The End of Western Hegemony

A few words from French President Emmanuel Macron. He delivered them in a speech to ambassadors a few weeks ago. They were picked up by a blogger called The Saker and reprinted in Zero Hedge. 

I will not comment on The Saker’s analysis, with which I find some points of agreement and disagreement, but I will quote his translation of one passage from Macron’s text. 

In it the French president explained that the era of Western hegemony is ending and that the future belongs to Russia, India and China. I find Macron’s analysis to be astute and on point. He is better at political analysis than at governing his unruly country. Perhaps he missed his calling.

Obviously, Macron wants to ensure that France has a leading role to play. Just as obviously, his remarks signal a lamentation about the loss of French influence in the world. But also a loss of Western European influence in the world.

I have often remarked on these points. So, I am happy to present Macron’s words, for your consideration:

The international order is being shaken in an unprecedented manner, above all with, if I may say so, by the great upheaval that is undoubtedly taking place for the first time in our history, in almost every field and with a profoundly historic magnitude. The first thing we observe is a major transformation, a geopolitical and strategic re-composition. We are undoubtedly experiencing the end of Western hegemony over the world. We were accustomed to an international order which, since the 18th century, rested on a Western hegemony, mostly French in the 18th century, by the inspiration of the Enlightenment; then mostly British in the 19th century thanks to the Industrial Revolution and, finally, mostly American in the 20th century thanks to the 2 great conflicts and the economic and political domination of this power. Things change. And they are now deeply shaken  which did not start with this administration, but which lead to revisiting certain implications in conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to rethinking a deep, diplomatic and military strategy, and sometimes elements of solidarity that we thought were intangible for eternity, even if we had constituted together in geopolitical moments that have changed. And then there is . I will come back to that. India that is emerging, these new economies that are also becoming powers not only economic but political and that think themselves, as some have written, as real “civilizational states” which now come not only to shake up our international order but who also come to weigh in on the economic order and to rethink the political order and the political imagination that goes with it, with much dynamism and much more inspiration than we have. Look at India, Russia and China. They have a much stronger political inspiration than Europeans today. They think about our planet with a true logic, a true philosophy, an imagination that we’ve lost a little bit.