The return of History and the end of dreams

Résumé du document

In the early 1990s, Fukuyama predicted the End of History. One is witnessing a shift in geopolitics, moving from a unipolar world to a multipolar one, or even bipolar according to Chinese scholars like Jin Carong, special advisor in foreign policy for the Government . As Kagan wrote in his book, it is 'the return of history and the end of dreams.' Nation States are once again the main actors on the world stage and it appears international organizations or even the US will not regulate international relations as it was once believed. China is 'the' up and coming superpower and has no intention to remain regarded as a nice regional power by the US, limited to the policy of the Asian zone.

Extraits

[...] On the other hand, realistic means ‘practical' or ‘implementable' in the sense we really understand World Politics like Is this division the mere consequence of Kagan's thoughts and ideologies related to his political beliefs or is it a realistic and real phenomenon? The first part of this paper will focus on the realist aspect of this theory. To what extent is this theory the result of Kagan's beliefs? How ideologically tainted and thus biased is this thesis? Secondly, we will determine how realistic these ideas are. [...]

[...] How realist is Kagan's thesis? Robert Kagan graduated from Yale and Harvard University. He then earned a PhD from American University. Kagan only served Republican Administration, like between 1984 and 1986 when he worked at the State Department Policy Planning Staff as a speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz. In 1997, he founded, with another neo-conservative William Krystol, the Project for a new American Century to “promote global leadership”, supposedly good for the rest of the world. More important, he was a foreign policy advisor to John McCain, the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 campaign. [...]

[...] Two questions must be answered: Does Kagan's description of today's main rulers on the world stage fit with reality? If we agree on the facts, what about the distinctions he draws fails to draw- from the dichotomy democracy/autocracy? Kagan starts his book with a brief analysis of every major emerging country: Russia, China, Japan, India, Iran. At the end, he analyses the United States. Even though the author seems to set up the right diagnosis for most of those countries, especially China and India, Kagan seems to over-exaggerate the Russian expansion. [...]

[...] Another issue is the status of Afghanistan and Iraq. Both countries were fully recognized autocracies before the US overthrew the Talibans and Saddam Hussein. Since the US, both countries cannot be regarded as autocracies anymore but are they yet democracies? They appear more as a hybrid regime, on the fault-line and thus in neither category. Indeed, in these special cases, a freshly elected government tries to restore its legitimacy in its territory while receiving help and orders from Washington and NATO. [...]

[...] The return of History and the end of dreams Early nineties, Fukuyama predicted the End of History. The United States had won the Cold War, no one could compete, the USSR had fallen apart, the European Union was dealing with freshly established eastern democracies and China was still recovering from its Cultural Revolution. Hubert Vedrine reflected the opinion of many scholars and political leaders: the US was a “hyperpower”, cause first and then consequence of this World Order”. Since then, the world has evolved and gone on. [...]