War or Peace

This highly informative book is about the struggle for world power by an Indian political economist whose books significantly include the title In Praise of Empire. The pivotal event is the global financial crisis of 2008, interpreted by China and Russia as the death throes of the liberal economic order promoted by the US and making space for the rise of state-led authoritarian capitalism. A fundamental divide in the study of world politics arises between the Kantian idealist position exemplified in his work on perpetual peace (1786) and which I have discussed in recent issues in relation to books by Nicholas Hagger and David Ray Griffin; then, on the other hand, a Hobbesian or realist position based on inherent aggressive impulses and the pragmatic exercise of power, leading to the thesis that only a global hegemon currently exemplified by the US can keep the peace.

Lal traces American exceptionalism and the self-image of benevolence back to the British Empire and Theodore Roosevelt, quoting his Nobel Peace Prize address to the effect that 'international society was like a frontier settlement without an effective police force.' The question, however, is the nature of the police force and who exercises political and military power and in whose interests. Lal sees Obama abdicating this role for the US, and the book was written before many of the recent defining statements by the Trump administration. China and Russia are not only challenging Western hegemony, but also Western values, and any transition to China as the global police force would be a betrayal of these values to an inherently repressive regime with a new Emperor in its current president (Putin also plays the role of Czar). Lal argues that China and Russia must be contained, if necessary by force.

In his conclusion, he quotes the realist position of EH Carr about preconditions for war and system breakdown: the existence of powerful and resentful states outside the international order, a profound and sustained destruction of the global economy, and the unwillingness of any single power or hegemon to underwrite the international order. Lal would prefer the US to retain this role, supported increasingly by a democratic India. From a realist point of view, this has some merit, although it lacks transformative aspiration. The term world government does not appear in the index, nor does 'New World Order'. There is no mention of the work on civilisations by Toynbee, Sorokin, or, more recently by Hagger; nor is there any reference to the covert and subversive work of the CIA, which undermines many of the US liberal ideals by underwriting right-wing dictatorships friendly to US economic interests (see my review of Griffin in the previous issue). Of course, there are no easy solutions to issues of international order, and this book provides much food for thought.