Finding a way on a three-dimensional chessboard: Terence O'Brien discusses the complexities of international relations and New Zealand responses.

• Author: O'Brien, Terence
• Position: Essay

The international landscape of power today has been characterised as resembling three-dimensional chess. The first level comprises military power, the second is the economic dimension and the third level encompasses the non-governmental dimension. This suggests that military powers economic power and the information revolution are vitally connected, horizontally and vertically. Palpable shifts in power relationships between states and in power away from states are apparent in the modern world. To define power simply by one dimension of the three-level chessboard is misleading. Operating effectively on the chessboard presents many challenges for a small country like New Zealand, which must focus sharply on its vital national interests.

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We live today in an inter-dependent world where economies are increasingly connected by market forces and in which an information revolution plus the technologies of communication have collapsed space and time, so that geographical separation even for the remotest countries, like New Zealand, is no obstacle to success, or shelter from harm. Such realities have set in motion a transformation in the world pecking order. *hey are complicated by lack of big power consensus over management of the global economy, and compromised by the persistence of turmoil, cruelty, injustice and abuse of power in several places. Our collective existence is best described as complex inter-dependence, which provides a challenge for the foreign policies of great and small countries alike.

That sense of complexity is deftly captured by one respected American authority in his recent depiction of the international landscape of power today as resembling three-dimensional chess. (1) The first dimension, the top level of the chessboard, comprises military power, which is dominated absolutely by the United States, whose global reach and lethality of force is unrivalled. Annual US defence expenditure of at least US$700 billion effectively exceeds that of the 192 countries in the rest of the world put together. It has remained, too, an article of absolute American faith for the past 70 years that US security requires America to retain a permanent forward-based military presence throughout the world--there are currently more than 600 US military installations of varying sizes on the planet--and that the United States must be ready to defend that presence and intervene if needs be, anywhere and at any time. History suggests that foreign troops garrisoned on foreign soil are likely always to be sources of friction and provocation; and as 9/11 cruelly confirmed forward military bases in the Middle East today provide lightning rods for terrorism.

The second level of the chessboard embraces the economic dimension, where in the past 30 years striking accomplishment on the part of newly emerging economies has substantially diversified global economic power in particular through the rise of Asia, led by the re-emergence of China. In the wake of the 2008 global economic crisis the entire world, including the United States itself, which was largely responsible for the crisis, has discovered a vital stake in Asia's success. However, global agreement about how to create and sustain better equilibrium in the global economy remains elusive. Fears are awakened in some quarters that a dysfunctional world economy and new international rivalries (particularly over energy and resources) will trap the world in a zero-sum mentality, where one country's gains are viewed as another's loss. (2)

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Huge debt

Asia's accomplishments to date are distinguished by a disavowal of military force as a means to ensure progress and by scrupulous avoidance of debt fuelled models of economic growth so prominently favoured by the United States and parts of Europe. One consequence is that America stands in debt to China to the tune of some US $800 billion. The United States is now the largest debtor nation in history.

The rise of Asia and states like Brazil and Turkey is demonstrating, too, that to be successful in the modern world no longer requires a country to be 'Western'. This is transforming one basic assumption that has driven modern international relations for decades--namely that the West alone possesses the key to real improvement of humanity. With its values and traditions, the West remains, of course, a significant force in international relations manifested, principally and somewhat paradoxically, in the form of the world's only multi-member military pact, NATO, whose membership, mandate and purpose are being reconfigured with a greater global role in mind as a substitute, or rival, for the United Nations.

The expanded role is already facing a stern test in Afghanistan and the Middle East. New Zealand is not a NATO member, although a 'new and strengthening connexion with NATO is of value to us', (3) and for the last decade involvement with US led NATO forces in Afghanistan has dominated New Zealand international security efforts. As a current candidate for 2015 UN Security Council membership in competition with two NATO members, we do need to be clear, however, about the desirability and acceptability to the rest of the world, including to Asia, of a NATO global role.

Non-governmental dimension

The third level of the chessboard encompasses the nongovernmental dimension of modern international relations. A dazzling information revolution coupled with de-regulation has diminished the absolute importance of formal relations between governments and dispersed power and influence to non-government sources. It has elevated networking to a vital place in international relations--between private multinational corporations...