[MUSIC] How are the international systems structured? Generally, people speak of polarization. Polarization is now the key concept for comparing international systems, and for considering its transformation. But that no truer that it's the good key concept for a very clear reason that world has not been ever polarized. Polarization in the history of the world is covering the very short period from 1947 up to 1989. And the evidence of that is to be found in the fact now we are speaking of post-bipolar system. We are supposed to be in a post-bipolar system, but what does it mean? What is a post-bipolar system? Through this concept, we know that we were in a bipolar system, but in which kind of internal system we are? The problem of this difficulty is related to the concept of polarity, which is not really covering the diversity of the international systems. What is a pole? First of all, what is a pole? Pole is an attractive power, an attractive force which is able to organize and structure a coalition. It's not evident that in all the periods we can find a real attractive power in internal system. If we go back to 1947, at this time, we had several factors which were pushing to this polarization. First of all, nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapon creates a new order in the international arena. That's to say, if you are not protected by your nuclear power, you are really and strongly threatened by the nuclear power. That's to say in a nuclear movement, camps are organized under the umbrella, under the protection of a super power. Nuclear power was the main active factor for creating the condition of the bipolarity. The evidence is to be found in the fact that NATO was created in 1949, that's to say, the year when USSR was equipped in nuclear capacity, had it's nuclear boom. But nuclear weapon is not the only reason for triggering this polarization of the world. The second run is to be found in ideology. For the first time in the human history, ideology after the Second World War was structuring, was shaping the international arena. Before, we can't find ideological cleavages in the international system. And after 1989, it's not really clear that we have a real ideological fracture in our international order. And the third factor is connected to the second one, that's to say the differentiation between two kinds of social structure with it's own opponents and dissidents. That's to say, dissidents in Eastern Europe who were looking to the Western camp and the expecting to transform the Soviet social structure into a Liberal one, when the working class in the Western country were looking to the Socialist camp for expecting new redistribution. And even with these three factors, bipolarity was not perfect, even during the worst moments of the Cold War. If we take into account the Eastern camp, we have to observe the dissidents of China and the cleavage between Beijing and Moscow, which was initiated around the 1960s, 1961. Also, after the dissidents of Romania, and also the independence of Vietnam, Vietnam during the war was not really following the decision taken in Moscow, nor in Beijing. And in the Western camp, we have to consider the national independency policy of General de Gaulle, who got out of the NATO IN 1966. But, however, bipolarity was really shaping our world between 47 up to 89. First, bipolarity was really mapping the world. That's to say, developing countries, what we call this time Third World, which plan to be independent, which claim to be sovereign, which claim to be independent from this West East cleavage, however, had to join either the Western camp or the Eastern camp. Gama abd el Nasser in Egypt, N'krumah in Ghana or Sukarno, and even Nehru, Sukarno in Indonesia and Nehru in India, were joining the USSR camp in the international relations when Iran or Morocco or Thailand where joining the Western camp. And even the two separate powers were successfully containing the conflicts and especially monitoring the thousand countries conflictuality, even if they were not really able to decide in state events. The second point, which is very clear about bipolarity, is the kind of condominium which progressively took place inside the international arena. We have, for instance, to take into account NPT, that's to say this non-proliferation regime, which was really decided by the true leaders of the blocs. All the salt agreements, or even the Berlin Treaty about the building agreement, about the statues of the former capital of Germany. But what about today when we say that we are now in a post-bipolar world? We are in a post-bipolar world for very obvious and clear reasons. First of all, there are no more two opposing blocs inside the international arena. Second, as we observed, wars have changed, don't have now the same meaning, and instead of interstate wars, we are observing more and more intrastate wars and instead of being the main battlefield of the world, Europe now is Almost in peace when wars and conflicts take place in the South. Third difference, interdependence decided, provoked by globalization, what does competition mean in an interdependent world? What does polarity mean in an interdependent, interplaying, interconnecting world? Fourth difference, the decreasing influence of ideology. Some of the most distinguished scholars have spoken of the end of ideology. I don't know whether there is really an end of ideology, but it's quite clear that ideologies are no more mapping the world, are no more structuring the main international cleavages and the same for social structures. Another question is about hegemony. As we observed, is hegemony a relevant concept in a global world? And if there is no clear hegemony, if hegemony challenged how polarization would be possible. And the paradox in that even if sovereignty's decreasing, even if state have to interplay, however states pretend to be more and more autonomous and especially among the weakest ones, especially among developing countries which are less and less controlled by the traditional powers and separate powers. This growing autonomy in this world of interdependence is triggering something very new, that's to say poles are no more attracting followers as it was the case during the bipolarity. That's why, ladies and gentleman, we are now in a very strange world that I would call apolarity. What is apolarity? First, apolarity is not unipolarity. We could observe in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in so many countries that the unipolar capacity of US is now over. But our polarity is not multipolarity. Many mid-powers were dreaming of a world of multipolarity, in which they could be a pole among others. But what is the real attractive capacity of mid-powers? Of France, and UK and so on, of Germany, of Japan. Apolarity is not interregionalism, that would be a scenario, that would be a possibility, that's to say a world would be regionally integrated and which would be a kind of competition among three, four, five regional blocs. But now regional blocs are collapsing and don't have anymore the real capacity of attracting their members in a real integrated bloc. So interregionalism is less and less obvious. We are, however, in this very fragmented world in which there is no pole but in which the main actors try to work together in the more or less successful way. This is what we call the club diplomacy or the conniving diplomacy or even this oligarchic diplomacy through P5s through G8 through G7 or through G20. G7 was created in 1975, when US faced the first crisis of its hegemony, and it's now going on with rather weak results. But this conniving, oligarchic diplomacy, kind of diplomacy of immobilism. That's to say this apolar world is a world which is mainly structured by this conniving attempt with poor results and strong immobilism. [MUSIC]
