World in Transition: Climate Change as a Security Risk - WBGU

peace missions, the People’s Republic is now playing
a far more important role than at the time of the
Cold War (Fravel, 1996; Medeiros and Fravel, 2003;
Berdal, 2003).
Unlike China, India has always been involved
in international organizations and has always seen
itself, in this context, as a mouthpiece for the developing
world, e.g. in international trade policy. In
2003, conscious of its own global political strength
and in line with its claim to represent the interests
of the developing countries, India joined forces with
two other newly industrializing countries, Brazil and
South Africa, to form a ‘trilateralist’ diplomatic partnership
and forge common positions for multilateral
negotiations and political processes on key global
issues (Alden, 2005). In order to expand its influence
on the world stage, India is also lobbying intensively
for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. In
sum, there are increasing signs on the subcontinent
that India is on the verge of becoming a great power
(Raja, 2006).
In parallel to their economic catch-up processes,
China and India have also expanded their military
capacities: in 2005, China and India accounted for
4 per cent and 2 per cent of global military spending
respectively (compared with 3 per cent for Germany).
This puts China and India among the ten
countries with the highest military budget (SIPRI,
2006). They are also nuclear powers, and India has
even become a geostrategic partner for the USA in
this context (Mitra, 2006; Wagner, 2006). By contrast,
the military modernization of the People’s Republic
is viewed with scepticism in the West (Cordesman
and Kleiber, 2007). Regardless of their security policy
motives, their growing military power flanks China’s
and India’s increasing engagement on the world
Box 4.3-1
Interpretations of the post-1990 world order
Mearsheimer (1990) focussed on the re-emergence of
conflicts between nation states after the collapse of the
bipolar regime of the Cold War. From his point of view,
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was the
most important challenge.
Fukuyama’s (1992) analysis of the ‘End of History’ perceived
a strong trend towards global democratization;
the major conflict line of his map of global politics is
the struggle between democratic and non-democratic
states.
Huntington (1993, 1996) postulated the ‘Clash of Civilizations’
between Western and other cultures as the central
line of conflict in the future.
Kaplan (1994) as well as Kennedy and Connelly (1994)
discussed the socio-economic asymmetries between ‘the
Unstable multipolarity: The political setting of global change 4.3
stage, underscoring these two countries’ regional and
global weight.
4.3.3
Global governance in the context of Chinese and
Indian ascendancy
The transformation of China and India into world
economic heavyweights is significantly changing the
conditions in the global competition for markets,
resources and pollution rights. In tandem with their
global political engagement, it is likely that this will
also lead to power shifts in the political world order
which in turn could have profound implications for
international relations.
In light of these developments, it is astonishing
that leading analysts of international politics
ignored the de facto increase in these two countries’
significance for so long (Humphrey and Messner,
2006a, c; Box 4.3-1). As late as 2004, Brzezinski, for
example, was still arguing that China was a developing
country which posed no real challenge to the USA,
while India featured only peripherally in his analysis
(Brzezinski, 2004). Nye (2002) also emphasizes that
China has a very long way to go before it can play a
genuinely global role. Katzenstein (2005) urged readers
to think of the world as regions which would be
strong but would nonetheless be organized by America’s
imperium. Other authors focussed intensively
on the future of transatlantic relations between the
USA and the EU, without considering whether China
and India could change the overall global panorama
(Daalder and Lindsay, 2003; Kupchan, 2003). Only
recently have leading analysts and think-tanks in the
British- and American-dominated debate begun to
West and the Rest’ as the challenge most likely to cause
conflicts.
In the global governance discourse, many authors have
analysed the effects of globalization on the nation states‘
capacities to act. They argue that without new forms of
multilateral cooperation, the major problems facing the
world will remain unresolved, causing turbulence in
international relations (Rosenau and Czempiel, 1992;
Messner, 1998; Young, 1999; Donahue and Nye, 2000;
Kennedy et al., 2002).
Robert Kagan (2002, 2003) predicted a lengthy period
of unilateral dominance by the USA, with transnational
terrorism being the major conflict in the coming decades.
Both Mearsheimer and Kagan put ‘security’ at the top of
their global political agenda, with the diffuse ‘ war on terror’
taking the place of classic confrontations between
nation states.
Source: WBGU, based on Humphrey and Messner, 2006b
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