Rethinking Global Geopolitics: Unrestricted Warfare

The idea of “Unrestricted Warfare” and the emerging New Geopolitical Order There is much talk that we are on the brink of a “Third World War” between powers in hegemonic dispute over spaces vital to their geopolitical interests. This hypothesis, to a certain extent catastrophic, does not seem true to us in light of current facts. In the GLOBALIZATION AGE, the issue should not be posed in terms of “Total Warfare” between current powers, which would be a conflict that would generate self-extinction. In this case, however, the strategic issue should be posed in terms of the “Unrestricted Warfare” scenarios (COUTINHO, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2024). However, “Unrestricted Warfare” is a recent phenomenon of rivalry between powers. It is the way found by the currently dominant powers to avoid total warfare (resulting from direct confrontation). The global power games of “Unrestricted Warfare” are, nothing more and nothing less, than the set of strategies (military and non-military) in the fight for the incorporation of territories considered vital in the context of geopolitical expansionism and geopolitical reengineering (for China and the USA). This is the old confrontation over territories considered vital for the expansionism of the great powers, in the fight for world hegemony, through the new geopolitical reengineering of “Unrestricted Warfare” (the war games of the Unrestricted Warfare scenarios). This would be a brief description of the current direction of world geopolitics. Scenarios infinitely more complex than the scenario of the threat of total warfare, as has been propagated by the doomsayers. It is a global scenario that favors the multiplicity of economic and geopolitical interests (the latter being intricate) and without the possibility of reaching consensus through the powers involved; with increasing complexity in obtaining convergence of interests, especially when it comes to terms of global interest. Therefore, it is not reasonable to consider the possibility of “Total Warfare”. We must consider that the powers assess the catastrophic risk of total warfare. However, the context of “Unrestricted Warfare” is more similar to the concept of “war of movement” and “war of position” between the current powers: China versus the USA. On the other hand, it is very difficult to converge polarized geopolitical interests from a political/economic point of view (in this case, the disparities between the policies of state interest of the current powers, most of the time conflicting and outside any conciliatory policy, are highlighted). The current geopolitical reengineering is characterized, above all, not by the construction of consensus, but, above all, by the construction of possible convergences of disparate, asymmetric and multilateral geopolitical interests; implied in the great rivalry between the current powers (China versus the USA). The Unrestricted War for vital spaces in the context of expansionism between these powers on a planetary scale, characterizes the true spirit of the rivalry between these powers in the GLOBALIZATION AGE. This rivalry is shaping the future of global geopolitics. This new emerging world geopolitical order, with high and increasing complexity, has followed an intrinsic dialectical ritual: denying the old geopolitical order of the Cold War, preserving many aspects of this old order and, at the same time, overcoming the geopolitics of the Cold War, through the emergence of the new order of “Unrestricted Warfare” (contextualized by End of Pax Americana (2019) and the rise of CHINA: Metanational Capitalism (2018). Post Scriptum: Dedicated to the return of ADM Trump and its catastrophic consequences.