The Fate of the West: The Battle to Save the World’s Most Successful Political Idea

by Bill Emmott

The three categories are, first, the pressures and demands of a rising great power (China) that is seeking to define its own space in world affairs and thereby to reinterpret or recreate international rules in its own interest. Second, the difficulty of dealing with a declining, somewhat paranoid former superpower (Russia) that is throwing its weight around in order to create (or preserve) its sense of national identity, and is seeking to prove that rules of the game do not apply to it. Third, what might best be termed the civilisational challenge posed by Islamic State, its precursors and no doubt its successors, violent groups all using an extreme interpretation of a mass religion to create a movement and an identity defined largely by its opposition to what the rest of the world – including China and Russia – considers as modernity and taking that battle to anywhere and everywhere they can. The contributory addendum is the problem of failed or failing states, especially in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, that provide the room and some of the recruits for this civilisational challenge and make it hard for outside powers to bring enduring stability to those failing states or to help settle their civil wars.