This book attempts to study and understand the political, economic and social developments and technological advancements post-World War II that led to the power shift from the United Kingdom to the United States of America. In the backdrop and continuity of these developments, an attempt has been made to identify and understand the forces at play now and their dynamics and investigate how they will play out in re-shaping the existing global order and their implications. In the light of the developments in the post cold war era resulting in the dismembering of the erstwhile mighty empire, the Union of Socialist Soviet Republic, that led to a unipolar world with the US at the helm of affairs as the sole arbitrator of political, economic and military power. Now, as the US seems to be slipping out and losing ground as a world leader, triggered by globalisation, it is interesting to find out the rejigging of the current order and the emergence of new world order and see where this is leading us to. Two parallel socio-economic and ideological models were in existence and prevailed during the Cold War era stretching between 12 March 1947 and 26 December 1991, the liberal democratic capitalism model led by the US and the communist socialistic model led by the erstwhile Union of Socialistic Soviet Republic (USSR) confronting each other as ideological and military rivals through alliances NATO formed in 1949 and Warsaw Pact formed in 1955. Both these blocs tried to manoeuvre each other by show of strength through intelligence, nuclear arms race, media propaganda and space race and indulging in a proxy war, sabotage and intrigue. It was mainly a bipolar world, and the balance of power was maintained by them checking each other; a third Non-Aligned block led by India was also in existence and played its role in maintaining the balance of power. Nuclear power acted as a deterrent for both these blocs as the USSR also developed nuclear technology in 1949.
Both the US and USSR played violent havoc on either side through a third party (proxy), that could either be a government or an armed group by financing, providing arms, training and logistical support. Some examples of proxies were the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Angola War, Vietnam War (1962 - 1975) and Afghanistan (1979 - 1989). The collapse and disintegration of the USSR (16 November 1988 - 26 December 1991) proved that the communist socio-economic model was not ideal and no more practicable. With the exit of the USSR, the US assumed a more aggressive and belligerent role in the absence of counterbalance and indulged freely in military exercises in foreign countries without fear of retaliation. Its action in Iraq was a textbook case of its obnoxious attitude and aggressiveness. It has to exit Afghanistan with a face-saving strategy on May 1, 2021, ultimately proving that its capitalistic model, too is neither ideal nor practicable. It did not learn from its humiliating and face-saving exit from Vietnam in 1973.
The free market capitalist model of the liberal democratic bloc has suffered severe blows recently, and as such, capitalism in its pure form does not exist anywhere in the world. Frequent corporate bailouts go against the free market system model and testify to the failure of capitalism and succumbing to the emerging corporate powers. In most of the so-called democratic capitalist countries, the presence of numerous social security schemes are an antithesis of the capitalist model. Globalisation with WTO, Free Trade Agreement and Special Economic Zones facilitated by the advancements in technology, telecommunications and the Internet have accelerated the dilution of the sovereign state concept because of the free flow of goods, services, capital and human resources across the world.
Because of the mere advancements in technologies, the current monetary system of the treasury, banks and flat currencies have lost relevance and have become obsolete and dysfunctional. It will soon be replaced by Cryptocurrency, and all the traditional business processes of trade and commerce will move on to Blockchain technology. Blockchain is also the platform for the first-ever cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, which started in 2009. Shareholder-centric stock market with the provision and prevalence of shell corporation structure, conditions of corporations taking the role of shareholders, tax havens, acquisitions, mergers and monopolistic practices have thoroughly corrupted capitalism, relinquishing the ground to and providing a perfect platform for and leveraging the multinational corporations and corrupt politicians to accomplish their evil designs to piggyback crony capitalists and accumulate wealth. As a result, the corporations have assumed huge powers, obtained the upper hand and have even started to dictate terms to the governments. This dilutes the concept of sovereign nations states and rather resulting eventually in their existential death.. These changes are taking place at a fast pace, and the corporations are virtually taking over the reins from governments, reducing the heads of states to mere pawns in the corporate chess game.
Lastly, the frightening outcome that appears to be taking shape is that the Chinese State itself, which is neither socialistic nor capitalist but in between, an ideal cocktail mix practically speaking, is assuming the role of a corporation, the mightiest one and has heavily invested in too many countries through its belt and road initiative. Its other more sinister behind-the-scenes moves are yet to be noticed, like bribing the politicians of all hues in all the countries and getting people with a soft heart for Chinese interests to get into parliaments worldwide.
