The era of “States-Civilizations” has arrived. It is up to the middle powers of the world to react

Terence McNamee is a senior researcher at the Institute for Global Security in Montreal.

Be wary when the world’s most powerful leaders talk about “civilization.” Their abuse of the term could lead to a new international order.

Russia is “an original state-civilization,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a major annual forum in Sochi in 2023, adding that “the world is on the road to a synergy of state-civilizations.” The same year, Xi Jinping called China is “the only great uninterrupted civilization that still persists today in state form.” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi describes his own state as “the finest idea of ​​human civilization.”

Even US President Donald Trump, especially since his return to the White House, seems determined that the United States will join the club. “With God’s help,” Mr. Trump assured Congress last year, “we will forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilization that has ever existed on this Earth.” »

These leaders do not collaborate – at least not directly – to bring this order into existence. It might even appear by default. But one thing is certain: a global system run by countries that identify themselves as “civilization states” bears no resemblance to the vision outlined by Prime Minister Mark Carney in Davos earlier this year. By calling on middle powers to come together to build a fairer, values-driven multilateralism (vaguely defined), Mr. Carney accused the great powers of toying with the old system and ultimately killing it.

Yet the rise of civilizational discourse from Beijing to Delhi and from Moscow to Washington suggests that the post-Western world may be reorganized along lines that echo old patterns of domination and hierarchy. Mere “nation states” could be relegated to a second tier.

For leaders like Mr. Xi, Mr. Modi and Mr. Putin, civilizational discourse has become a political instrument to legitimize their power at home and their spheres of influence abroad.

Mr. Putin decided in 2012 formally classify Russia as a “civilization-state” composed of numerous ethnic groups united around traditional Russian and family values. He actively promotes various fictions, including the idea that Russian values ​​are somehow genetically predetermined. His war against Ukraine is supported by another myth: that his land must be “restored” because Russians and Ukrainians are one people, belonging to one spiritual space.

Mr Modi claims support from Hindu god Rama, historically known for his benevolence and virtue but recently renamed by his party. These days, Rama is a warrior who defends India against its enemies (read: Muslims) in service of Mr. Modi’s attempts to transform a wildly diverse, multi-faith society into a Hinduized civilizational state.

Mr. Xi frequently speaks of China’s “continuing civilization.” Notions of identity, history and destiny are integrated into what he calls the “need for reunification” with the “sacred territory of China” that is Taiwan.

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Civilization-state claims to authenticity are much broader than those of a nation-state. They rely on ancient and uncritical stories. Cultural Darwinism – the notion that attachment to a distinct civilizational identity and norms is inherent in the constitution of people and cannot be broken – runs through them. Just like the idea of ​​restoration: everyone has a distant past that must be redeemed by today’s leaders.

The influential British scholar Christopher Coker has linked the reinvention of China, Russia and India as civilization-states to a series of political, economic and social crises that shook the foundations of the West. He argues that its decline, both as a beacon to the world and as a guardian of the postwar order – a product of liberal (Western) norms and values ​​– has left a geopolitical vacuum. This would inevitably attract new forces.

It’s no secret that Mr. Trump’s administration doesn’t like Canada and Europe. Their alleged betrayal of Western civilization is just as irritating as their apparent clandestine escape from American military power. In their minds, the United States no longer leads the West or even speaks on its behalf; It is the West.

American uniqueness—reckless exceptionalism backed by overwhelming power—is not new. The American pivot is not moving away from Europe either. But the civilizational gloss is.

Mr. Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico last year follows other symbolic steps, such as the colossal, classically styled Victory Arch. foreseen near Arlington Cemetery, or its significant political changes, including breaking trade deals and threatening to leave NATO.

However erratic or idiosyncratic they may be, each is a nod to America’s distant past, namely an imagined version of the 18^th century of founding of the Republic: a new fiercely independent civilization of Greco-Roman heritage, where individuals of all (European) races were “melted into a new race of men”.

If this all sounds more like a cult of personality, that’s by design. The language of state-civilizations needs its emperors as much as empires.

More importantly, what binds the Trump administration to Beijing and other major powers is its rejection of universalism.

The great dream of Western writers was that human rights and the rule of law would be exported everywhere because they apply to everyone, without distinction of nationality, culture or location.

But the promotion of democracy has no place in a world of state-civilizations. In much of the world, this concept is now dismissed as a tool of Western hegemony, a fantasy that leads to disastrous wars.

This is also one of the essential truths of MAGA. Mr. Trump’s team has no interest in exporting values ​​or supporting a liberal order. In fact, they might actually share the same view as China: this new world would not only be less preachy, but also more peaceful. As long as others respect civilizational boundaries and do not interfere beyond their own, “harmony with coexistence” (as Mr. Xi often puts it) is possible.

The debacle of the war in Iran could reinforce this logic. Mr. Trump’s appetite for military adventurism soared after his success in Venezuela. After Iran, he could stick to his own backyard.

Yet a new order based on civilizational spheres of influence would still be intersected by hot spots ripe for war. States that claim to be sovereign representatives of the values ​​of their civilization are threatening by nature. They will go to war when they feel their credibility is at stake, even against their civilizational parents. Think of Russia’s war against Ukraine or the United States’ threats to forcibly retake Greenland from Denmark.

Disputes between state-civilizations over the norms and rules of the international system will likely be more acute in a world divided into spheres of influence. Conflict would no longer be constrained by laws or conventions of the type that, for all their shortcomings, still limited Cold War rivalries and helped keep nuclear weapons in their silos.

The good news is that the more inclusive and pragmatic multilateralism proposed by Mr. Carney is winning out in global forums. From Australia to Angola – where I recently attended a Europe-Africa dialogue peppered with optimistic references to his Davos speech – there is a growing consensus that whatever happens in the coming years, any new breed of hegemons will have to be resisted.

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In global trade, Mr. Carney has already demonstrated his clout among middle powers. He is leading diplomatic efforts to create new multi-regional trade agreements, thereby positioning Canada, according to a recent Brookings report on the future of multilateralism, as a “geographical and diplomatic bridge”. Time will tell whether middle powers like Canada can exert the same influence on the emerging security order.

The danger, as always, is complacency. Western institutions continue to weaken under the pressure of underfunding and loss of legitimacy. A fair and effective global framework will require new coalitions and unwavering commitment from middle powers to build it.

The alternative could be a revamped version of the old order, in which great-power claims to supremacy are rooted in imagined versions of the past.