Per anni ho letto gli articoli di Stratfor – e in particolare quelli di George Friedman, che quella rivista ha fondato e diretto – e credo che quella rivista abbia messo a punto un buon metodo di analisi della politica internazionale. Poiché di questo metodo fa un’eccellente sintesi Reva Goujon, la propongo agli amici, traducendo parte del suo lungo articolo.
G.P.
IL METODO PER AFFRONTARE LA POLITICA INTERNAZIONALE
Sentiamo continuamente parlare di come il mondo “dovrebbe” andare. Liberal che si proclamano tali e conservatori, keynesiani e reaganiani, colombe e falchi, globalisti e nazionalisti hanno intasato l’etere e riempito i nostri Twitter con ricette politiche che promuovevano le loro visioni del mondo mentre irridevano quelle degli altri. Ma dopo quest’anno così emotivamente carico, sospetto che molte persone comincino ad essere stanche di grandi teorie e di “attacchi mortali”, in corsivo, contro gli avversari. Al contrario, potrebbe essere tempo di rimpiazzare la pedanteria con qualcosa di più essenziale – e meno divisivo – sul quale porre le basi dei nostri pensieri e dare un senso al mondo.
Piuttosto che porre l’accento su ciò che dovrebbe avvenire, forse potrebbe essere meglio volgere la nostra attenzione a ciò che avverrà. E in questo la geopolitica può rivelarsi un pratico aiuto. È uno strumento ingannevolmente semplice, che non vi sotterrerà in pretese accademiche e non richiederà un fantasioso algoritmo per “modellarlo”. Ma la sua semplicità non lo rende meno potente. Quando fate bollire la schiumosa mescolanza di idee, personalità ed emozioni che hanno fatto affiorare le bolle sull’acqua durante lo scorso anno, fino a farla scomparire, ciò che rimane sono alcune risposte abbastanza ovvie su come siamo arrivati a questo punto e su che cosa ci aspetta.
Tutto comincia con la carta geografica. E non una carta qualunque, ma quella che mette in evidenza la topografia al di là dei confini politici. La bellezza di una tale carta non lascia molto spazio al dibattito politico. Come il pensatore geopolitico olandese/americano Nicholas Spykman disse una volta, “La Geografia non discute. Semplicemente è”.
La carta può dirci i fatti fondamentali riguardo ad una particolare nazione o regione. È grande o piccola, montagnosa o piatta? È una potenza di terra o un’isola? È incollata fra potenze più forti o incombe su vicini più piccoli? È chiusa fra barriere geografiche o spezzata dall’interno? I suoi sistemi fluviali corrono in una direzione che unisce o che divide? La carta mostrerà se un posto ha vie d’acqua e profondità della costa, dove sono posti i più grandi centri abitati, quanta pioggia riceva e quante risorse contengono quei territori, se il Paese è posto in una zona temperata o in un deserto inospitale, quale infrastruttura lo collega con gli altri o lo isola, e così via.
Poi ci mettiamo sopra la storia. In che modo questa carta ha influenzato il comportamento della nazione nel corso dei secoli? Senza tener conto delle personalità prevalenti o delle ideologie del tempo, quali sono i limiti che si pongono alle scelte della nazione, o le pulsioni che l’hanno spinta in una particolare direzione? Quali erano le condizioni interne ed esterne quando la nazione è stata al massimo del suo splendore? Quand’è che dovette affrontare i suoi giorni più bui? Le circostanze che stanno emergendo oggi somigliano a qualche ciclo del passato?
Il tempo è importante. La geopolitica è lo studio della condizione umana, e la storia umana è raccontata attraverso il passaggio delle generazioni. In media, un nuovo ciclo generazionale si completa in circa venti anni. Ciò significa che il mondo che conoscevamo due decadi fa e il mondo che vedremo fra due decadi da ora dovrebbero apparire molto differenti da quello di cui facciamo attualmente l’esperienza. Se siete scettici, considerate il 2016. Ora sottraete 20-25 anni circa e vedete con quale immagine vi ritrovate. Alla fine degli anni ’90, gli Stati Uniti erano nel mezzo di un boom economico, e i teorici politici, nell’euforia del dopoguerra, proclamavano arditamente che avevamo raggiunto “la fine della storia” e la democrazia liberale e capitalista aveva trionfato sul pericoloso pensiero ideologico. La Russia era ancora coperta di macerie, e nell’Unione Europea si pensava che una maggiore integrazione avrebbe incoraggiato la prosperità economica, ponendo il Continente in una migliore posizione per competere con l’America. Nel frattempo, il Giappone cominciava a sentire la sofferenza del suo primo Decennio Perduto, e la Cina aveva cominciato la sua rapida ascesa quale “miracolo” economico del mondo.
(Traduzione dall’inglese di Gianni Pardo)
Da qui in poi l’articolo continua, ancora per 1.450 parole, parlando della Russia, degli Stati Uniti e, al passaggio, dell’Europa. Accludo il resto del testo in lingua originale.
A Simple Tool for Understanding the Trump Presidency / Geopolitical Weekly
November 15, 2016
Now consider the cycle we are in today, one that began with a crisis that shattered the world. The 2008 collapse of the global financial system stripped away the prosperity that bound the European Union together, short-circuited China’s low-end manufacturing boom and triggered a prolonged slump. Jobs were lost and disillusionment with the political establishments spread. At the same time, discontent began to boil over in the Islamic world as populations rose up against their ruling strongmen, all while the United States drowned in its Middle Eastern wars. Russia used these regional fires to blow smoke into Washington’s eyes, distracting it while Moscow rebuilt its influence in the Russian borderlands. From this position of relative strength, the Russians squeezed Ukraine’s energy supplies and warred with Georgia to remind its neighbors of Moscow’s military might — and of the weakness of U.S. security guarantees.
Once we find our place in the generational cycle, we can look to the future and weigh the bigger structural forces at play. How will aging demographics, energy availability, climate change, migrant flows, expanding power vacuums, technological advances and China’s economic evolution work together to compound global stressors, create opportunities and revive historical compulsions? This is where the “-isms” will rear their heads: Nativism, protectionism, populism and nationalism will flow easily from these broader forces as the world tries to steady itself from the hyperglobalization of the previous generation.
Only at this point do we add in the individual. If you skip ahead, as many intuitively do, and try to glean answers from what figures such as Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen or Rodrigo Duterte say, you risk falling into the deep chasm beween intention and reality. But when you organize the world into generational cycles and base your understanding on a firm geopolitical foundation, individuals form but a thin film on what is already a thick body of analysis. The leaders in question are then revealed as products of their time, not aberrations in need of constant psychoanalysis. And the structural forces that brought them to power will be the ones to constrain, shape and bend their actions once in office, limiting the possibilities as to what may actually transpire.
Imperatives Laid Bare
We find ourselves today at a particularly compelling phase of this generational cycle. The election of straight-talking populists amid a stressful global environment has laid bare the basic imperatives of the nation-state. Whereas idealism in better, more prosperous times does a good job of cloaking unpleasant truths, hard survival instincts will drive behavior under more trying circumstances.
And this is where geopolitics matters most.
Russia’s sprawling landmass and lack of natural defenses compel it to reach beyond its borders and build buffers against the West. As tension inside Russia increases, solidifying those buffers while Russia is still strong enough to do so will become a matter of urgency. Regardless of who sits in the White House, Moscow has no choice but to assume that the West will take advantage of Russia’s inherent vulnerabilities to keep the Eurasian power in check. Should the Kremlin perceive the next U.S. president to be a more pliable negotiator, its biggest imperative will be to try to reach an understanding that rolls back NATO’s encroachment in the former Soviet Union. But this also means Russia cannot be expected to make any concessions that fundamentally weaken its grip on the critical buffer territory it has seized in eastern Ukraine.
This is where it will become important to focus on the smaller powers squeezed between the bigger ones. These countries tend to have the most acute sense of their environment, and they often adapt to the shifting tides of geopolitics before anyone else sees them coming. The rim of states in Central and Eastern Europe will have to soberly calculate the course of negotiations between Russia and the United States at a time when core Continental powers such as Germany are trying to manage the fallout from the European Union’s disintegration. For nations sitting on Russia’s front lines, such as Poland, now is the time to band together and bolster their defenses. But for those such as Hungary that rest easier behind the shield of the Carpathian Mountains, now is the time to stay close to Moscow and keep their options open.
Russia will surely run into roadblocks as it barters with the Americans, but it can use the perception of a budding bargain with Washington to intimidate its neighbors while taking advantage of the geopolitical forces pulling Europe apart to weaken the West’s resolve. As an island nation, the United Kingdom’s instinct will be to distance itself from the Continent — and balance off of the United States across the Atlantic — as other European powers revive their age-old feuds. France, rooted in the southern Mediterranean, will become increasingly polarized from Germany and its allies in Northern Europe as nationalist forces chip away at their troubled union.
Questions over the United States’ security commitments in the Far East have presented an opportunity for China as well. The nations stretching from the Indochina mainland to the island chains of Southeast Asia are caught between China’s overbearing reach and Japan’s reawakening. Even before the U.S. election, these countries were trying to chart a course forward without the firm assurances of their longtime U.S. protector. Seeking strength in numbers, these small, exposed nations will try to coordinate with one another, acting under the larger umbrella of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the hope that their collective voice will grant them some level of parity with their bigger and more powerful neighbors. But in the face of economic stress, political tumult, North Korea’s nuclearization and uncertainty over Washington’s role in the region, they will eventually break with one another to tend to their own needs. And when they do they will become more vulnerable, giving China ample space to assert its military dominance and extend economic concessions in an attempt to reshape the regional status quo in its favor.
The Middle East will be no less immune to this geopolitical test. Turkey is determined to reclaim its sphere of influence in the former Ottoman belt reaching from Aleppo through Mosul to Kirkuk. At the same time, Iran is trying to preserve its influence in the arc between the Persian Gulf and Mediterranean Sea. As the two countries collide amid the region’s broader ethno-sectarian struggle, the volatile Middle East will continue to draw in the United States, as well as Russia, which will use these conflicts as bargaining chips in its negotiation with Washington. Strategically speaking, neither the United States nor Iran is in a position to renew tension in the Persian Gulf by throwing out their nuclear deal. But domestic politics could put that theory to the test. Meanwhile, Israel will wait and react to the larger rivalries unfolding around it. Though the United States will maintain its relationship with Israel, it is unlikely to go out of its way to support Israel in ways that could alienate the region’s key Muslim powers. Regardless of the next administration’s personal preferences for allies, they will not outweigh Washington’s strategic interest in maintaining working relationships with the countries taking the lead in reshaping the region.
The fate of North America likewise hangs in the geopolitical balance. The United States rests at the heart of a continent endowed with many resources, navigable waterways, deep coastal ports and massive oceans that protect it from and link it to the rest of the world. The robust trade, infrastructure and cultural ties the United States shares with Mexico and Canada cannot be abruptly severed without creating significant turmoil at home. To be sure, the elemental forces currently fueling nativism, protectionism and anti-establishment sentiment in the United States will force Washington to recalibrate its policies somewhat. But the unique advantages that destined the United States to become a global empire will reduce the chances of a dramatic retrenchment in its foreign policy. The United States will still be driven to capitalize on revolutionary changes in technology to stay competitive and to build a North American economic powerhouse. And when it looks overseas, the United States will still be compelled to prevent larger powers such as China and Russia from dominating their neighborhoods and will have little choice but to rely on regional partnerswith often-colliding interests to manage developing crises.
Still, the nuances of the United States’ policy adjustments and the time it takes to shape them will spread uncertainty in many parts of the world and drive nations to prepare for their worst-case scenarios. So now is the time to put our ears to the ground and feel the earth tremble. We then need to raise ourselves up, dust ourselves off and watch the map come alive.