Namibia at a Time of Predatory Hegemons

Realism and its variants remain one of the dominant theories of international relations. Why? Because it engages with war and conflict, regular conditions of the international system. 

Also, because the Westphalian state system is its point of departure, a system created by the Treaties of Osnabruck and Münster, which together form the ‘Peace of Westphalia’ (1648), that ended the ‘Thirty Years War’ and were crucial in delimiting the political rights and authority of European monarchs.

Among others, the treaties granted monarchs rights to maintain standing armies, build fortifications, and levy taxes, thus privileging sovereignty.

Since then these rights have become the staple of most states.

While realism has different variants, it shares some core principles and understandings of international relations.

Chief among these are: states are the main actors of the international system, the state’s first law of motion is to define and protect its national interest, state survival and self-help – notions that derive from classical realists such as Thucydides and Niccoló Machiavelli and structural realists such as Kenneth Waltz.

Power is the defining concept of international relations and military power is its most important embodiment.

Sovereignty is inextricably linked to forms of statism – the core mantra of realism.

‘DESTRUCTIVE REALISM’

This incomplete framing provides a wider intellectual canvas against which the United States’ (US) international relations under Donald Trump should be seen.

While the US has pursued different variants of realism for several decades, Trump pursues a particular and destructive brand of realism – that of a ‘predatory hegemon’ as Stephen M Walt of the Harvard Kennedy School recently argued in Foreign Affairs.

Predatory hegemons, as Walt says, use their power to “extract concessions, tribute, and displays of deference from both allies and adversaries, pursuing short-term gains in what it sees as a purely zero-sum world”.

Under Trump, the United States behaves like an apex predator.

Since the founding of the United Nations, the broad architecture of world politics has gone from the bipolarity of the former Cold War to the unipolar moment, dominated by the US, to today’s asymmetric multipolarity.

Walt shows how the US’s ‘grand strategy’ has shifted along with such reconfigurations.

Invoking the metaphor of a “big, beautiful department store” (remember Trump referring to Gaza as “a beautiful piece of real estate”), Trump’s transactional approach, as Walt shows, is anchored in a misguided belief that the United States “has enormous and enduring leverage over nearly every country in the world”.

Typical of predatory hegemons, Trump tries to structure transactions with other states and regions in “a purely zero-sum fashion, so that the benefits are always distributed in its favour”. 

In contrast, benign hegemons impose unfair burdens on their allies only when necessary because they believe their security and welfare are enhanced when their allies and partners prosper.

Predatory hegemons rely on their coercive power to dominate and force others into submission. Dependence and geopolitics trump complex interdependence.

HISTORICALLY SPEAKING

Predatory hegemons are not new – as evidenced by colonialism, imperialism, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union’s relations with its former Warsaw Pact allies.

Such hegemons all viewed bilateral relations as zero-sum and constructed exploitative core-periphery networks of dominance and submission.

The mentality of ‘might is right’ pervaded their interactions with the world system.

What is specific to Trump is his brand of ‘offensive realism’, his invocation of distortive tariffs, his pernicious use of resource nationalism, and his systematic hollowing-out of a global multilateral system of institutions, practices and values.

Trump’s ill-conceived ‘Board of Peace’ is the ultimate insult to the UN and to multilateralism organised around large numbers of states, or universally, rather than by unilateral state action.

We see a decline of the idealist paradigm and a return to what René Girard calls “the escalation up to extremes” – a Clausewitzian notion informed by corrosive illiberal ‘offensive realism’ – when the anarchical, self-help system (read America First) compels states to maximise their relative power positions.

A HOUSE OF CARDS

Notwithstanding Trump’s triumphalism, predatory hegemons carry the seeds of their own destruction within them.

The reasons for this include: their renunciation of multilateral, global institutions that provide key spaces for global governance, their hollowing-out of international rules and norms that are part of the fabric of world society, their inability to overcome the ‘security paradox’, and their intent to subject a complex and diverse world to the will of one man and/or state.

In important respects, the United States under Trump is a dysfunctional super power.

While the idea of ‘a rules-based international system’ does not automatically imply a fair balance between ‘value-based’ and ‘interest-based’ notions and practices, the polycentric nature of conflict and the legitimate and proportional use of force, remain central to sustaining a networked world under the aegis of the United Nations Charter supported by an extensive body of international law. 

QUO VADIS, NAMIBIA?

Namibia’s foreign policy and international relations is grounded in Article 96 of the Constitution.

While the country has had more than one foreign policy review and produced White Papers on foreign policy and diplomatic practice, the time seems ripe for a more in-depth rethink of policy and relations.

The starting point could be an honest and research-led audit of all bilateral, regional and multilateral relations and of the capacities vested in the Ministry of International Relations Cooperation and Trade.

Integral to this should be an analysis of the international relations of companies, public enterprises and even individuals, as well as the conceptual grounding of a ‘non-aligned foreign policy’ posture.

What does ‘non-alignment’ mean in the current global context? What could it potentially mean?   

Different forms of diplomacy should be considered, arguably with more emphasis on developmental, energy, science, maritime, environmental, cultural and economic diplomacy.

Economic diplomacy, widely seen as the DNA of Namibia’s international relations, should be revised to ensure it has both moral and social content.
Trade diplomacy is a specialised field and should be recognised as such.

This calls for a more robust policy culture, more conceptual and constructivist thinking and an ability to interlink development diplomacy and policy with foreign relations.

With reference to existing and potential extractive industries, Namibia should join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative to augment transparency in terms of the environmental and social impact.

It might be useful to establish a regional school of diplomacy with strong links to research institutions and universities to which other Southern African Development Community and African Union member states could contribute.

Moreover, Namibia should investigate the practicality and sustainability of building a global alliance with other successful small states linked to one or two regional powers such as Canada and Brazil.

This could facilitate more meaningful interaction with Brics+ and echo sentiments expressed by Canadian prime minister Mark Carney at last month’s World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Such a small and middle power world, however, would have to tread carefully so as not to be dominated by the hegemony of the great powers and the dictates of international financial institutions.   

Finally, given the integrated nature of the foreign and domestic policy domains, any meaningful reset of Namibia’s international relations should decide on key political questions together.

For example, financial policy includes development, the environment, and the social sphere.

Security policy includes the economy, the environment, gender, human development, technology, the digital economy, artificial intelligence, international law and governance.

Namibia needs to build an integrated policy culture if it wants to succeed in a turbulent world system.      

• André du Pisani is emeritus professor of politics at the University of Namibia. He has researched and published on Namibia’s international relations. This article is written in his personal capacity.    

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