One of them was Friedrich Engels, best known maybe as a companion of Karl Marx. But Engels is more perceptive in terms of military affairs and foreign relations, than Marx himself. In 1887, he even confided to a friend about his speculation of what the next major war might be, all matched with terrifying detail, down to the letter:
“And, finally, the only war left for Prussia-Germany to wage will be a world war, a world war, moreover of an extent the violence hitherto unimagined. Eight to ten million soldiers will be at each other’s throats and in the process they will strip Europe barer than a swarm of locusts. The depredations of the Thirty Years’ War compressed into three to four years and extended over the entire continent; famine, disease, the universal lapse into barbarism, both of the armies and the people, in the wake of acute misery irretrievable dislocation of our artificial system of trade, industry and credit, ending in universal bankruptcy collapse of the old states and their conventional political wisdom to the point where crowns will roll into the gutters by the dozen, and no one will be around to pick them up; the absolute impossibility of foreseeing how it will all end and who will emerge as victor from the battle.”
In retrospect, the First World War’s causes seemed inevitable. Increased economic competition, coupled with colonial conquests and technological advancements, is destined in some way to conclude with a giant blood bath.
In just four years (From 1914 to 1918), the First World War had immense consequences: the fall of four ancient imperial dynastic houses (the Hohenzollerns of Germany, the Habsburgs of Austria-Hungary, the Osmans of Turkey, and the Romanovs of Russia), the emergence of the United States as a major financial and military center, the rise of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of Fascist Italy are its immediate implications.
Unsurprisingly, it would be followed by another great war, since many of the grievances of the first remained unresolved. Long story short, the defeat of the Axis powers put an end to things for the time being. This would lead to a multipolar order, as the globe bifurcated into two: the Capitalist and the Communist Blocs, with those in between the focus of their disputes.
It must be stressed that the Cold War occurred partially, because of the Soviet Union’s refusal to directly join the American-led Bretton Woods financial system. In the eyes of Washington, it wasn’t all that shocking that those which refused to accede to this new structure were but pariahs.
While economic prosperity did flourish for 20 years on both sides of the spectrum, the international system brought by Bretton Woods entered its crisis point in the 1970s. For then-president Richard Nixon and his former national security adviser and secretary of state Henry Kissinger, this crisis brought the dilemma of a multipolar scenario once more. As such, it would mark the transition towards the neoliberal turn in the 1980s, from the responses made by these two men in the 1970s.
It first began with the opening of cordial relations with Red China in 1972, which then upset Chiang’s Taiwan. This would be followed by the Volcker Shock of 1979, raising all interest rates across the board, effectively triggering a recession, of which banks, via the diktats of the Federal Reserve, were reorganized, together with much of the economy around it.
Third and last would be the growing influence of finance, most especially after 1979, which replaced industry as the most lucrative aspect of an ascendant consumer economy. It was dependent on cheap credit and debt to sustain itself.
But then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ collapse in the ‘90s happened. It vindicated and justified these reforms to the planners and politicians who have bought into the program. At last, a unipolar world order, dominated by the West came to be. For a while, all was good. These conditions made it feasible to consider that only liberal democracy, as the political scientist Francis Fukuyama noted, would be the only viable system. It brought about the reign of an uncontested liberalism through its conservative and progressive appendages.
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The Crisis of the West After 2016
The post-Cold War calm was not to last. The blunders of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, coupled with the 2008 to 2009 crash, undermined the confidence of many of the nations of the world toward the unipolar era.
Almost immediately, nations such as Brazil, China, India, Russia, South Africa, and the rogue nations of North Korea and Iran took advantage of the fallout. This is more exacerbated by Brexit in 2016 and the election of Donald Trump.
For much of the progressive establishment, these events (and upsets) have led to the loss of credibility of international institutions. Internal political tumult has rendered many liberal democracies vulnerable to populist challengers. Year after year, there is a feeling that unipolarity is becoming more of an abstract fiction rather than a concrete fact.
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine, known in Russia as their special military operation, made matters more volatile. Since 2022, the nations of Russia, Iran, and North Korea, are seeing more political, economic, and military cooperation.
China and India, on the other hand, would act as third parties, seeking to benefit from their still amicable trade relations with the West. Drones from Tehran and shells from Pyongyang appear in Eastern Europe. A spate of military coups swept Africa in 2023, putting regimes friendly to Russia, for the most part, in place.
As much of the West continues to reel from the impact of COVID-19, internal polarization worsened the legitimacy of its institutions. The Republicans and Democrats would wage an intractable culture war in the halls of their Congress. The once-optimistic vision of the end of history, proclaimed by the end of the 90s, would become a nightmare.
Where Does the Philippines Go From Here?
Since 2016, the Philippines is also facing its own socio-political crisis. Tensions in the West Philippine Sea have deteriorated. The attempts of the previous administration to appeal to Beijing have come to naught, and so did its pretensions of an independent foreign policy.
In 2024, tensions are high enough that confrontational exchanges are a daily occurrence. The revival of the Visiting Forces Agreement with America provided guarantees of renewed security to Manila. India, Japan, and the European Union has also increased their presence in the area.
These spates of current events are not at all surprising from a macro-level analysis. The Philippines, located between Southeast Asia and East Asia, is thus an important sea route. If the Japanese invasion of the 1940s is to be our proof of concept, securing the Philippines is always a priority for many nations to preserve their logistics and supply chains, since the nation functions as a connector country.
In an age of the emergent multipolar system, a connector country is an entity whose very geography is pivotal enough to warrant attention from foreign powers. Connector countries are conduits to the very fiber of the global economy, which according to certain observers, is on the verge of deglobalizing.
This hypothetical deglobalized economy can be said to be a further evolution of globalization than a regression. The only difference of this globalization is that it won’t be governed entirely by America’s whims as much.
As such, power blocs will take over the vacuum, with three blocs forming as we speak: the still dominant liberal world order of NATO-affiliated and aligned states, the sovereignty-oriented world order headed by China and Russia, and the connector countries, sandwiched between both. One knows where the Philippines lies amidst all this.
The Philippines as a result, has an important role to play in this scenario if it keeps its house in order. As a connector country, it is obvious that it will be courted by these blocs. The bright spot amidst the chaos is that other nations are cognizant of the role that Manila possesses.
As history remains to be written, it will take some guesswork with respect to how the Philippines will navigate this emerging multipolar world. But there are some hints of what its role will be. For instance, the Philippines in recent years has expanded its warm ties to Vietnam and India, nations also part of the connector countries. At present, the common threat that they face is China, and the recent agreements that Manila has opened with Hanoi and Delhi all but confirmed these developments.
If Manila continues to pursue these relationships vigorously, it can maintain its cordial ties with the West, while also fostering its own partnerships that it sees as necessary. Perhaps later, it may even pursue a far greater agenda, which amounts to seeking its own place in the sun. But until that day is to come, the Philippines grapples not only with its own domestic woes but for its own survival in this grand chessboard of international relations.
The question that this poses can be rather simple: Shall the Philippines continue to be a pawn, or will it become a player at some point?
