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The complexity of the world's affairs grows in parallel with its increased connectivity. Institutions will be needed to manage the new potential which this complexity creates, both within and between nations. We can hope that these structures will grow spontaneously, or we can set about their active design. Where there are serious blocks to institutional improvement within nations, or where systems have failed, then we may consider intervention. The bulk of this text consider what this entails.
The world of affairs contains many actors. We have been accustomed to think of these primarily in terms of nation states, but there are, of course, many forms of classification: by power, by affiliation, by numbers and in other ways. These many actors, new and traditional, are being connected together by growth and new capabilities so as to create new demands. In order to see the dimensions in which order needs to be generated, let us begin by considering some of the ways in which we can segment these actors.
It is plain that the world will exponentially grow more complex, doing so by almost any measure. It will have more actors, see greater volumes of activity, possess more connectivity and access more knowledge, and the users of these capabilities will act with greater confidence. The factorial combinations which this opens up, and the sheer volume of potential transactions, makes management of these interfaces a crucial task if anything like stability and clarity is to prevail.
The creation of this new "interface management" would present a major challenge, even if these forces were to be deployed with a framework of consensus. However, they are not. The world is heterogeneous and, despite the disappearance of ethnic dress and the seeming convergence of consumers on a world of identical shopping malls, it is measurably growing more plural and more dissected.
Current developments are without historical precedent. Humanity has launched itself on an experiment which requires continual improvement and the management of the down-side if there is not to be a catastrophe, or set of catastrophes in the generations ahead. We do not know how to live with an educated, technified and militarised 8-9 billion.
There is one further, unavoidable fact about the world which we are creating. More agencies within it - more people, wider economic systems, complex sets of criteria, rich and confusing information sources and filters - are all being connected together for the first time, or connected in richer ways and in more depth than hitherto. This is occurring in a system which already suffers from something analogous to both high blood pressure and arteriosclerosis. The pressures will increase. So will the obstructions.
The components of any one part of this system have different rates of response to novel challenges. The response of economic structures and educated people is almost always much faster than institutional adaptation, even in the complex nations which are used to institutional redesign. Institutional response itself often outstrips social change, or may head off in a direction which is antithetical to the social trends of that time and place. The roots of rejectionism and religious fundamentalism grow from just such a situation.
The forces of change will cannot, however, be wished away. They are the composite outcome of many individual choices and the pursuit of liberty, of actions which are aimed to increase competitiveness in the ceaseless pursuit of best practice. The needs of the 8-9 billion people who will be living a generation hence can be met in a sustainable manner only through enormous increases in investment, efficiency and institutional competence.
The challenge is, therefore, oriented around how we are to organise our world so as to mitigate and to manage these forces. Insofar as some aspects of the world will not choose to or be able to undertake these reforms on their own, it is inevitable that regulation and upgrade will, to some degree, need to be imposed. For example, we have found time and again that despite its ultimate best interests, commerce does not usually self-regulate. Governments are therefore needed to protect the commons. History shows us that corrupt, blocked or obscurantist regimes do not readily reform themselves. There is general ignorance within most middle income countries as to how to build practical working structures. There is a virtual absence of public debate about "who we want to become" in almost all middle income and poor nations. Nationalism or borrowed ideology tends to fill the resulting gap. There is, therefore, a major challenge as to how the agents of improvement are to enable the construction of institutions which are fit for purpose.
We forget - and superpowers tend to forget most profoundly of all - that the central institutions in any state are both tacit and intangible. Top-down designs will not do, and foreign-designed top-down approaches are even less likely to be acceptable. Whatever structures are to be created need to harmonise with and seemingly arise from the patterns of discourse and transaction which characterise the social group which they represent.
"Discourse" is a difficult concept to grasp. The technical capabilities represented by anything new - such as mobile telephones, new democracy or consumerism - need to be embedded in the basic reflexes of a society if they are to be accepted by it. So long as the cellphone, for example, seems to be technically-oriented and a thing which is foreign to daily life, then it will be treated as alien and "not for me". Acceptance of the new capacity comes when it - for example, refrigeration, representative democracy, or the free press - becomes a working part of daily life. This often happens in unaccountable ways, and always follows a complex and non-linear path.
"Discourse" is, therefore, the means by which a group or society comes to terms with a new capability. Brand management, when handled skilfully, can assists in discourse. However, it is a science with which we have yet to grapple, and it is fair to say that grand aims such as "installing democracy" are not within its scope. Tasks of this sort are not meaningful military goals unless, that is, such aspirations come with acceptance of there being a great measure of trail and error, dissent and chronic civil unrest. If military planners are to shift to "affects based" policy, then there will need to be a corresponding assessment of the political and resource costs of delivering these large and ill-defined affects.
One can, of course, ignore discourse and aim simply to get the big issues right. If there are amenities, order and prosperity, then it is possible that "natural" institutions will follow. It is also possible that they will not. A political vacuum does not usually remain unfilled for long. This said, the list of big, basic issues is very long. It is easy to define its members, but far less easy to deliver them without a working set of institutions. Consider the following:
There are natural targets to be met for the development of physical infrastructure, human capital, public health and security. With this, information transparency and rational allocation of resources.
Fiscal and monetary probity, effective tax collection, openness to trade and external best practice.
Rural development: access to credit, tenure and education.
Private sector: a thriving consumer culture and appropriate systems of accountability for management.
Representative political systems at all levels of scale, and the separation of powers, free debate and open media critique. Active management of corruption.
Getting these issues "right" is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for progress.
Complex economies present a myriad of options. They erode the foundations of organisations which are not actively adaptive. They operate from a deep base of information. Complex institutions are required if these are to function. Warlordism and command-and-control are primitive social forms which are capable of managing only simple economies and simple societies. These forms always fail once a given level of complexity is achieved. Complex economies demand complex institutions. One cannot command an economy made up of self-willed professionals.
This fact has a profound implication for those who wish to improve the institutions of countries which operate below their potential, or to police the new connections which global integration creates. Capacity raising equates to attempts to install new, different machinery for managing increased complexity. Such machinery aims both to deliver and to manages increased degrees of freedom in the system - what we call liberty, options, choice. It is demonstrable that societies which possess these structures achieve economic and social growth, and that these which do not, will not:
As we have seen, it is not technically or, for the most part, politically legitimate to impose solutions of this sort where local systems are failing, or have never developed. Intervention may well be required in the most urgent and egregious cases. However, military power will always be an enabling secondary force, much as civil policing works on behalf of more abstract forms of organisation. The order: "Sergeant, install democracy" is not an option.
Intervention, where it is effective, uses "all modes" power projection. That is, it delivers pressure to adapt, guidance on adaptation, support where there is weakness and - above all - affords or helps the emergence of a paradigm of that towards which the society is struggling. It helps a nation discuss what kind of country it wishes to be.
This is, of course, a major feat of organisation where it is achieved. It requires allies to act in a deep, co-ordinated manner, one that is not to be distracted by set-backs nor blown off course by surface issues. It needs to know its own mind, and to be prepared for the long haul. What it plainly is not is a short-term, project focused or contentious activity; and neither is it meaningful if subject to the nominal authority of institutions for which its partners have no fundamental respect. Organisation is, therefore, a major challenge to the superpower's ambitions in this regard, with or without partners.
It is not easy to see how this clarity of resolve is to be achieved. Independent interests are at stake. These will continue to bias attitudes, as was evident from the actions of the creditor nations in the Iraq war. The European Union is trying to acquire the mantle of unified, global power. Whilst its economic and social "numbers" sum to those of the US, its capabilities and its potential do not. There is, already, friction between the powers on issues of style, trade and regional authority. Exacerbated rivalry between these two blocks is a danger which is most likely to become significant in a world of slowed economic growth, with a soft Euro compensating for slow productivity improvement. There is reason to expect just such an outcome in the decade ahead.
The post-war, cold war institutions such as the UN are also a poor mechanism through which to carry this project forward. An innate assumption of formal, nominally-democratic agencies is that its rules are universal, its sanctions triggered automatically and its justice blind. This assumption is not realistic or viable in the international arena. The major parties will not be bound to "international law", such that their possession of nuclear weapons is placed on a level with that of an erratic dictatorship. Equally, what is apposite in respect of Iraq is not, in the real world, applicable to a major power such as China, despite its 50 million political prisoners, environmental degradation and weapons of mass destruction.
The alternative, in which difficult issues are discussed and developed in camera amongst allies, also presents difficulties. Its legitimacy is extremely suspect in the eyes of the rest of the world. Equally, it is easy to come to believe that one's own interests are universal, as was evident in the latter decades of the British Empire.
The world is confronted with a period in which accelerated institutional growth is essential. There will be situations where the future of many millions are plainly blocked by active opposition to this, and the temptation to intervene will be strong.
The challenge to this is, essentially, threefold.
The scale of any commitment is potentially very large. The former Yugoslavia, Iraq and nations such as Liberia and Ruanda will require care that lasts for decades. Even if one accepts the need for occasional intervention, and for systematic policy which is aimed at institutional upgrade in all nations, it is plainly impossible to meet all potential commitments. It is, therefore, close to self-evident that many parts of the world will fail to make an economic and social transition to match the inevitable strains of their demographic processes.
Billions live below their potential today - factually, there must be potential Einsteins sorting through rubbish and Beethovens begging on the street. A billion people live on less than a US dollar a day. Aside from these moral demands, however, facts compel a change of style. Some 2.5 billion graduates will be alive in 2020, by no means all of them living in the old industrial world. Their arrival bring both the potential for positive developments - and increased competitive erosion, and accelerate change - but also increased friction if their aspirations are not met. Extremely dangerous technologies are abroad, and the barriers to accessing these will continue to fall. Biotechnologies, in particular, have destructive potential when put into the wrong hands, or when in sloppily-managed hands. The living environment will not support 8-9 billion at current economic levels, let alone when foreseeable economic growth occurs. We shall need a community of the rational and the adaptive when we come to solve these issues.
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