Editorial

Abstract

Irish Studies in International Affairs, Vol. 33 (2022), 1–6 This Irish Studies in International Affairs volume is diverse in nature and content. It points towards a prevalent global and academic conviction that the global system is experiencing an unmatched period of change, transition, and even crisis. Numerous pressures are acting against the values and basis of the multilateral system from which Ireland has succoured and profited since the 1950s. Some have attributed the term ‘polycrisis’ to the universal and multiple crises experienced globally during this age. It is an era of accumulating, interwoven problems and changes that defy easy disentanglement. The global pandemic has had lasting impacts. In February 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine signified the return of major warfare to the European continent. The war has shattered complacency , tested multilateral institutions, and resulted in unquantifiable human suffering, including generating the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two. Nuclear signalling and nuclear deterrence have re-emerged. The war has also brutally exposed the hazards of energy dependency from a single source. Despite belated efforts to decarbonise, Europe and the world will remain reliant on fossil fuels for decades. Simultaneously, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in 2022 that the globe will surpass the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold by 2040 if dramatic action is not taken immediately. Compounding this is an intensification of economic and inflationary pressures. It was, therefore, timely that our annual conference in 2022 should turn its attention to ‘Global Power Shifts: Connectivity, Cooperation and Conflict’. Our theme recognised the growing tensions between great powers, the costs and benefits of economic connectivity, the tensions between national interests, and the pressing and multiplying need for global cooperation to address the threats to the global commons. Simon Coveney, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence, TD, who opened the conference, outlined how Ireland’s mission remains an active Editorial Mervyn O’Driscoll School of History, University College Cork 2 Irish Studies in International Affairs membership in the multilateral institutions, particularly the EU and the UN. In his address, reproduced here, he reiterated the Irish government’s enduring position that an insular path is not tenable. Its interests lie in arresting realpolitik, bolstering global governance, and fostering international cooperation and shared values. As an open economy and outward-looking society, ‘Global Ireland’ is apprehensive about global power shifts and the recrudescence of realpolitik in Europe and the Asia-Pacific.1 It fears any hint of ‘back to the future’, i.e., the rise of unilateralism and naked power politics. But the evidence is disconcerting and predates the Russo-Ukrainian war and encompasses several other changes in Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia in recent years. Scholars and policymakers seek to explain the evolving US-China relationship, predict its future direction, gauge its implications, and advise governments accordingly. The prospect and consequences of the end of American hegemony and a multipolar global configuration are avidly debated. China’s projected levelling up with and overtaking of the US would represent the end of ‘the American century’, as Time magazine publisher Henry Luce called it while in its midst. Graham Allison has melodramatically characterised this as the most perilous phase (the ‘Thucydides Trap’).2 The paper by George Koukoudakis is a defence of Kenneth Waltz’s neorealism against liberal readings of developments in international affairs since the end of the bipolar system in 1989. Koukoudakis posits that neorealism remains enduringly relevant. Neorealists such as Koukoudakis recognise that America’s hegemony is nearing its terminal phase with the impending arrival of unstable multipolarity, in line with what Henry Kissinger foresaw in the 1970s. A central question, therefore, relates to Washington’s international relationship management as the anticipated fragile tipping or inflection point looms. Dylan Motin contends, based on his historical reading of the in/effectiveness of America’s Monroe Doctrine during the last two centuries, that it is in America’s national interests not to opt for a retreat from Europe and Asia into the Western hemisphere (restraint realism). Instead, it should adopt a containment or offshore balancing strategy. Motin endorses what he interprets as the recent US moves in this direction. In their paper...