Tiempos de inflexión histórica. La invasión de Ucrania y el declive del poder occidental

Abstract

We are witnessing an unparalleled social transformation since the Industrial Revolution that leads us to a historical turning point (post-Europe, yes, but also post-Western?) caused by two key variables: an unbalanced demography between the West and the rest of the world, affecting Europe in particular. But that has been coupled with a technological convergence because the West has lost the monopoly of technoscience that it enjoyed for at least three centuries and that was the cause of its power. Economics is a positive-sum game; we can all win (or lose). But power is a zero-sum game, agonizing, and the emergence of new powers in the world reduces the relative power of the West in equal measure. We are not facing absolute decline and the West has many assets, and although it also has serious internal problems, it will remain an unrivalled actor for many decades. But the invasion of Ukraine preludes a period of turbulence on the international stage marked by the "trap of Thucydides": the tension between an emerging power (China) and a declining one (USA), a tension that articulates, not only the foreign policy of these two giants, but the entire international order. At the present juncture, however, the possibility of a new peace can also be glimpsed, peace by balance of powers and interdependence, liberal peace, «hot peace» full of tensions, rather than a «cold war». For, unlike the old USSR, China does not intend to export its socio-political model and is not aware of the political form of the other countries.