Rosy Moralisation and Geopolitical Analysis Don't Mix Well

Brian YS Wong November 14, 2024 23:41

There is a growing trend that concerns me in contemporary geopolitical discourse – beyond the tendency of popular discussions and commentaries to veer towards the banal, or for debates to become increasingly siloed and polarising in their manifestation. I am concerned by the rise in moral self-righteousness, as a default norm and descriptive practice, but also as a proverbial wool over one’s eyes, that drags individuals down the dangerous path of complacency, hubris, and self-imposed ignorance.

Here are a few concrete ways in which the trap unfolds.

There is the tendency to assume the existence of clear binaries. “Good vs. Evil”, “Dictatorship vs. Democracy”, “Illiberal Oppression vs. Liberal Emancipation” – these dichotomies are not only often poorly understood and applied in accordance with geopolitical whims but are in fact mobilised and weaponised by vested interests to compel third parties to choose sides. The implicit messaging is clear: “You’re with us, or you’re against us.” The end result? A world where the mighty and potent can leverage moral hijacking as a means of cajoling and coercing less powerful, less resourceful states into acting against their own interests and undermining the sovereignty of their very own people. This worries me.

Such moralising rhetoric also gives rise to intractable spirals of escalation. The framing of a purported enemy as something that must be defeated at any cost, as an existential peril that must be eliminated whatever it takes, is precisely what drives countries to over-arm themselves and embark upon a security dilemma spiral. If there is to be peace on this increasingly unsafe planet, encumbered by all sorts of trans-national challenges, there needs to be an active renouncing of the Manichean lenses through which the global order is parsed. Sadly, with the advent of social media and virtue signalers, we are moving further and further away from pragmatic entente and immersing ourselves once more in the Grand Delusion of a Cold War – except the war, this time round, is unlikely to stay cold.

And then there is the no less puzzling phenomenon of wishful thinking – individuals projecting all sorts of benign, ideal endings to deeply suboptimal quandaries. Some would reason that because “justice should prevail”, therefore “justice will prevail” – and advocate blatantly unrealistic pathways of conflict resolution, couched in the cliché, “Peace through strength, strength through armament.” What a Strangelovean lie to tell. The is-ought distinction exists on the basis that what is moral does not convert easily to what is physical or real; there is no necessary translation or equivalence between the two. Indeed, it is the gap between ideals and reality, the desirable and the practicable, that we must grapple with as geopolitical strategists.

Ideals vary from communities to communities, too. The danger of thinking that our vantage points and appraisal of what is ethical would thus be shared by our neighbours from all corners of the world, lies in two fronts: first, the arrogant assumption that our particular values are in fact universalisable and thus universal; second, the deeply defective operating premise that we should go about our business as if our values are the only ones that matter – even if that is in fact, curiously or coincidentally, the case. To comprehend geopolitics requires an appreciation of why and where geopolitical interests diverge, and the reasonable management of such differences. I fear we live in strange times where such pluralism and adaptiveness are no longer welcome – but are in fact seen as burdensome “constraints” that preclude us from seeing the bigger picture, so to speak.

Make no mistake. As Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani argued so eloquently, the next decade will feature some of the most exciting – and turbulent – times for geopolitics watchers. The Sino-American relationship is due for a precipitous and unbridled decline; American domestic politics will be thrown into deep disarray; the Global South will experience an uneven and rugged rise; vast swathes of Europe must cope with the fall-out from the invasion of a sovereign state at its doorsteps. Peace will be both elusive and delusional.

Yet what is needed at times like these, is neither unequivocally cynical pessimism, nor pollyannish optimism. We need pragmatism that is driven by a firm and real sense of purpose, and an orientation towards identifying a modus vivendi that optimises the interests of not just one country or one power, but the global collective of states and societies. For far too long we have rested on the laurels and comfy cushions offered to us by the post-Cold War consensus – it is high time that we woke up to the real and manifest dangers that abound, and worked the hardest we can to prevent a backsliding of our world into the tribalistic, zero- (or negative) sum ethos that made life “nasty, brutish, and short”, as Thomas Hobbes put it.

Brian YS Wong

Assistant Professor, HKU