The 21st century’s Gramsci problem

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”

That quote, attributed to the Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, not only captures the essence of its author’s own rapidly transforming mid-20th century world; it also tells us a great deal about our own just as rapidly transforming early 21st century international system.

To wit, that the post-Cold War international system constructed by the victorious United States is in its death throes, that its successor has not yet fully materialized and that we now inhabit a world populated by strange new types of states that bear the imprint of both the dying old world and the new one aborning.

That the post-Cold War international order – one defined by American-dominated unipolarity, globalization, neoliberalism and the seeming permanence of the so-called liberal international order – is in its death throes now seems beyond question. The rise of China, deglobalization, regionalization and the terminal decline of the recently re-branded “rules-based international order” have effectively consigned that order to the dustbin of history.

Nor can there be much doubt that a new one is struggling to be born. Multipolarity, great power competition, spheres of influence and other novel features, while not yet fully formed, are beginning to emerge out of the wreckage of the old order. And while the final form of the new international order has yet to be determined, there can be little doubt that, whatever the details, this new order will be very different from the one we inhabited during the heyday of what Charles Krauthammer famously dubbed “the unipolar moment.”

And that brings us to the monsters.

By monsters, of course, I do not simply mean imaginary creatures that are large, ugly and frightening — the sort of creatures found in children’s nightmares and bad horror films. Rather, I mean creatures having a combination of physical features that are not found in nature, such as multiple heads, wings or the body of a human with the head of an animal — the stuff of classical Greek nightmares and good horror films.

Monsters in this sense are morbid and dangerous (or perhaps merely weird) hybrids, typically possessing unnatural or dangerous qualities that threaten the stability of society. As I am using the term here, the word refers specifically to types of states bearing the imprint of both the dying old order and the new one struggling to be born — to states that combine incompatible features in weird, and perhaps dangerous, ways.

And who are these monsters?

Well, to begin with, there’s the “dislocated hegemon.” In the decades following the end of the Cold War, the U.S. was the sole remaining superpower, not only unrivaled in terms of brute military power, but reigning over a “liberal international order” that both reflected its core values and served as the instrument for imposing these values on the international community more broadly. This was the so-called unipolar moment — the moment when the American hyperpower reigned unchallenged over a planetary order.

Now, however, while the United States arguably remains unrivaled in terms of sheer military power, the liberal international order over which it reigned – and which was the source of much of its power – is disappearing. Many American leaders, of course, continue to delude themselves that Washington still presides over something now called the “rules-based international order” (a watered-down version of the old liberal international order, the rebranding itself being a testimony to its demise).

But the reality is quite different: The liberal empire that Washington both ruled over and through is evanescing, and efforts to act as if this weren’t the case has produced a weird and possibly dangerous hybrid — the dislocated hegemon.

Next there’s the “faltering contender,” the People’s Republic of China. In the eyes of many, this country is a rising power, one bound eventually to replace the United States as the world’s preeminent state.

According to this vision, over the past few decades China has grown increasingly wealthy and powerful. Inevitably, the argument runs, this historic process of national rejuvenation will soon culminate in the displacement of the U.S. from its throne atop the global order, the return of China to its natural place at the “center stage of world politics,” and the eventual “Sino-forming” the global system so that it reflects China’s values and interests rather than those of the United States.

The problem is that China’s rise is stalling and the brass ring of global hegemony, once so tantalizingly within reach, is now fast receding. China’s population is shrinking and getting old, is caught in a “middle income trap” and is facing increasing geopolitical resistance from its neighbors. The result: a country destined to plateau as a middle power acting as if it were a rising power destined for global domination — a monstrous beast known as a faltering hegemon.

And then there’s Russia, a morbid hybrid that I will call, charitably, a “diminished great power.” Great powers, of course, are those with the ability and will to project power and otherwise shape political outcomes around the world. In the run-up to the war in Ukraine, Russia was widely believed to be such a power — nuclear armed, relatively wealthy, possessing a strong conventional military with global reach and otherwise one of the more consequential players on the world stage.

Since last Feb. 24, however, Russia has either become or been revealed to be something less than a great power. It still has nuclear weapons, to be sure, and it continues to be a consequential player in and beyond its periphery. But both objectively and in the eyes of many other states it is a much diminished power — a hobbled giant, less feared and respected than it was a year ago, though by no means just another player in the great game of geopolitics. It has become, in other words, a monstrous hybrid — a great power and failing state all rolled into one.

I could go on – there are all sorts of monstrous hybrids out there – but I’ll end with one perhaps less obvious monster: Canada.

Both at home and abroad, Canada has historically been seen as exercising an outsized influence on international affairs. It has done this by acting as a “middle power” within multilateral institutions such as the United Nations — by mobilizing its expertise, reputation and other soft power resources not only to help stabilize the post-World War II and post-Cold War international orders, but to advance a broader moral or values-based agenda as well.

And in doing this, it has consistently been a “helpful fixer” — one that has “punched above its weight,” achieving far more than what might be expected given the country’s relative power resources. This middle power diplomacy has served Canadian interests, many would argue, not only by making the country safer and more prosperous but by reinforcing Canada’s distinctive identity as an independent player with a truly consequential role to play on the world stage.

Now, however, Canada is increasingly unable to play that role. Not because it doesn’t want to. Canadians remain firmly committed to the idea that Canada is the quintessential middle-power good guy. Rather, Canada has become a “flailing middle power” because the liberal international order – the field on which for decades it played the middle-power game so well – is crumbling. The end of U.S.-dominated unipolarity, the fragmentation and decentering of the global multilateral fabric, deglobalization, regionalization and a variety of other deep geopolitical transformations have profoundly altered the geopolitical space within which Canada conducts it foreign policy. The result: a relatively powerless country trying to play the middle power game on a middle-power playing field that simply no longer exists — a flailing middle power.

The old world is dying, and the new is struggling to be born. This is indeed a time of monsters.

Andrew Latham is a professor of international relations at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn., a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities in Washington, D.C., and a Senior Fellow with the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy in Ottawa, Canada. Follow him on Twitter @aalatham.