INTERNATIONAL law is dead.
After Gaza, the shameless, brazen kidnapping of the sitting President of Venezuela by the United States further proves this beyond any reasonable doubt.
It is painfully naive to think that any amount of moral outrage or hand wringing will bring the old order back to life.
Malaysia, like every other country on earth, must throw off the chains of inertia, and adapt vigorously to the breakneck speed at which the international order is changing – or risk falling behind, and being relegated to some powerless vassal state or worse.
Moving forward, Malaysian foreign policy must be cognisant of two main things.
First, the old institutions and mechanisms of international law, trade, and order are all dead or dying; prepare to change the relevant mindsets completely.
Second, we are now reentering an era of classic geopolitics and what I call Proximate Imperialism, where geography will determine a great deal in the game of international affairs.
The kidnapping of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro violates the single most definitive feature of what used to be a functional international legal system: sovereignty.
No sovereignty, no international law.
And there is no more blatant violation of sovereignty, than to fly to a country, drop bombs on it, and kidnap its head of state.
The first text in my university’s introduction to international relations was the History of the Peloponnesian War, in which Thucydides writes: the strong do what they will, and the weak suffer what they must.
Those whose main response is to decry “This is not right! This is not how it should be!” will end up left behind, and suffer as Thucydides predicted.
Those who instead prioritise thinking: “How do I ensure I am among the strong, and not the weak” have a chance at survival.
This last week, American President Donald Trump withdrew the US from no less than 66 international organisations and treaties – signaling that America has zero interest in prolonging the post World War 2 rules-based order.
It is foolish for the rest of us to try desperately to cling on to these old ways. They are dead. Leave them behind, understand the shape of things to come, and learn how to best navigate those waters.
The next priority in determining Malaysia’s next phase of foreign policy can be summed up as understanding one thing: geography matters.
Trump has previously launched military air strikes in faraway Iran, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and Nigeria, with little to no boots on the ground.
But it is in nearby Venezuela that Trump decided to go further: kidnapping a sitting president, and immediately thereafter start brazenly talking about extracting Venezuela’s oil and resources for American profit.
In the aftermath of the kidnapping, Trump stepped up his aggressive rhetoric against a number of other countries, most of which (Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, Canada, and Greenland) all share one vital feature: their geographical proximity to the US.
This rhetoric invariably draws comparisons to the military designs of other major powers – most notably Russia in Ukraine, China in Taiwan, and to a lesser degree, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in Sudan and Yemen.
All these developments should be read as the rise of what I term Proximate Imperialism – an era where rich and militarily powerful countries begin to exert their influence primarily in neighbouring territories, with no regard for previous norms of sovereignty or international law.
Trump’s latest statement this week that the question of Taiwan was “up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping furthers the theory that each empire may be content with a system in which each empire dominates their respective backyards, practising some level of mutual non-interference.
The American military remains dominant, and can clearly launch small strikes with ease anywhere, anytime. But a prolonged military conflict with major growing military powers in any area outside the Americas is another matter entirely, especially after the lessons of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
The same logic applies to Russia and China. Both are perfectly willing to intervene militarily in their backyard, but neither have a history or tradition of long distance military adventurism.
As an aside, the spectre of nuclear weapons being launched from the middle of the ocean at any time remains an X-factor that can complicate many strategic calculations.
Any nation’s future fortunes will now be defined by how well they can adapt to this rapidly changing reality in the here and now. Whoever is too slow to let go of the past and understand the future, will be trampled on by those who were quick enough to react more quickly and more strategically.
Europe in particular seems particularly vulnerable, as they have been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Uncle Sam’s guaranteeing of international peace and stability, and show signs of having grown indolent and fat during their years of prosperity and peace.
It is tragicomic to see Europeans moaning that any invasion of Greenland would be the “end of Nato”. The smarter approach is to understand that Nato as once we knew it has effectively been dead for some time (perhaps from the moment Trump first mentioned his intentions about Greenland), and to be vigorously working on what should take its place.
Asean and Malaysia must not make the same mistake.
We in this region must – with cold, hard eyes – recognise not just what is going to change, but what has already changed, and be smart about how we are going to adapt.
In doing so, we must keep two further things in mind.
First: if it is indeed true that we have entered an era of Proximate Imperialism, then we must be extremely cognisant of the undeniable fact that geographically, we fall much more within the sphere of China than any other superpower.
This does not mean we need
to be subservient to China, or a vassal state to it.
It means that new battle lines are being drawn all over the globe; and while it is perfectly reasonable to maintain a policy of trying to be friends with everyone equally, we are very, very quickly reaching a stage where geopolitical imperatives may result in a world where some friends are going to be more equal than others.
The second can be summarised in the Malay phrase: bersatu teguh, bercerai roboh – united we stand, divided we fall.
No South-East Asian nation alone has any chance to be any kind of military deterrent against the world’s superpowers.
But if we are smart, diligent, and strategic enough to forge a strong enough alliance – in political, economic, and military terms – then Asean can be much, much more than a mousedeer on the stage of world politics, doomed to be trampled by battling elephants.
Indeed, the very survival of all small and medium powers around the globe may pivot on one factor, and one factor alone: the ability to put old differences aside, and build the right kind of strategic alliances to counterbalance a new era of imperialism.
Nathaniel Tan did his degree in Peace and Conflict Studies. He can be reached at n@post.harvard.edu. The views expressed here are solely the writer’s own.
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