Looking back at 2018, one can hardly escape the conclusion that relations among the United States, Russia and China have become more competitive, if not confrontational. Many an expert in international relations believes that the world has witnessed during the last 12 months a new Cold War between the United States, on the one hand, and both Russia and China, on the other. From the Middle East and passing through the Sea of Azov, Ukraine, the Korean Peninsula and the South China Sea, tensions among the three major powers have not lessened compared to the previous year. Of course, we have observed notable breakthroughs, between Washington and Pyongyang and the latter with Seoul. Still, complex and conflictual relations among Washington, Moscow and Beijing have not made possible the translation of an unprecedented American-North Korean summit on 12 June in Sentosa, Singapore, into a permanent peaceful settlement to the Korean War. Similarly, the Helsinki Summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on 16 July did not produce any tangible results as to the major disagreements between the United States and Russia. The two presidents were supposed to hold a second summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but President Trump cancelled it, at the last minute, to signal American indignation at the encounter between the Russian navy and three Ukrainian naval vessels in the Sea of Azov on 25 November. In reaction, Washington and other Western capitals thought of imposing new sanctions on Moscow. Prior to year's end, American-Russian relations saw a very grave development that won't only affect bilateral relations between Washington and Moscow, but could also adversely impact peace and security in Europe, particularly member countries in NATO. On Tuesday, 4 December, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told foreign ministers of NATO countries in a meeting in Brussels that the United States would suspend its obligations in the Intermediate -Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (signed in 1987) in 60 days if Russia did not come back into full compliance with the treaty. He described what he termed Russia's violations as a part of a broader pattern of “lawlessness” by Moscow in the world. The NATO foreign ministers released a statement in which they concluded that Russia is in material breach of the INF treaty. They further reaffirmed that Russia has developed and deployed a missile system, the 9M 729, that violates the INF and poses a significant threat to the security of NATO countries. The Kremlin denied the accusations in a statement on Friday, 7 December. A day earlier, a senior American official was quoted saying that Moscow must scrap its 9M 729 nuclear-capable cruise missiles and launchers or modify their range to be in compliance with the INF and avert American withdrawal from this treaty. The consensus among military experts is that such a withdrawal would undermine European security and could produce an arms race. And Russia has made it clear that if the INF is abrogated it would not hesitate to take an appropriate response, without giving further details. Meanwhile, 2018 ended with an important meeting between Chinese President XI Jinping and President Donald Trump in Buenos Aires 1 December, when the two leaders were attending the G-20 Summit. The American-Chinese summit proved to be a truce in the much-touted trade war between the United States and China. It postponed resolving serious trade differences between the two countries for 90 days. If the two sides cannot reach an agreement by then, international financial markets and international economic relations will roil. President Trump tweeted four days after his meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Buenos Aires that he is a “tariffs man”, emphasising that he “will not hesitate to raise tariffs (from 10 per cent to 25 per cent) on Chinese imports into American markets if [China] does not agree to fundamentally change its trade practices.” In his opening remarks before their working dinner in Buenos Aires, 1 December, President Xi sounded conciliatory, and on purpose, in addressing President Trump. The Chinese president stressed that both China and the United States are important countries with major influence in the world, and share, in the meantime, important responsibilities for securing international peace and prosperity. Furthermore, he emphasised that world peace would only be served through bilateral cooperation between Washington and Beijing. It is too early to say that there is a new Cold War or not, but the fact remains that relations among the three big powers do not augur well for international peace and security for the foreseeable future. Their national interests diverge in areas and regions that the United States thinks should be defended from encroachment on the part of its main competitors. The US National Security Strategy for a New Era, released 18 December 2017, is based on what this American document calls “principled realism”. President Trump, in presenting the new strategy on the same day said this strategy is guided by America's “vital national interests, and rooted in [America's] timeless values”. He added that it, “recognises that, whether we like it or not, we are engaged in a new era of competition.” He also affirmed that “vigorous military, economic and political interests are now playing out all around the world.” He described Russia and China as “rival powers” that “seek to challenge American influence, values and wealth”. He stressed that the United States will try to enter into partnerships with “those powers and other countries, but in a manner that always protects” America's national interests. He insisted that the United States must “integrate every dimension of [its] national strength”, and that it must compete with every instrument of national power”. The new American strategy to confront the “rival” powers of Russia and China is a modified version of the theory of containment that the Truman administration adopted vis-à-vis the former Soviet Union in the early days of the Cold War in the late 1940s. For four decades successive US administrations followed policies that aimed at containing Soviet influence around the world. Whether this doctrine of containment was enough to bring down the Soviet Union is a matter of debate. However, the essence of the doctrine is back, albeit in a new form. Not only does the United States want to have unmatched military superiority to the extent that the US administration has decided to create a “Space Force Command”, but also to use all economic and financial instruments at its disposal to weaken its two main rivals economically and financially in an integrated fashion, as President Trump put it in presenting the new strategy. This strategy has identified four vital national interests for the United States. The first is to protect the continental United States. The second aims at promoting American prosperity. In this respect, the strategy recognises the importance of economic security to American national security. The third element rests on the belief that “unrivalled power is the most certain means of defence,” and this calls for the total modernisation of the American military. The fourth pillar is to advance American influence in the world, and this calls for building up American wealth and power. In the last two years, the United States has begun to speak of a Pacific-Indian community of interests with allies and strategic partners. Previously, the Pacific Ocean was not linked to the Indian Ocean in operational terms in American world strategy. Lately, Washington has begun to form a tacit alliance with like-minded countries in these two strategically important regions, a tacit alliance based on mutual concern over the emergence of China as an international power to reckon with. On the margins of the G-20 Summit in Buenos Aires, President Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Abe and Indian Prime Minister Modi met in the first-ever trilateral summit among the three countries. The Japanese prime minister stressed the fact that the three do share fundamental values as well as strategic interests. He expressed a hope to reinforce the trilateral partnership that exists among the three powers and to continue their cooperation in order to achieve what he described as a “free and open Indo-Pacific [zone]”. As for the Indian prime minister, he said that the three states play a big role in ensuring world peace, prosperity and stability. President Trump described the relationship with Japan and India as “extremely strong”. It goes without saying that American moves to contain China would not help the task of American negotiators with the North Koreans of reaching an agreement on the denuclearisation of North Korea. Cooperation and coordination between the Chinese and the North Koreans became almost routine in 2018. President XI received Kim Jong-Un, the North Korean leader, three times in China this year. The Chinese president, on the other hand, received Ri Yong Ho, the North Korean foreign minister, on Friday, 7 December. He told him that the international and regional situation is in a state of flux. He added that, “timely exchanges and the coordination of positions between China and North Korea are still extremely essential.” On some occasions this year, President Trump accused the Chinese of not doing enough to push North Korea to denuclearise. The strategic framework in which American relations with Russia and China developed in the last 12 months have left, without doubt, an adverse impact on the ability of the three big powers to work to find solutions to important international and regional questions of mutual concern. That was quite clear in the Middle East and in the Korean Peninsula. These questions have become hostage to fierce competition that characterises trilateral relations among the United States, Russia and China. How to characterise 2018 as far as the Arab world is concerned? If there is a word to describe Arab politics in this year it would be “paralysis”. In the Middle East, nothing much has changed from 2017. Foreign and regional powers have been calling the shots in Syria, Iraq, Libya and, to a lesser extent, in Yemen. Turkey has, regrettably, occupied northern Syria without any objections or resistance from Arab countries. The irony is that Ankara has made it clear that it would have a say in the political future of Syria without any reaction from any Arab quarter, including Cairo. Not a single Arab voice has objected to Turkish long-term goals in northern Syria. The same goes for Libya. Despite the fact that the UN Security Council held an extraordinary meeting in September 2017 to adopt the special plan of the UN envoy to Libya, so far nothing has materialised on the ground. As far as Yemen is concerned, the UN envoy to Yemen succeeded in holding a third round of peace negotiations between the Yemeni government and the Houthis in Sweden on 6 December, but war still rages in some parts of Yemen and peace and security for the Yemeni people are in the hands of outside powers. Iran is one important piece of the Yemeni puzzle. The US strategy of containing Iranian influence across the Middle East, the Gulf and the Arab Peninsula has not made implementing Security Council Resolution 2216 concerning Yemen any easier. Part of that containment strategy was American withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of July 2015 between the P5+1 and Iran related to the Iranian nuclear programme. This has complicated the regional scene in a way that does not augur well for a speedy resolution to the serious crises in the Middle East. But the world will long remember the Arab world in 2018 for one single development — and a very sad one at that. On 2 October, a Saudi reporter and columnist writing for The Washington Post, Jamal Khashoggi, vanished for good in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. According to official Saudi communiques, he was killed in a “botched” interrogation, and those responsible will be tried before a Saudi court of law. Unfortunately, this atrocity defined 2018 as far as the Arab world is concerned. And it only showed how far the Arabs are from the accepted norms of good governance. Last, but not least, the year 2018 proved to be a net gain for Israel as far as the question of Palestine is concerned. The Trump administration relocated its embassy to Jerusalem, a move that took place on celebration of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Israel without a quid pro quo in favour of the Palestinians, save never-ending American promises of unveiling the “ultimate deal” to achieve peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The date of announcing, officially, this phantom deal keeps moving. The last we heard about it was in the remarks of US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, that the United States would make this deal public only when the concerned parties are ready to accept it. Heaven knows when this will happen. In the meantime, successive Egyptian attempts to achieve national reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza have foundered on the deep divisiveness between the two rival Palestinian factions. And war clouds loom over Gaza and southern Lebanon against Hizbullah. The strategic objective is to eliminate pro-Iranian groups and militias from the Middle East, to pave the way for an Arab NATO that would integrate Israel as well. The year ended with an unprecedented development within the European Union. On Sunday, 25 November, the European Union and Britain signed a withdrawal agreement whereby the latter will officially leave the European Union 29 March 2019. For the first time since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957, a member country will withdraw from the European Union. Before the Brexit vote in June 2016, under the premiership of David Cameron, no one, whether within the European Union or outside, ever thought that such a day would come. What the future is of Europe is hard to tell. Meanwhile, 2018 ended on a sad note for another European power and founding member of the European Union. France was jolted by near civil insurrection that came out of nowhere, known as the “Yellow Jackets”. The movement has demonstrated the limits of the liberal economic and financial model under a president who is perceived, rightly or wrongly, by many as the “president of the wealthy” — a term unheard of since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958. Unlike the unstable political situation in the UK and France, Germany demonstrated greater political stability, notwithstanding the election victory of a far-right political party in parliamentary elections. On Friday, 7 December, the ruling Christian Democratic Party elected Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel at the helm in Berlin. She is known as “Mini Merkel”. The new leader represents the political centre within the party. Her election increases her chances of becoming the next German chancellor when Merkel steps down in 2021. Despite this changing of the guard in Germany, the likelihood of more of the same in Germany's foreign and European policies is all but assured. To conclude, the central question is whether 2018 will prove to be a transition from what has been described as the “Liberal international order” led by the United States to a looser international order with various centres of power vying for control and dominance of world affairs. The latter could lead to chaos with three major powers determined to defend their spheres of influence and national security interests worldwide — the United States under President Donald Trump, Russia led by President Vladimir Putin, and China under the leadership of President Xi Jinping.
