Second coming

THE SECOND WORLD:ONCE, THERE were two superpowers; the USA and the USSR. When the Berlin Wall collapsed, the USSR splintered, and there was one. Now, there are three: the USA, Europe and China.

To stay in the great game, each needs allies among the countries of the Second World. The Big Three must look to oil-rich countries such as Algeria, Liberia, and Venezuela; to wealthy Brazil, which holds about half of South America's land area; to Egypt, which is close to the Middle East flashpoints; and to Turkey, Ukraine, Iran, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, all with vital resources or strategically placed to wield influence.

"In this new world order, neither China nor the EU will replace the US as the sole leader," according to American academic Parag Khanna, in a telephone interview from Washington. "Instead, each of the Big Three will constantly struggle to gain influence in the Second World and balance each other."

Khanna - a senior fellow with the New America Foundation in Washington, specialising in global governance and foreign policy adviser to the Obama election campaign - argues that the United States, EU and China possess most of the power in the world and will fight to keep that position. He sees Russia, India and Japan as "balancers" who can reinforce the position of whatever superpower they make alliances with. Islam is too diffuse to play a frontline diplomatic role, but its influence will be felt in the many regions where it is present.

The Second World consists of about 40 countries; some strategically positioned, others with important oil, gas or other resources, or both, and it is the focus - and title - of Khanna's book, published this month.

"Most Second World countries are truly out for themselves," says Khanna, "practising a sophisticated multi-alignment game of playing off the great powers, in the hope of becoming regional anchors." He cites Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia as skilful practitioners of this approach, capable of acting as "swing" states, playing off the superpowers when the opportunity presents itself.

The decline in US influence from being the sole major power to having to share the role with the EU and China was inevitable, Khanna says, and this triumvirate is likely to continue in the foreseeable future.

While Bush's foreign policy was blinkered, Obama has made a very good start, he says. "I agree completely with the initiatives Obama has taken in his first 100 days." He also sees the current international financial turmoil as speeding the process of change to a world where increasingly confident Second World countries can assert themselves.

An American academic may appear an unlikely cheerleader for the European Union. However, in positioning the EU as one of the three superpowers, he believes it has the capacity to deal constructively with Russia, while the US and Russia "just point nuclear weapons at each other". Khanna praises the EU's approach to growth in the east, allowing new countries to join while insisting they observe basic democratic principles. He contrasts the US and EU approaches to Ukraine. The US chose one party and backed it relentlessly, whereas "European parliamentary groups and NGOs supported multiple political parties, thus building a stable democratic foundation". He is among the few commentators to publicly acknowledge the value of the work done by the Council of Europe's parliamentarians, which includes Irish members.

On Turkey's chances of EU accession, he says form is less important than function. EU engagement with the most powerful Muslim country is what matters (though Turks insist theirs is a secular democracy) and he quotes Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: "Either the EU will show political maturity, and become a global power, or it will end up a Christian club."

Khanna is not impressed by British and Irish media reporting of the EU: "They [the media] have a blinkered and self-destructive attitude to the European Union, and its strategic place in the world. They deceive their readers with their constant anti-EU stance."

When I ask him what is his evidence for blaming the Irish media, he says: "If the Irish media had informed people accurately of the facts, Ireland would have passed the Lisbon Treaty. That's how it seems to an outsider." Ireland and Britain are simply part of the EU bloc in his view. Geopolitics is as much about geography as about politics.

He has visited most of the countries he writes about, and it shows in his book. The chapter on Turkey opens on the Bosphorus Bridge, the tantalising, mile-long suspension bridge linking Europe with Asia, carrying truckloads of cargo, buses and cars, and the hope of a rapprochement between two great continents.

There is a place for more than the great powers in Khanna's world view, which cuts through received wisdoms on world affairs.

On globalisation, he says: "Whether one is for or against globalisation often depends on who is in power. Iran's regime has tried to stop globalisation from empowering opposition to its rule, while globalisation has allowed the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to assert pre-Soviet identities or to assert new ones, and has kept some Second World societies such as Mexico and Lebanon afloat through cash remittances from their diasporas." Not long ago, Ireland would have found a place in that list.

The Second World - how emerging powers are redefining global competition in the 21st century,Parag Khanna, Penguin Books, London, €10.