The Emerging Great Power Politics and Regionalism: Structuring Effective Regional Conflict Management
| Author | Mikhail Troitskiy |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12677 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
The Emerging Great Power Politics and
Regionalism: Structuring Effective Regional
Conflict Management
Mikhail Troitskiy
MGIMO University
Abstract
The intensifying rivalry between the leading global powers (the United States and the European Union) on one hand, and the
aspiring nations (such as China, Russia, India, Turkey, and others) on the other, creates additional challenges to conflict resolu-
tion on the regional scale. The global and aspiring powers often seek to use these conflicts to sap their opponents’resources,
discredit their commitments and undermine resolve. As a result, most conflicts in post-Soviet Eurasia and some in the Middle
East (Syria) and Asia (disputes over China’s maritime claims) become ‘frozen’or intractable and defy resolution. Existing multi-
lateral alliances and blocs across the conflict ridden regions are engaged in the struggle for members and appear incapable
of concerted conflict resolution policies. What is needed to address the intensifying proxy conflict problem is a set of multilat-
eral permanent negotiation fora bringing together the leading global powers and aspiring nations. Despite the manifold chal-
lenges to such scheme, the contours of a deal that can be reached within such fora is clear: status elevation for the aspiring
nations in return for their good faith engagement with the leading global powers in conflict resolution.
An evolving setting for regional conflict
management
Analysis of conflicts in the post-Cold War world traditionally
focused on the needs, interests, strategies, and tactics of the
parties on the ground and a limited number of directly
involved ‘outside’players. With the demise of superpower
rivalry, proxy conflicts became rare for more than two dec-
ades. The stakeholders could afford to pay less attention to
external influences on the conflicts in regions, such as the
Middle East, the Horn of Africa, or Southeast Asia. Proposed
solutions were usually technocratic in nature; even when
force was used in quest for a solution, such as was the case
in the former Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s, the result
was predetermined by the significant edge in power
resources that the intervening nations had over the actors
on the ground. In such ‘slam dunk’situations, conflict medi-
ators did not feel the need to manage the uncertainty aris-
ing from disagreements with other ‘external’stakeholders.
However, with the onset of a new round of great power
rivalry, in which the United States could no longer rely on
its unique status to ensure favorable outcomes and was
faced with increased resistance by aspiring regional com-
petitor nations, many international and civil conflicts
acquired a new dimension. Such resistance imposed tangi-
ble constraints on the conflict resolution options. Even if
these constraints did not directly affect developments on
the ground, they reduced the freedom of even very power-
ful stakeholders to choose the ways of ending hostilities
and reaching definitive settlements. Conflict resolution again
became a matter of politics understood as ‘the art of the
possible’, with all its uncertainty and unpredictability.
This article explores the global roots of regional conflicts
and options for their management in the era of great power
rivalry. For empirical material, it draws upon ethnopolitical
conflicts in post-Soviet Eurasia under way since the late
1980s, the conflict in and around Syria since 2011, and Chi-
na’s potential and actual disputes in East and Southeast
Asia.
Scholars and experts recognize that the ‘unipolar
moment’is increasingly giving way globally to great power
politics in which balancing behavior becomes widespread
(Allison, 2018; Kofman, 2018; The Economist, 2018; US
National Security Strategy, 2017). The phenomenon of the
new aspiring powers and their impact on international poli-
tics has received close attention by academics for more than
a decade (Hampson and Troitskiy, 2017; Nau and Ollapally,
2012). ‘Aspiring power’is usually defined as a nation dissat-
isfied with its position in the world order. An aspiring power
need not necessarily be ‘rising’, or experiencing rapid eco-
nomic growth and working to enlarge the group of its allies
and sympathizers, but it must have a substantial amount of
power resources and harbor clear ambitions to resolve any
serious external challenges it faces, and to expand its free-
dom of action recognized by other nations. For many such
nations, the core perceived challenge is rooted in their rela-
tions with the world’s leading powers: the United States, the
European Union, and, to an extent, China (which itself is
usually regarded at the same time as an aspiring and rising
power).
©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2019) 10:Suppl.2 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12677
Global Policy Volume 10 . Issue Supplement 2 . June 2019
14
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