A conceit underpins so much discussion in the realm of international policy. Politicians and analysts alike are far more comfortable talking about growing dangers or global complexity rather than doing anything about it.
Easier to commission another white paper or a strategic assessment and debate the likely trends unfolding over the next 20 years than to be held accountable for actions taken in the present.
This made Czech Republic President Petr Pavel’s remarks at the 2024 Lowy Lecture last night a refreshing change.
“This complex situation demands more from us than mere acknowledgment,” Pavel declared to a packed Sydney Town Hall.
“It calls for urgent, coordinated action and a commitment to enhanced resilience across all domains.”
Pick up on that term “coordinated” and think about the experience of the recent G20 meeting. Barely more than a decade ago, this was an international grouping in which Australia was thrilled to be included. It had the membership to reflect “new global economic and political realities” – the old guard of Europe and the United States, plus China, India, Brazil and Indonesia. “It’s a body which can provide collective solutions to global economic challenges, and it’s a body for which we want an ambitious agenda,” then prime minister Julia Gillard told Australia’s collected senior diplomats brought home to Canberra from their posts in G20 countries to thrash out a program of work.
The freedom to publicly point to the failings of Western policy carries a great advantage over the closed experience in authoritarian regimes.
And yet last week, in Brazil, the G20 leaders’ declaration was as meaningful as wet newspaper. Even the language merely describing the biggest problems confronting the world was weak – let alone the prospect of doing anything about them.
Climate change, population displacement, the highest rate of armed conflict since the Second World War, and ugly examples of national chauvinism all conspire against the hope for “coordinated action”.
But where Pavel’s remarks should provide hope is in the chance to flip the emphasis, to see the problems not as insurmountable but as reasons to spur cooperation – what he stressed as “the right to determine our own future”. Australians with longer memories might recoil at Pavel invoking collective action as “the greatest responsibility of our time”, remembering the paralysis that afflicted climate debates after Kevin Rudd labelled global warming “the great moral challenge of our generation”. But shifting mindsets appears to be the aim of Pavel’s rhetoric.
The impact of Russia’s invasion has certainly trodden on the rights of Ukrainians, and, as Pavel noted, also strengthened the bonds among Russia, Iran, North Korea and China. Yet it cannot be overlooked that the invasion also “reinforced unity” within NATO and the European Union. An oft-criticised unity, no doubt – but the freedom to publicly point to the failings of Western policy carries a great advantage over the closed experience in authoritarian regimes.
Pavel also pointed to the ties between NATO and the so-called “Indo-Pacific Four” countries of Australia, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand.
And he urged the audience to consider the sharp shift away from European reliance on Russian energy, a move barely imaginable only a couple of years ago.
Russia’s belligerence has also made plain the nature of Vladimir Putin’s regime, putting into relief its other efforts to undermine democratic systems with mischief and misinformation, and the growing recognition of this offers a slow antidote to the dangers exacerbated in the online era.
It would be too much to expect Pavel to solve the great problems of the age with easy answers – he offered none. But he did arrive at a simple conclusion with timeless applicability. “By working together, we can pool resources, share expertise, and tackle challenges that no single nation can effectively address on its own.”
