Public International Law

Understanding: Every Nation For Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World by Ian Bremmer

Among all the international activity to form alliances based on cooperation to achieve economic stability, lesser conflicts and the overall well being of the community, there's still a lot to be done. This is mainly because, as the title of this book suggests, the international attitude to reject effective cooperation. As a result we have "every nation for itself." Every nation wanting to get ahead has power, and control over common goods and leading international institutions. The G-Zero is, as the author defines it, "a world order in which no single country or durable alliance of countries can meet the challenges of global leadership." There are many reasons for this but the genesis of it is with globalization. This is, according to the book, a historical tendency involving political and economic strategies by hegemonic nations and emerging countries for a respectable place among international politics. Globalization has changed the approach to cooperation in the international community. The countries that managed the common goods have commercialized them and as a result, have made them difficult to obtain, for example, oil. Around 1940s, the United States provided most of the world's oil. That kept changing and other countries started discovering oil in their territories and entering the international oil market. This situation gave birth to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The organization's main goal is to establish the ground rules for countries that produce oil. But when the Yom Kippur War (the Arab-Israeli War) came into the picture, since oil had been commercialized globally, some countries used it as a means to a political end. They retrieved oil from the global market and the

US oil prices began to rise affecting the economy. Since the start of globalization, common goods have been put up for sale and used for political reasons. The countries that used to control them have lost that power to emerging countries because they want to compete in the global market and so have started to commercialize them. These emerging countries also play a role when it comes to international institutions and organizations. These institutions have adapted to the demand of globalization, although it has made them somewhat inefficient. We've seen a shift of command in these organizations from the West, predominantly the United States, to a more diversified core of emerging powers. But now, this powers want to compete with the United States and as a result, they are becoming more active within institutions to further their governments political and economical goals by controlling the market on common goods. The outcome of this change is, as the author says: "a diversity of voices is good for maintaining the status quo but bad for management of transnational threats that demand decisive action." This is essentially true if these international institutions cant be reformed correctly to perform their objectives. The result is always going to be the same: a possible solution but with no real plan of action. Another consequence of emerging powers getting a hold of international organizations is that Western controlled non-governmental organizations that were build to keep an eye on human and civil rights of emerging powers will lose their power. Emerging powers have realized they too, have power and don't have to comply to Western standards because the worst they could do is complain, with no real punishment. Another result of change in global control is that these newly formed power nations get a hold of dangerous weaponry: nuclear weapons. Before these countries

got a hold of the control on nuclear weaponry, the United States had a monopolistic control over them for four years. As a result of the lost of dominance on nuclear weapons by the United States, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was born in 1968. This treaty gave a certain number of nations international recognition as carriers of nuclear weapons. As many nations go against it, the only real punishments are economic sanctions that have proven to fail. In a G-Zero world, who will have the power to control the use of nuclear weapons? No one. Since no one will be dominant, discontinue will not happen. Bremmer mentions that the tendency will be, as it is happening now with North Korea, to "resist". He also suggests a possible solution for the current nuclear weapon problem: A nuclear weapon capability of all nations. He gives the example of North Korea, Irak and Iran. There's a big difference among them and their current situation. North Korea has nuclear weapons and also, Iran. Irak didn't and now they're undergoing western reformation by the United States after killing their president Saddam Hussein. In the authors solution, a world were all nations have nuclear weapons, all of them become time bombs that could be ignited by confrontation. Personally, I think that if all nations had nuclear weapons they would still be competing for who is stronger among them. The problem with the countries that don't care about nuclear weapon regulation is that they use it as a means to show power. They want to send a message to other countries that they have the most dangerous weapon of all. I do understand the authors point, the fact that if all the nations have nuclear weapons they will resist attacking each other because of a possible retaliation against them. That would be the best defense, for now. This book helped me understand how the international arena of economic and political strategies would change if things got worst then they are now. You hear

about the meetings of the G8, NAFTA, and the United Nations and how they reach conclusions and are aware of the problems facing the world, but do they ever get effectively proactive? As the author made me realize in his book, they reach conclusions but they never have a plan of action that they can all agree and make a change. Since its every nation for itself, we find ourselves stuck until we can find a way to cooperate. That is why the author says that the G-Zero is not a global order but a period of transition that we'll reach and pass. When theres no one in charge and things get rough, the world will have to learn to truly cooperate.