No global follow-on – US clubbist policy ensures only the west follows on

Although Biden’s democracy/authoritarianism framework may have served a good purpose in rallying Western allies and partners on Ukraine, on issues like trade or tech rules and standards, allies do not always agree, and, in cases like Ukraine, this framework has proved divisive with much of the non-Western world.

Clubbism: Not the Answer

In a thoughtful paper, the Carnegie Endowment’s Stewart Patrick describes the upsides and downsides of various types of multilateralism — charter (UN), club, concert, and coalition. Patrick defines the Biden administration’s emphasis on democratic solidarity as “clubbism.” The problem with clubbism is that an alliance of democracies excludes the world’s top trading and capital exporter and second-largest military power with nuclear weapons (China), and Russia, a large nuclear weapons state and energy provider, as well as a huge number of countries in the Global South that prefer to be non-aligned.

Patrick explains that clubbism undermines “prospects for pragmatic cooperation with authoritarian powers including on crucial issues of peace and security, climate change, and the global economy. In practice, global problems do not coincide with ideological boundaries, and managing them requires cooperation with adversaries as well as like-minded fellow travelers.”

China and Russia, both of which have been excluded by the United States, have resorted to their own clubbism, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS, fragmenting the global order into competing blocs and undermining the inclusive multilateral architecture. In the current competitive climate, could the UN Security Council (UNSC) enable something akin to the Iran nuclear talks or six-party talks on North Korea? Western efforts to exclude Russia from the G-20, however justified by Russia’s behavior, could set a bad precedent along with being divisive with other members that consider Russia an important partner. The League of Nations failed partly because the major powers were absent (the United States) or had left (WWI’s Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria and Italy.)

Like many 70 year-olds, the institutions of the post-World War II system are in need of surgery and therapy. Given what Fareed Zakaria called “the Rise of the Rest,” it is imperative to give more weight to the Global South in order to make global institutions more representative if the multilateral system has any chance to survive the growing fragmentation. Reform that makes operational sense will be difficult because it would come at the expense of U.S. and EU weight. But a collective Western-led effort that engages the countries of the Global South on issues disproportionately affecting them — such as debt and climate change — will at least demonstrate that Western capitals are eager to reshape global institutions to factor in developing countries’ interests.

The gap between the Global South and the West is much deeper than understood, as a recent survey of major Western and Global South publics has shown. The countries of the Global South distrust Washington’s democracy/authoritarianism division of the world. To them, the world is already multipolar and the United States and Europe are just two of the poles. Western publics, instead, see the world as dividing into two — a Western bloc and a Russia-China one — and believe the moral duty of the Rest is to back the West.