On the eve of the Munich conference on security event organizers on Monday released a report on globalization, global security and stability. The document is entitled “Post-truth, post-West, post-order?” and examines the various challenges the current world order — from terrorism, ending with the instability of the European Union.
“Probably, the situation in the international security issues that we have today, is the most troubled time since the end of the Second world war”, — stressed the Chairman of the conference Wolfgang Ischinger. According to him, the phenomenon of “post-truth” (the Oxford dictionary of the selected main word 2016, meaning the priority of emotion over truth in the perception of the news picture) led to the fact that Western society is increasingly withdraws into himself, preferring to solve their own problems.
The apogee of this attitude was the victory in US elections is Donald trump, whose penchant for isolationism Ischinger calls “unilateral and even nationalist politics.” West refuses the role of driving force of mankind that sets the stage for the formation of a “post-Western” world, and marks a radical departure from the generated post-1945 world order, that is, “post-order”, writes Ischinger.
The authors of the report claim that the weakening of the Western democracies and international organizations is closely linked to the strengthening of the “illiberal forces”, which “had benefited from globalization, but still protesting against certain elements of the world order”. On the other hand, the Western countries, say the authors of the report, too insists on spreading its values by calling back abroad and at home.
At the end of January about this issue were expressed by the experts of the analytical Agency “Foreign policy” Andrey Bezrukov and by Andrey sushentsov in its forecast of global security in 2017. The West, according to Russian analysts, has ceased to be the unconditional global leader and a key international policy decisions are taken without his participation. “However, the consequence of scrapping of the old order became intolerable uncertainty”, — said the experts, noting the need for international players as soon as possible to draw conclusions from the incident a paradigm shift.
But while the West is showing weakness over weakness, the document says the Munich conference: “While Western officials have repeated over the years that the Syrian crisis has no military solution, Russia, Turkey and their allies promote such a solution — and not without success.” In the end, after six years of war, the world community is “not a step closer” to a political solution of the conflict, which would agree to all of the participants.
At the same time, experts of the conference is not inclined to say that the period after the end of the cold war was a “liberal interregnum” before the return of nationalism, leaving the question open. However, experts of the Munich conference, followed by colleagues from the analytical center Eurasia Group, called the state of world relations “geopolitical recession”.
The report of the Munich conference contains a variety of data from others, in addition to the Eurasia Group, the friendly organizers of the researchers. Many of these data according to the authors of the document are published for the first time.
For example, in the document are estimates from IHS Conflict Monitor, according to which in 2016 only 20% of SCD airstrikes in Syria fell on the positions of the “Islamic state” (LIH, a banned terrorist organization). For comparison, the Turkish air force bombed Islamists in 73% of sorties in Syria, and aircraft of the Western coalition in 94% of cases. Only in March, the strikes against ISIS was more than half (64%) of all Russian bombing in Syria, this period saw the onset of the Syrian army, with the support of the Russian space forces on positions of the jihadists in Palmyra.
Released on 13 February, the document is the third consecutive report of the Munich conference: analytical materials are published annually from 2015, each time for a few days before the opening of the conference — playing the role of “reflection” for participants of the conference.
In the previous two years analytical notes the Munich conference also drew attention to the crisis of global order and diversity of threats to global security. For example, in 2015, experts at the conference analyzed the emergence of the Ukrainian conflict and the expansion of ISIS, and in 2016 examined the migration crisis in Europe and deepening of the Syrian conflict.
The Munich security conference, held since 1962, with the financial support of the German government. This year it will take place on 17-19 February. In 2007, Russian leader Vladimir Putin said at the conference speech with sharp criticism of US policy and Western countries. This time the Russian delegation will be headed by foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Earlier in his Ministry did not rule out the possibility that the conference could be held the first meeting of Lavrov and new U.S. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson.
