Date: Wednesday, 23 March 2022
Time: 08.00 - 10.00 GMT+7
Platform: Zoom Meetings & Youtube Livestream
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Research Professor at Research Centre for Politics, National Research and Innovation Agency
Moderator: I Gusti Bagus Dharma Agastia, President University
What kind of international order has developed? In fact, there’s no consensus. This international order is very much an interpretation, many talks about how we are entering a new multipolarity, like the period in the first and second World Wars where there are so many state actors. The U.S. may seem like an incumbent superpower, the incumbent hegemonic power, but its power seems to be in relative decline.
The international order at the moment is still very much in transition. There is a great complexity which poses both challenges and opportunities. We have seen great power rivalry, we have seen emerging multipolarity or multiplexity, and at the same time we see greater roles for middle powers with their varying attributes and types. This can be a moment for the middle power to exercise these opportunities by helping to ease the tension, to influence norms, to shape values and institutions, and also to maximize benefits. Conflicts and tensions could provide opportunities, as long as it doesn't become an open military conflict. Within this uncertainty, there are also opportunities to maximize the benefits and mitigate the risk posed by the superpowers and major powers.
The most important thing is that middle powers can cease these moments by continuing to work together with each other and also carrying the coalition building among middle powers in order to manage these relations upward with the superpowers and major powers, and also to ensure the rights of small countries, which do not really have a voice in international relations, and to help protect and promote their interests.