Dear Editor,

Globalisation is on the back foot, at least losing footing. Unipolarity is under serious challenge. The cold war is still a mere spectre. And bipolarity has passed the embryonic stage.

The heuristic dichotomy of the east-west stand-off waned in lustre and analytical value in the decades after the demise of the Soviet Union.

Yet bipolarity appears on the upswing with China vs the West going beyond competitive adversaries. The form it will have is a tinge of the sphere of influence, and non-state actors across sectors, as well as nihilistic operators eager to fill a void in a rapidly changing world where national sovereignty is losing its sheen, especially evident in countries engaging in nefarious acts in search of a raison d’etre.

The typology that could emerge is V K Krishna Menon’s and Marshall Josip Broz’s concept of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) or neutralism (beyond Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Ireland, Finland) through the prisms of trade and security interests accompanied by readjustments of international financial institutions.

I recall Menons’s abrasive, yet erudite style as he launched verbal forays at the UN against both the Soviet Union and the West. He was remarkably conversant with diplomacy and defence.

In addition, he had like-minded leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Sukarno, Jawaharlal Nehru, et al. In fact, during my diplomatic posting in Yugoslavia, I reported on NAM foreign ministers deliberations in Belgrade during the first Gulf War.

The framework could take the form of a revised north-south dialogue. After all, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has elicited new foreign policy twists among the US and allies to counter its footprint in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, among other regions which may see this reality as an opportunity for leverage.

Earle Scarlett

Former US diplomat

pimpernells2004@yahoo.com