31. Planning for the Next International

Planning for the Next International System
Two Policy Initiatives
Robert M. Cutler
Fellow, Institute of European and Russian Studies, Carleton University
Postal address: 4148A Ste-Catherine St West, Suite 416, Westmount, QC H3Z 0A2
Email: rmc@alum.mit.edu
Website: http://www.robertcutler.org
0. Introductory Remarks
1. Complexity Science and Its Relevance
1.1. What is Complexity Science?
1.2. Why Does It Matter?
1.2.1. The Level of Analysis
1.2.2. The Scope of Analysis
1.2.3. The Scale of Analysis
2. A Comparative International Systems Approach
2.1. Overview
2.2. Three International Orders since 1414
2.2.1. The Pre-Westphalian (Conciliar/Papal) Order
2.2.2. The Westphalian Order
2.2.3. The Post-Westphalian Order.
2.3. So What?

3. A "Dual Policy" for Canada
3.1. 1989 and 1991
3.1.1. The Significance of 1989
3.1.2. The Significance of 1991
3.2. 1989 + 1991 = ?
4. A Modest Proposal — and Then Another
4.1. The Promotion of International Parliamentary Institutions
4.2. The Promotion of "Cooperative Energy Security" and a EurAsian Oil and Gas
Association Animated by It
5. Conclusion
This draft was prepared for presentation to a meeting of the Multiple Centres of Power
Trend of the Trends Project (Victoria, B.C., May 1999), Policy Research Initiative, with the
support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. Readers are invited to
cite this paper, but please check with the author before using direct quotations.

This version dated April 15, 1999.

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 2 of 26

Planning for the Next International System:

Two Policy Initiatives
0. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
The transition from the Cold War international system to the post-Cold War
system is coming to an end, yet the outlines of what is to follow are not yet clear. Indeed,
the horizon of 2005 is only the year by which the post-Cold War transition will have most
likely been finished. The purpose of this paper is to frame two policy initiatives, drawing
on Canada's established strengths, that are narrow enough to be feasible and to have
definite application to current international problems yet broad enough not to foreclose
possibilities but rather to open them.
The first section of this paper briefly reviews the complexity of Canada's present
and near-term future international environment, and the significance of this. Here
"complexity" does not mean merely complicatedness, or that the number of "variables" to
be taken account of needs to be increased. Rather, it draws attention to the fact that today
the behaviour of whole systems, and certainly including the international system, cannot
be predicted from the behaviours of individual agents in it. The policy-relevant insight
here is that traditional "middle powers" such as Canada find their influence enhanced in
"complex systems", because they are better able to focus resources on emergent
phenomena of international politics that are likely to have system-wide significance as
they develop further.
The second section of this paper summarizes a longer and original historical

analysis of the evolution of international orders and international systems and
international orders since the fifteenth century. From this summary, definite patterns in
the continuity and change of systems of international relations become evident. These

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 3 of 26

patterns tell us the nature of the current (post-Cold War) international transition, which
will end by 2005. They tell us what kinds of worlds we might expect to find after 2005.
In fact, those patterns reveal two particular possibilities for the nature of the international
system of the early twenty-first century. Correspondingly, the two broad, research-based
initiatives developed in this paper are in line with Canada's need to develop effective
strategies to influence action on the global stage in the twenty-first century.
The third section of the paper synthesizes the most salient implications of the first
two sections as an introduction to those two broad policy initiatives. Of these, one
focuses on energy and sustainable development, the other democratization and global
civil society. Both these initiatives provide opportunities to promote Canada's national
interest and international priorities over both the near term and the longer term. Each of
these strategies targets one of the two broad trends of world-political development
foreseen for the period after 2005. Indeed, their pursuit between now and then will
influence the shaping of the world in which Canada will find itself after 2005, and further

into the twenty-first century.
The fourth section of the paper describes more fully the background to these two
initiatives and their significance. Restrictions on the length of this paper permit neither of
them to be developed in full detail. However, they both are solidly grounded in the
author's own research program and have been discussed elsewhere. The fifth section of
the paper is a brief conclusion.

1. COMPLEXITY SCIENCE AND ITS RELEVANCE
1.1. What is Complexity Science?
"Complexity science" is the study of complex systems. A complex system is a
system having multiple interacting components, of which the overall behaviour cannot be

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 4 of 26

inferred simply from the behaviour of components. It is a self-organizing network, like
the post-Cold War world, rather than a top-down hierarchy. The emergence of an
interconnected global civilization is a phenomenon manifesting such complexity. The
cross-fertilization and merging of academic specializations into ever newer and more
numerous interdisciplinary subfields is another. Complexity science spans scales from
particle fields to information mechanics (physical analysis of the dynamics of information

transmission) and adaptive systems (learning and consciousness, including neural
systems), to human society, ecosystems and extraterrestrial space. These all share the
rigorously demonstrable recognition that an understanding of the parts cannot lead to an
explanation of the overall behaviour. New methodologies and concepts of the nature of
reality have consequently emerged.
One of the basic challenges that the study of complex systems presents to
international relations theory is its insight that individual-level actions cannot account for
emergent phenomena on an aggregate level. However, "complexity" is not merely a new
implement to be added to an existing theoretical toolkit. "Complexity" is neither
complicatedness, overdetermination, nor a multiplication of explanatory variables.
"Complexity science" is a fundamentally new way of looking at physical, biological, and
social phenomena. It is a cross-disciplinary field with its own approach to knowledgecreation that includes a set of methodological approaches to problematization. As such, it
is well-suited to offer a distinct, innovative perspective on the evolution of the post-Cold
War international system, itself a self-organizing and complex process.

1.2. Why Does It Matter?
1.2.1. The Level of Analysis. First, there are issues about the level of analysis. These
draw attention principally to the category of emergence. Emergence is the evolution of

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 5 of 26

new (qualitative) phenomena through a system's interaction with the environment. The
ongoing reconstruction of the international system from the bottom up after the Cold
War, as well as the multiplication and incorporation of new issue areas in international
politics and security, all present issues about the level of analysis that are susceptible to
complex-science treatment. In international relations theory, the whole growth of
questions about deterritorialized aspects of international politics manifests an emergent
quality in this sense, adding problems of boundary-definition in issue-area space to those
in geopolitical space. As to the latter, international regions are not today what they used
to be; and they enjoy an increased relative autonomy of great power conflict, in
comparison with the Cold War system.
Of course, distinctions among superpowers, great powers, and regional powers
have not disappeared. However, middle-range and lower-level phenomena have become
the predominant motive forces in an international system that now self-organizes from
bottom up. The level of analysis also motivates questions about the use of inference to
obtain description and analysis from small amounts of information. This issue highlights
the significance of how we think (or fail to think) about thinking. It raises such issues as
the relationship between descriptions and systems, and the connection between theory
and simulations. Even the everyday use of counterfactual reasoning, often used in
evaluating policy alternatives, is brought thus under scrutiny.

1.2.2. The Scope of Analysis. Second, there are issues of the scope of the analysis. These
draw attention principally to the dual category of stability-and-change, which subsumes
adaptation, pattern formation, and evolution. International transitions are not black
boxes out of which wholly new international systems emerge. Rather, they are periods
during which relatively recent trends, newly in evidence, accelerate their development

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 6 of 26

and come more quickly to fruition. These new trends do not yet serve as the basic
organizational principles, but during the transition they come to replace the primacy of
the preceding system's organizing principles. The latter need not disappear entirely; but
if they endure, they become secondary to the new principles.
Norms (international orders) define what realities are permissible. Within those
constraints, structures (international systems) determine which realities are possible.
International transitions may also be transition points of structural and/or normative
transformations from one international order to another. Norms, being socially
constructed, evolve out of human society. At times they may be in opposition to and
exacerbate tensions within any given system. (The anti-slavery movement is a
nineteenth-century North American example.) If the system is unable to restructure itself
so as to conserve the same normative basis as previously present, then there occurs a

transition a new political order undergirded by new normative principles that have
emerged from the underlying evolution of society. Just as this is true on the level of
domestic society, so it is true also on the level of international society.
A complexity-based focus on stability and change establishes that that are
multiple stable states (i.e., not just "Nash equilibria") as well as meta-stable states. If and
when a single component of a system controls its collective behaviour (which is distinct
from the individual behaviours of its components), then the collective behaviour cannot
be more complex than the individual behaviour. The superpower nuclear bipolarity of
the Cold War is an example showing how a dominant component of a system can restrain
its collective behaviour. In such an instance, there is no emergent complexity. Yet new
complex systems may be formed from the recombination of parts or aspects of other
complex systems, and such composites permit rapid evolution. These insights arise from

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 7 of 26

complex-system studies in diverse fields. A moment's reflection on the evolving political
configurations in the former Soviet space, or in the Balkans, reveals their intuitive
relevance for understanding international affairs today.
1.2.3. The Scale of Analysis . Third, there are issues of the scale of analysis. Fine scales
of influence large-scale behaviour. To understand complex systems therefore requires

multi-scale descriptions. Yet the degree of complexity that is apparent, also depends on
the scale at which the system is described. For example, a requirement of complexity on a
large scale is to establish correlations on a small scale, which in turn reduce the overall
(though not necessarily everywhere local) smaller-scale complexity. A complexity-theory
concept that we may call "mesolevel" structuration cuts through the "structure-vs.-agent"
knot. The transformation and succession of international orders is triggered by properties
emergent from (re)structuration on the mesolevel. It is the mediation between the
normative content and the structural content of an international system. Self-organizing
international regions, manifesting as emergent multilateral networks, are the categorical
phenomenon characterizing the present international transition. These include not only
continental regional international subsystems (e.g., Europe and Southeast Asia), but also
littoral regional international subsystems (e.g., Pacific Rim, Baltic, and Caspian).
Self-organization at the mesolevel is an emergent quality of the complex system.
The new territorial aspects of contemporary world politics thereby lead to the concept of
self-organized criticality, which invites consideration of the global political system and its
components as complex adaptive systems. This means that those systems are capable of
learning and of pro-active behaviour that shapes their own environment. This character
of the current international transition manifests as the redefinition of security and the
problematization of nontraditional issue areas of international public policy in security

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 8 of 26

terms (e.g., environmental security, human security). In a self-organizing complex
system such as the present-day international system, the task of policy analysis is to
identify crucial intermediate points where cognitive and organizational intervention will
instantiate large-scale restructuring of the system itself. The two strategic policy
initiatives introduced below are in line with this desideratum.

2. A COMPARATIVE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS APPROACH
2.1. Overview
The history of international relations is composed of a succession of international
orders. Each such order comprises a succession of international systems. The systems
composing an order are all based upon the same norms, but they may manifest different
structural configurations. The last international system of one international order is also
the first international system of the next international order. The pre-Westphalian order
was not integrated system-wide. The Westphalian order is characterized by the "classic"
balance of power: the existence of a potentially or actually hegemonic Power, against the
hegemony of which all other powers mainly allied. The principal character of the
Westphalian order thus defined is therefore the tension between unipolarity and
multipolarity, and moreover the frequent shifting of alliances depending upon the

exigencies of the moment. The character and periodization of the post-Westphalian
order is moot and discussed below.
A single comprehensive state system of international relations did not emerge in
Europe until 1713, when the Treaty of Utrecht established a unified structure of
international relations that compassed both the predominantly northeastern European
system (Sweden, Russia, etc.) and the predominantly southwestern European system
(France, Spain, etc.). The entire period from 1648 to 1713 thus emerges as an international

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 9 of 26

system that is transitional between two international orders that overlap in time: the preWestphalian one reaching from the Council of Constance (1414-1418) to the Treaty of
Utrecht (1713), the other itself beginning with the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). From this
perspective, the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) is at least as significant for understanding the
Westphalian order as Treaty of Westphalia. (As noted, the first Westphalian system, from
1648 to 1713, is also the last Conciliar/Papal, or pre-Westphalian, system.) The reason for
this is that, although the latter established a set of norms on state sovereignty, it was the
former that established a structurally unified international system in Europe.

2.2. Three International Orders since 1414
2.2.1. The Pre-Westphalian (Conciliar/Papal) Order. The fifteenth century does not offer
the neat chronological demarcations of international systems that later centuries do,
because states had not yet monopolized diplomatic practice. However, it is possible to
isolate a relatively short period that was crucial for the formation of the future
international order because the basic steps towards state-formation and stateconsolidation occurred during it. The Conciliar/Papal order emerged from the early
fifteenth-century Council of Constance. It refers to the opposition between the Conciliar
movement and the Papacy. The Conciliar/Papal opposition set the context for the
Reformation, which carried on the shift in the international system away from the Papist
universalism in a manner that the Conciliar movement did not imagine. Nevertheless,
the Conciliar movement and the Reformation had in common the anti-Papal orientation
which dominated international politics in Europe from the Middle Ages up through the
Thirty Years' War.
The second half of the fifteenth century represents the period when the state truly
came "of age." A series of events occurred at that time which, taken together, do establish

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 10 of 26

the late-fifteenth century, and not the mid-seventeenth century, as the time of genesis of
the state system of international relations: although not even in 1648 was there a single
comprehensive European state system where the behaviour of one state inevitably and
necessarily held implications for the interests of others. The year 1460 may be chosen,
somewhat arbitrarily, as a starting point for the first international system within the preWestphalian order. It is a convenient marker of a number of signal events: the Franks'
victory in 1453 at Castillon, which inaugurated a new phase in the development and
consolidation of the French state; 1459, the beginning of the flowering of the Ottoman
Empire in Europe with the incorporation of Serbia; 1462, the rise to power of Ivan III The
Great, who destroyed the Republic of Novgorod and disengaged Moscow from the
sovereignty of the Golden Horde, thus unifying the Muscovite principality into a national
state; and 1469, the year of the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, unifying Aragon with
the Spanish monarchy and so marking a qualitative state of development of the Spanish
state. Also notable is the decade of the 1480s, which saw: the onset of the collapse of the
Italian state system when Charles VIII of France claimed the Kingdom of Naples as an
Anjou inheritance, confirmed by the conquest of Naples in 1494; the establishment of the
monarchy of the House of Tudor, 1485; the onset of the decay of the Greater Slavonic
Empire with the establishment of the Swabian League in German, 1488; and the
conclusion of inheritance and marriage contracts laying the foundation of Habsburg
power, also circa 1488.
The Treaty of Westphalia effectively ended the Counter-Reformation. Although
the norms to which we usually refer as "Westphalian" were codified in 1648, there was no
structurally unified state "system" even at that time. Rather, there were various
geographically delimited systems, each pursuing its own dynamic in response to the

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 11 of 26

interests and behaviour of more or less local powers, but without reference to
geographically more distant states in other regions which participated in separate
systems. Moreover, that Treaty of Westphalia only codified changes in international law
and practice that had been evolving for some time before.
2.2.2. The Westphalian Order. The Westphalian order comprises three international
systems and transitions. The first Westphalian system after Utrecht lasted until the launch of
the democratic wars by the French Revolution in the early 1790s. Collaboration was most
evident through the Holy Alliance, implemented through family relations, economic ties,
and a common domination of the ideological discourse. (It is convenient to date the end
of this system at 1794, the year of Robespierre's fall.) This was basically a unipolar,
Franco-centric system. The successor system took shape only with the definitive defeat of
Napoleon and the convocation of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The transitional period
from 1794 to 1815 was characterized by coordination through the institutionalization of
common norms of self-preservation in the Powers. Their numerous alliances against
Napoleon were thus transformed afterwards.
The second Westphalian system, the Concert of Europe, lasted from 1815 until the mid1850s. It broke up over the Crimean War, and specifically over the British decision to
back Turkey against Russia. The resulting decline and chaos were resolved only with the
unification of the German states, beginning in 1866. The second transition thus lasted
from the mid-1850s until the mid- to late 1860s when it saw the emergence of the German
State which would dominate the subsequent system.
The third Westphalian system stretched from the late 1860s to the First World War. It
oscillated between unipolarity and multipolarity, finally breaking down into bipolarity
after a mini-transition lasting from 1890 to 1894. This mini-transition separates what we

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 12 of 26

may call the "Bismarckian" from the "post-Bismarckian" moment within this single
international system. The coordinative aspects of the Bismarckian moment of this system
(from the late 1860s to 1890) repose in the policies of reversals of alliances in the search
for the resolution of the security dilemma. The collaborative aspects of the "Bismarckian
moment" are to be found in the collaboration between the industrialists (and, variously,
sometimes the aristocracy) plus the military within each state; and in the collaboration, at
least implicit, among states at the level of their military apparatuses and the headquarters
of these.
The second (post-Bismarckian) moment lasts from 1894 until 1914. The
coordinative aspects of the post-Bismarckian moment of this, the third, Westphalian
system are represented by collective security. These carried over after the end of the
World War One, to animate the concert of the Powers victorious in the First World War as
against the vanquished, in the League of Nations. The collaborative aspects of the postBismarckian moment of the third Westphalian system (and its subsequent transition) are
those of the Holy Alliance under another guise. After the First World War, this carried
over to a coalition of industrialized republics to the exclusion of Germany (and the Soviet
Union).
2.2.3. The Post-Westphalian Order. The breakdown of the Westphalian order into
bipolarity in the two decades preceding the First World War prefigured the bipolarity of
the Twentieth Century order on a new normative basis, which began in the early 1920s,
marked notably by the beginning of the end of the British Empire through the London
Conference of 1925. What is at present still unclear is whether the current international
transition is indeed introducing a new international order, characterized by a tension
between unipolarity and multipolarity over time across its constituent systems, yet

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 13 of 26

distinguished from previous international orders by new normative bases; or introducing
just another mainly bipolar international system with the same normative basis as all
other international systems of the twentieth century, turning the international order of
the Short Twentieth Century (1925–1991) into a Long Twentieth Century (1925–ca. 2040).
Some have argued, for example, that the United States seems to be adapting
newly proposed international norms (e.g., "the law of humanitarian intervention in civil
conflict") to its own particular influence-projection interests. Chechnya and Tatarstan in
Russia, and Tibet and Uighuristan (Xinjiang) in China, explain on a normative basis why
Russia and China oppose this influence-projection. The struggle for power on the global
stage aside, they oppose it also out of domestic political-control considerations. We
would then the interesting development, at first glance paradoxical, of the status quo
power of a new bipolar system — the U.S. — becoming the innovator of norms for some
subsequent international order further in the future.
It is at present unclear is whether the present international transition, which began
in 1989/1991, marked the end of a Short Twentieth Century international order or the
transition to another international system within a Long Twentieth Century international
order that began in the 1920s. The first international system of the (post-Westphalian)
Twentieth Century order – whether Long or Short – is the Interwar System from the early 1920s
to 1941. The coordinative aspects of the system are represented in the military coalition
against the Axis powers. The collaborative aspects emerge in the creation of the U.N. on
the basis of the League of Nations, plus an ideological collaboration on two sides. The
second international system of the Twentieth Century order is, like the last international
system of the Westphalian order, divided into two moments. The years from 1946/47 to
1973/74 represent the Tight Bipolar moment of the Cold War system. The biennium

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 14 of 26

1973/74 is significant because it marks the oil embargo that irrevocably changed post1945 international politics and economics.
Thus the years 1974/75 through 1979/80 mark a mini-transition between the two
moments of the Cold War system. The significance of these few years is that they mark
the decline and fall of Soviet-American détente, from Angola to Afghanistan. The minitransition and the years following up to the abolition of the USSR in 1991, then may
represent either a "moment" of Multilateral Interdependence in the Cold War System,
characterized by a tension between unipolarity and an incipient multipolarity, and
transitional to a new international order; or a Loose Bipolar moment of the Cold War
System not fundamentally catalyzing a change in the latter's bipolar nature.

2.3. So What?
So what about the Emerging International Order? Regularities are evident from
the foregoing analytical review of the succession of international orders and international
systems within those orders. The first Westphalian system lasted 81 years and was
followed by a transition of 21 years. The second Westphalian system lasted 39 years and
was followed by a transition of 12 years. The third Westphalian system lasted about 48
years, divided into two moments of equal length by an interim mini-transition of four
years, and was followed by a transition of 11 years. The first Twentieth Century system
lasted 16 years and was followed by a transition of five years. The second Twentieth
Century system lasted 45 years, divided into two moments of unequal length by an
interim mini-transition lasting four years. The regularities are that the length of an
international transition in years is roughly one-quarter the length of the international
system it succeeds, and that the last international system of each international order is

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 15 of 26

split into two "moments" (by an interim mini-transition also about one-quarter the length
of the first moment).
Of those two "moments," the second contains the seeds of the normative essence
of the succeeding international order. On this basis, it is possible to conclude that the
present international transition, which started in 1991, will end during the first half of the
first decade of the twenty-first century, and give way to an international order founded
upon new normative bases. By such reasoning, the Emerging International Order's first
international system will be characterized by a tension between multipolarity and
unipolarity. However, it is also possible that the bipolar structure of the Cold War system
will be maintaned, with at least one of the poles being an emerging international actor not
currently evident on the world stage. The consensus of a wide variety of "long-cycle" and
"world-systems" research in political science, all with different assumptions, that a
system-wide struggle over the structure of the international system will occur — whether
peaceful or not — around 2030–2050, supports this analysis.

3. A "DUAL POLICY" FOR CANADA
3.1. 1989 and 1991
It is necessary to recall that 1989 (meaning the disintegration of the Soviet bloc in
East Central Europe) and 1991 (meaning the abolition of the Soviet Union) are separate
events not necessarily forming a single analytical continuum. Indeed, they provide
mutually distinct interpretations of the nature of the current international transition. The
year 1989 marks the current international transition as a transition to a normatively new
international order, under which there will likely be a succession of international systems
animated by the tension between unipolarity and multipolarity. The year 1991, on the

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 16 of 26

other hand, marks the current transition as a transition to another bipolar system with the
Long Twentieth Century international order. These points deserve to be developed.
3.1.1. The Significance of 1989. The year 1989 may mark the end of bipolarity. This
bipolarity was not European in its origin but only in its manifestation. It had been
projected from Europe into the developing world as a result of the ideological and greatpower confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Europe was only one of the
theatres of that confrontation. The confrontation was in the first instance ideological; as
Tocqueville pointed out, the United States and Russia have no fundamental geopolitical
issues on which they need conflict. Once the ideological conflict began to disappear —
even before 1989 with the doctrinal innovations introduced by Gorbachev — the
bipolarity that had been the founding structure of the Cold War began to evaporate.
From this perspective, we have today a unipolar (U.S.-centred) transition to a
multipolar system that resolves into a bipolar conflict between blocs, just as the transition
initiated by Bismarck in 1866 led to the system that ended in 1914. The unification of
Germany under Bismarck on the European level then appears as a nineteenth-century
European analogue to the contemporary unification of Europe under NATO/EU on the
global level. Following Bismarck's passage from the scene in 1890, the international
structure reverted to the structure of the Holy Alliance in the form of the Three Emperors'
League. In same fashion, we have now a reversion to NATO in the form of enlargedNATO-plus-PFP, and where the former East European members of the Warsaw Treaty
Organization are nearly all either now members (or set to be members) of NATO, or
becoming NATO protectorates (Albania and the successors to Yugoslavia). One could
even suggest the possibility, that just as the superstructure of the Holy Alliance was an

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 17 of 26

ineffectual Quadruple Alliance, so the superstructure to the new NATO/EU is an
ineffectual OSCE.
According to such reasoning, which current international transition is a transition
to a new international order. If it is the case, then following the historical logic, this order
should be characterized by a succession of international systems animated by the tension
between unipolarity and multipolarity: and if that is the case, then the Power of unipolar
character is of course the United States, manifesting as the NATO bloc on a global geostrategic level.
3.1.2. The Significance of 1991. If the preceding logic is so straightforward and
convincing, then what suggests that the current international transition is not to a new
international order but rather to another bipolar international system? Let us recall the
actual history. The Soviet Union did not disintegrate; it was abolished by Yeltsin and
two friends. The result was to create new actors immediately in the international system,
rather than to allow the natural disintegration of the Soviet Union. The Baltics would
have left in a year or three; Ukraine within about five; Moldova and Belarus perhaps
later, or not at all; Central Asia would have stayed; and the Caucasus would also have
gone, probably sooner rather than later. The resulting configuration would not have been
what we have now, although the case could be made that such a configuration is now
emerging: except for the ambiguous situation of Central and Southwest Asia.
The sense in which a new bipolarity comes from 1991, arises from the
contemporary turning of Russian public opinion against the West, and of its political
elites towards Asia. Indeed after losing Crimea in the mid-nineteenth century, Russia
turned its attention to Poland, the Pacific coast (now meaning and including China as
well as Japan) plus south and southwest Asia, and the Balkans. That is the same pattern

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 18 of 26

as today, with Poland being replaced by Poland/Lithuania/Baltics. The orientations are
regionalized but the patterns are the same. This reversion to an old pattern creates the
basis for continued bipolarity in Europe, providing a foothold on the Continent for a
geopolitical pole opposing Euro-Atlantic community on the global scale. Several
different "world-systems" and "long-cycle" schools of analysis in international studies all
project, and all for different reasons (making the prediction more credible) a struggle for
hegemony and global-level realignment to take place roughly around 2030–2050. The
present paper reveals that over the last half-millennium, the geometric mean of the
lifetime of any international system is 40 years, and that the length of the international
transition following the death of any international system is about one-quarter the length
of that system's lifetime. This finding complements those projections.
What none of those projections suggests, is who the contending parties will be.
However, let us try to guess. It is possible, without endorsing Huntington's "clash of
civilizations" thesis, to uphold the idea that one geopolitical (or geocultural) bloc now
consolidating itself is clearly Euro-Atlantic. Recall that the Concert of Europe hid an
ideological (normative) opposition that later animated, without determining in all its
details, the principal structural basis for the geopolitical bipolarization that led to the First
World War. If a like pattern is followed today, then the contemporary postmodernization
of the Enlightenment will be the basis for a system-wide ideological bipolarization that
will in turn, after the middle of the twenty-first century, represent the relegation of the
multipolarity, that we now see emerging, to a secondary characteristic. The strongest
candidate at present to play the role of counterweight to the West in geopolitical terms is
an Asian bloc offering an "Asian model" of political and economnic development, likely
including greater limits upon the realization of the Universal Declaration of Human

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 19 of 26

Rights than are evident in the West. This "Asian model" may but need not have an
Islamic cultural-normative component.
If the major blocs in the twenty-first century will be geo-cultural, then the
centrality of Central and Southwest Asia becomes evident. The profile of Iran is also
heightened: the country is more numerous, more educated, and historically more
Western(ized) than Iraq. India and even Pakistan (or at least fractions of their political
classes) are showing incipient signs of solidarizing with Russia and China on certain
global issues. Uzbekistan emerges as a potential will be a flashpoint in the early 21st
century, probably around 2020–2025, principally for demographic reasons but also by
reason of its proximity to Iran and the delicate issue of Islamic influence on politics
(which does not have to mean "fundamentalism"). This may be the spark that leads to the
more general realignment projected for 2030–2050, which this work would place around
2040 and estimate a duration of 10 years.
Such an emergent mesolevel Asiatic geocultural unification could be the catalyst
for a system-wide restructuring in the middle of the twenty-first century, reducing into a
more bipolar framework the now-emerging multipolarity. In fact, this unification need
not even be political like Bismarck's of Germany; it may be transnational and social. Will
Central (and Southwest) Asia lean to the "East" or to the "West"? Its geo-cultural
unification will follow oil and gas development, which will occur in the long run if not in
the short run: indeed, if it does not occur soon enough, then the demographically
explosive pressures in the region will become only more powerful in the resulting
conditions of mass pauperization. Thus Central and Southwest Asia together represent a
potentially emergent entity, where cultural evolution may later influence the normative
bases of any future international order and play a critical role in determining the

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 20 of 26

identities of the actors (including alliances and coalitions) in any future international
system.

3.2. 1989 + 1991 = ?
It becomes likely, albeit superficially paradoxical, that both the 1989-based and the
1991-based interpretations are valid. It is certainly valid to hold them both in (at least the
back of the) mind, in creative tension, as one seeks to suggest policy policy initiatives for
the very near term. From the perspective of 1999, it is likely that both those patterns will
characterize the system of international (and transnational) relations that Canada will
inhabit in the twenty-first century. As pointed out in the beginning of this paper,
complexity science dictates the need for multi-scale analysis. It offers the insight that
both interpretations are probably valid in this sense, that the realities they represent both
interact and intersect at multiple levels. That is the nature of complex systems.
This is so, not only because of co-existent multiple realities, arising from multiple
points of view, animated by multiple centres of power. It is so, also because the crossfertilization of technical and specialized issues in world politics — the self-creation of a
knowledge-based world society — increases the relevance of soft power, enhances the
significance of multilateralism, and mandates the growth of ties by states with nonstate
actors. This insight is present at the very origin of the Multiple Centres of Power Trend,
which recognized that global interdependence promotes forces of both integration and
fragmentation.
Innovative approaches to global governance are necessary. Creative policy
orientations are needed now that address the changing dynamics of inter-state
collaboration, the changing role of international organizations and the development of
new types of regimes. In a self-organizing complex system such as the present-day

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 21 of 26

international system, the task of policy analysis is to identify crucial intermediate points
where cognitive and organizational intervention will instantiate large-scale restructuring
of the system itself.
In fact, I have developed two concrete policy proposals — one published and the
other coming to fruition — that each address one of the two worlds just described: the
world of the 1989-based interpretation, which projects a future of unipolarity vs.
multipolarity; and that of the 1991-based interpretation, which foresees a new world of
bipolarity all over again, but different this time. Both proposals are also strategies in the
sense that they look beyond 2005 and are capable of auto-generating specifically-targeted
instrumentalities and contextual goals as the horizon of 2005 moves closer and eventually
into the past.

4. A MODEST PROPOSAL — AND THEN ANOTHER
4.1. The Promotion of International Parliamentary Institutions
The first strategic policy initiative is to enhance the role of international
parliamentary institutions (IPIs) in world politics. The EP, which has decisively affected
important choices by the European Union along its road of development, is only the best
known and most evident example of this phenomenon. The Maastricht Treaty itself
developed out of a series of proposals presented to the EP by a caucus of its Members in
1984. The EP has also been the driving force behind the EU's concerns with
environmental issues and the democratic deficit.
Yet the actual significance of IPIs is wide-ranging and growing globally. The two
most fundamental trends in the organization of international affairs today –
democratization and transnationalization – intersect in IPIs. Across Europe, the Baltic
Assembly, the Central European Initiative (the former Hexagonale/Pentagonale), and the

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 22 of 26

Organization for Black Sea Economic Cooperation all have inter-parliamentary forums
that provide for cooperation at the legislative level on a regular and institutionalized
basis. Further initiatives to establish and promote such formations are under way for
some time in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where such IPIs as the Union of African
Parliaments, the ASEAN Inter-parliamentary Organization, and the Central American
Parliament have already existed for some time. In all, there are nearly two dozen such
institutions today, nearly half of which have been formed in the last decade.
For this initiative, Canada disposes of the ideal instrument, the Ottawa-based
Parliamentary Centre, which maintains conduct with parliaments throughout the world,
has a strong out-reach component, and holds regular consultation and
training/development sessions in the field. This would fill a strategic gap, for there is
nowhere in the international community today where nascent IPIs can turn for assistance
and help with institutional development. The Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU) does not
play this role and does not plan to. Its human and financial resources are overstretched,
dealing with national parliaments and organizing its regular conferences for them. The
IPU also took the strategic decision earlier this decade not to seek to be such a global
assembly but rather to sign cooperation agreements with the various specialized U.N.
agencies. Both the EP and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have,
each for its own idiosyncratic reasons, chosen not to extend cooperation with IPIs as a
whole.
IPIs have given birth to a new form of diplomacy called "parliamentary
diplomacy." This represents today, from both an analytical and a practical standpoint, an
important middle ground between the traditional level of interstate diplomacy and the
new level of transnational cooperation among grass-roots nongovernmental

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 23 of 26

organizations. IPIs are developing in practice into an important societal oversight
mechanism on traditional executive-based diplomacy. They introduce national elites to
ranges of views and perspectives, particularly from democratic oppositions in other
regimes that are not yet fully democratized. IPIs also establish ongoing transnational
relationships that restrain old power-politics patterns where the "civil society" sector and
nongovernmental organizations are underdeveloped, politically constrained, and
resource-poor. In such a manner they prepare a middle ground for interstate
cooperation.
The Parliamentary Centre is perfectly placed to assist in the institutional
development of IPIs and the training of its members, who can also bring their experience
back to their national parliament when they are members of it. IPIs already have a good
track record as a forum for INGO consultation. The transformation of the initiative for a
People's Millennium Assembly into a one-shot general-purpose INGO Conference
illustrates only part of the practical difficulty of creating a single assembly to represent
global civil society within the U.N. system. Yet it is necessary to enhance the
participation of INGOs, as representatives of global civil society, in global governance. It
has even been suggested that in the more distant future, IPIs provide a potential means to
broader regional participation in an organizationally reformed United Nations. This
development would be in line with a recent recommendation by the Academic Council of
the United Nations.

4.2. The Promotion of "Cooperative Energy Security" and a EurAsian Oil and Gas
Association Animated by It
My article in press in the journal Global Governance (April–June 1999) rigorously
develops the concept of "cooperative energy security" as an empirical category of analysis

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 24 of 26

having normative policy-relevant content. This concept progressively develops recent
research into the sources of effective international environmental protection, and it
provides an entry-point for motivating the integration of the international environmental
agenda with the international energy agenda. I concretize the concept through the
proposal of an international public policy initiative to establish a EurAsian Oil and Gas
Association (EAOGA).
Analysis set out in that article establishes that the international energy consortia
need help and know it, states in the region need more information and better evaluation
of it, and that human resources must be better integrated into the policy process, follows
from the problem that intragovernmental politics do not always help. These are
problems to which the solution, embodied in the concept of cooperative energy security,
integrates all of the "three Cs" identified as "paths to effectiveness" that international
environmental institutions may promote: an increase in governmental concern, the
enhancement of that contractual environment, and the building of national capacity.
Recall that the projections of possible future international systems identified
Central and Southwest Asia as a crucible of future change. This meta-region centred on
the Black and Caspian sea littorals becomes, in Mackinder's language, akin to a
shatterbelt. "Southwest Asia" is still a useful geographical rubric; but the region was
never a cultural, economic, or political unity; the term can be only descriptive and not
analytical. Nevertheless, a general entente is emerging among the "Northern Tier," itself
also a geopolitical concept inherited from Western strategy during the Cold War. The
new "Northern Tier" extends from Turkey in a crescent east-northeast through
Kazakhstan. It is surviving the disintegration of the Soviet Union even though it is based

Robert M. Cutler , "Planning for the Next International System," p. 25 of 26

upon an artefact of the West's Cold War strategy, because many of its members have
decided to maintain and extend it in their own interests.
Reflecting the nature of the new post-Cold War world, EAOGA – to be inspired by
the Energy Charter Treaty –need not be a traditional supranational organization. Yet as
proposed, it would be the missing catalyst to establish the rules of the game, create the
general framework necessary for cooperation, coordinate crisis management, define
criteria for the various sides' behaviour, and provide stable expectations for routine
commercial and political transactions.
Embodying the concept of "cooperative energy security," an institution such as
EAOGA can motivate a synergistic and pragmatic rapprochement of the international
energy agenda with the international environmental agenda. Indeed, the global
community cannot deal with these issues ad hoc. An international, transnational, and
multinational coalition having a strategic multi-faceted perspective seems necessary.
Such a dedicated association of governmental, nongovernmental, and intergovernmental
organizations would rally all levels of international society in order to safeguard
cooperatively their own economic security in respect of energy projects.

5. CONCLUSION
Both suggested initiatives address the emerging global civil society. It is in
Canada's interest to be on the cutting-edge of this movement, for the tendency will only
become accentuated. Despite the new world of the twenty-first century, Canada remains
better-placed than other, "newly arrived" middle powers, to act in these areas. That is so,
owing to Canada's bette