A Portrait in Superpowers

  Modern superpowers are curious affairs, for two reasons; Unlike the superpowers of old, which were affairs of stodgy and over sharp contrast, modern superpowers are painted in hazy air brush. Colours might have their foci, the points they are deepest and richest at, and yet what makes them a power, is not this bloc/k of colour, but rather the blowing out of the colour across the canvas. At the same time, that old two tone world, of this or that colour, has split into thousands of shards. A superpower is no longer a one size contains all, or a one colour has all other colours, phenomena. On the contrary, different superpowers exist for different aspects of the globe. One can be a military or a resource superpower, but need not be both. Superpowers are no longer the beefy presence which they once were (the one size or ideology contains all), and have become rather an invidious presence whose power lies in our inability to escape their shadow, rather than anything else. The battle of superpowers has moved then into a virtual battle, where very different powers are arranged one against the other, in a highly complex and intricate series of struggles.

  Nor is it necessarily that obvious where these powers are located anymore or even necessarily what they are. Indeed there is a transience about certain powers. Take for example, last year and Russia’s clear ‘resource superpower’ status. A cold winter, and a global economy that was defining itself in terms of shortages (oil, rice, milk, gas) lent the Kremlin great authority over western and eastern Europe. There were things we dared not say to them, and fights we could not pick, not whilst they were in control of the gas tap anyway! It really felt that Russia was back. And then?  A slightly less cold winter, a fairly widespread economic collapse (felt very heavily in Russia), a confidence in the extra pipelines which the West is building, and the power of Russia is (probably temporarily) occluded – just when increasingly oil rich Venezuela is growing. In short, in a world where being a superpower is no longer a complete package, but is rather defined through control or privileged access to resources or ideas or capital, then superpowers will come go, as the world shifts.

  And yet in all this flux there are clearly at least four very modern superpowers.

  First, and most importantly, there is that superpower of the economy, located in and around China, and more generally southern Asia (and so includes Japan, but also India). This power has two fairly curious features. On the one hand it is a power defined by that enigma of the economy, ‘I must always grow’, as much as it is by wealth. The economy (in spite of the banking crisis) operates as that which always articulates what is to come (share value, for example always includes expectation of future value…). Current poverty in a sense then, never matters to global capitalism. It is either not really its problem or something that it will make right, ultimately. However China and Asia as a whole have occupied the space of this eventuality, and performed the oddest of alchemies. It is as if the basic poverty of a lot of their populations has become in itself a resource, (and not as was traditionally thought a burden). That is, there is a wide scale belief that unlike so often, with economic development, China will grow, and continue to grow, as it manages to include more and more of its people within the increasing wealth of its economy. More than this, it clearly seeks to spread this model to Africa, and across the globe. It offers then (in the best Communist traditions) hope to the poor across the globe. A hope that they can be part of a miracle whose locus is elsewhere. China quietly changes Africa, and changes it as if it were a partner in something. The contrast of course is with America and Europe, the former of which gave aid, and the latter of which talked about development. China has actually given economic succour.  The difference is that in the West we always assumed that we were the rich countries ‘helping the poor’, or else forcing the poor to open themselves to our far from honourable intentions (i.e. enforced global trade). We never really wanted equals. China’s economy appears by contrast to be able to brook the idea that we are all equal, and the poor across the world have a right to wealth.

  On the other hand this egalitarianism in the economy is coupled by a marked and tricky authoritarianism in government. China here confirms the open secret about freedom and capitalism. One of our pretences in the West is that freedom is a complete package. Political and economic freedoms were then synonymous or led one to the other. And yet this is not necessarily so, even in the West. On the contrary, at times of great economic change (say the Industrial Revolution itself, or during the Great Depression) even the West has been marked by strong, and hectoring government. Likewise big business talks about strong leaders. In both cases, in a sense what is meant by a strong leader is an individual or set of individuals who are so focused on a future which they strive to make materialize, that they are blind to current affairs or even sufferings. The future is then driven into the present, whatever the consequences. The Communist Party of China then insists upon growth, and will not tolerate anything that undermines that growth, or their position in order or in commanding it.

  To become a superpower is to move beyond these hopes and promises. It is to see the world within a belief of a future to come, and an acceptance of the path to that future. One wields power, by embodying what will be, for everyone. China is then the paradigm case for this incarnation. A future is being materialized and driven forward before our very eyes, and we feel powerless to prevent it: all that we can do in the West is therefore, while muttering and complaining, join it.

  The second main superpower is naturally military. Here the phrase the ‘world’s only superpower’ is most often used about America. By which of course is meant, the power that spends the most money on the military, and has the most technologically advanced armies in the world. The promise then being, that this technology is of itself a power - which it is, at least in part. Here is after all an army that appears to be able to wage ceaseless war on a variety of fronts, and do so without breaking (unlike the British Army). The key factor is then technology. The American armed forces’ power is founded not on numbers, but on the fact that it always has the know how, and money to use the latest gadgets. The theory being that as technology changes our world, so the owner of this technology (unlike all the others) will grow, and grow indefinitely.

  And yet there are of course three limits to this grandiose claim. Firstly it is possibly simply not true. Technology is only as good as its actual presence on the battlefield, and the military training of the people who wield it.  More than that, into these two limits it adds its own, that it also goes wrong, and kills the wrong person. Its power is then rather flawed, and is never as great as we dream. Secondly and more importantly, even the best of technologies is only as good as the information that informs its use, and not only is this information necessarily often out of date and hence military intelligence is often wrong in itself, but also the world does not wait for the technology to come into play. One launches a cruise missile because one knows that the Taliban have come to town. And yet by the time the missile falls from the sky, the Taliban have disappeared, and a wedding party taken its place. Technology then always risks losing a population, as its order and actions are never as flexible as the flowing world of humanity would demand (for strict justice’s sake).

  Finally it is no longer clear that technology alone is enough to win a war. The entire War Against Terror project is in a sense a massive (and horrific) experiment. On the one side their lies American know how, and the promise of ever better technology capable of doing more and more things. On the other, there is a shadowy organization that spreads by rumour, threat, and brand name.

  It can claim the credit of a thousand disparate acts, and little decisions. Al Qaeda, apes America. It no doubt lacks a command structure or even the formidable organization that is the American military, and yet this lack is itself a resource. It allows the organization in pretending that it does have this power, to appear demonic. It is everywhere, organizing everything. Or at least, it could be. Al Qaeda then seeks to form the counterpoint or better reflection, to American power.  American power was defined by the power of the human mind to act upon the world (and define better bombs, better surveillance etc.); The power of Al Qaeda is (if one lets it), the power to wage war within the human mind, a powerful threat and an unseen presence. This latter power is then in a sense necessarily fictional. The war of terror is then in a sense created in our minds. It does not really exist as we believe it to; or rather, as America is drawn into it. The mistake which Bush made (amongst so many others) was to allow this dualism its power. He directly contrasted Al Qaeda with America, and so created them as its shadow power. Or perhaps the cynic might say, that if one has invested as much money in weapons as America has, then one needs to find an enemy one can fight. (Be that enemy a boastful sheikh, or a militia or a dictator). Although with the obvious caveat that dictators are easier to fight than goatherds, and so invading Iraq was preferred over actually dealing with whatever terrorist threat there actually is – but come what may one needs an ‘evil power’ to reckon with, and not merely a set of disillusioned kids, a handful of extremist clerics, and a whole lot of dissatisfaction with the West.

  The third great source of ‘superpowerdom’ is that of technology. Here the claim is not to predict what technologies will matter, but rather what technologies are to come. Here of course then the game is to factor two variables into a complex equation. On the one level one has to allow for a world where population appears to be on the rise. We always, and at every turn appear to breed more world. On the other there is the problem that our actions are in all likelihood imperilling our contained presence on the planet (in this form at least). We have then two problems, the one centred around increased food production, and the other around redefining the nature of technology. The former of these concerns has not quite drawn itself off into a superpower yet. The problem of genetically modifying crops, and the scruples which Europe has about them, has prevented a new superpower emerging. In contrast though, it is very clear that Europe (as a whole) thinks of itself as the superpower of the environmental age. We assume that it is Europe that will drive forward global restraint. That it is Europe, where the technologies of the future will be defined, and initially exploited. It is Europe then that feels it ought to experiment with carbon capture or wave power, and become the global leader in the technologies of tomorrow.

  Europe then very clearly seeks to be the superpower of tomorrow, the superpower of a world delimited in what it can do, and how it can pollute. The cynic in me would suggest that this idea reflects of course Europe’s global position. On the one hand it is then, a ‘residue power’, full of the old imperialist forces that got us into the mess in the first place, and so spent their authority and might in the process. It therefore makes sense for Europe to see the global environment as spent and in peril. It sees or wants to see the global renaissance of environmentally friendly powers, as its second chance, the chance to do it right this time….We in the West then in a sense need or rather want to use the very real problem of global collapse to refound our superpower status. A problem that will infect global politics for a long time to come.

  The final main superpower is an odd one. It is the hidden power of information to spread. This power has, at least in the West’s dream, been all about us. We have then dreamed that information as it spreads across the West, will spread across the East, making censorship or even copyright impossible. The West then thought that it was waging a hidden war, a war given in the Caiaphas’ kiss of its technology. The West was then a superpower again, because of its technology, or that which the technology so silently effected.

  And yet of course technology never need be like that. Or rather, it would undermine too much. Freedom (political freedom) would undermine capitalism (with which it is never the easiest bedfellow). That is, the traditional power and privilege of capitalism, to stake an ownership on something, and force others to pay for that fact, would collapse. Capitalism in the West and the East requires then censorship to be effective (as China censures for other reasons perhaps Google). The result is then that information technology’s superpower status (and the wider Western free world pretence that went with it) is being unpicked. We (and they) simply cannot afford freedom (irrespective of whether that freedom would lead anywhere or not). 

  The result is that in the craving of big organizations for censorship (and their being prepared to invest in censoring and delimiting), that the nature of information technology as superpower is slipping. It will no longer be the West as such (with its values on Freedom). But rather it will be the little guys, those who can be bothered to break the rules and manipulate the system, against the powers of states and companies. This will then be an odd global struggle. The result of which cannot be called - as it is by no means clear yet exactly where the contours of this power struggle will lie.

  To be a modern superpower, is then to attempt to claim a colour of future to call one’s own. From that block of colour, they radiate out a light, mingling with other colours, or finding reflections of themselves in those other shades. And yet all the while, insisting that their own colour (and so power) alone remains true. Our world is a world of volatile airbrushes, each painting their own future, according to  their own dreams or nightmares…