Transitions great and small have marked world affairs this year and are set to dominate the year to come. As Mr George W. Bush takes over from President Clinton he brings a new set of priorities to determine how the world's only superpower provides global leadership. That will deeply affect the economic, political, and environmental welfare and security of the rest of the world too. Mr Bush takes office as the US economy cools down rapidly after a decade of remarkable growth and he must manage that transition effectively. His security and military policies will be similarly influential. So will the attitudes he takes to issues of global inequality, development and climate change.
It makes sense to examine these issues initially from the perspective of the US political transition, because of the great power that state has to affect them. It was boosted with the end of the Cold War, giving the US a temporary hegemony in world affairs. Mr George W. Bush's father successfully managed the great change in Europe and then orchestrated the Gulf War against Iraq. That he failed to win the 1992 election after these achievements astonished and angered his close advisers. Many of them return to office with his son determined to continue his policy agenda in international and domestic affairs.
But circumstances have changed, making it more difficult for them to succeed. Thus they are tempted to exert power in an increasingly unilateral fashion, as can be seen in security and military affairs, where they are pledged to reactivate a missile defence system and concentrate less on Europe. Interventions would be more selective and focussed on US interests, according to this programme. It is likely to be much less tolerant of differences with Russia and China and less willing to use United Nations mechanisms. Substantial divergences on foreign policy issues with their European allies seem probable.
These transitions to a more multi-polar world will also be felt in the economic and social domains, especially so far as Europe is concerned. The euro is strengthening against the dollar as European Union economies continue their recovery, based on a very different approach to social security than under a Republican-dominated Washington. Whether the US economy achieves a hard or a soft landing, and the role of the European and Japanese economies in taking up the slack, will be a preoccupying policy issue in 2001.
Ireland is particularly vulnerable on this score, now that the US has emerged as our largest single trade partner, in place of the UK. But Ireland is also a potential bridge between the European Union and the US in this period, as Mr Ben Gilman, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee pointed out in an article in this newspaper last Saturday. He argued that a co-operative Irish role on possible US trade and business disputes with the EU could help maintain the remarkable Irish relationship with the US built up over the Clinton years through the Northern Ireland peace process. That would be more productive than concentrating on contentious issues such as US trade sanctions on Cuba, the death penalty, global inequalities or climate change policies.
Mr Gilman's is a timely article, providing citizens of this small neutral state with an insight into the mindset of the new US leadership. But it takes two to play this game, whatever the differences in size and power. The issues he mentions will not go away. They require radical and determined international effort, including sympathetic and engaged US involvement, if they are to be confronted. Figures published in the World Review supplement published with this newspaper today provide graphic evidence of how growing global inequality and climate change are affecting security for all the world's peoples. The ratio of the incomes of the richest and poorest fifths of the world population was 74 to 1 in 1997, compared to 60 to 1 in 1990 and 30 to 1 in 1960. An insurance expert reckons the cost of natural disasters is increasing by 10 per cent per annum; once climate change kicks in it could outstrip global gross domestic product by 2065, bankrupting the world economy.
Concealed within such measurements are shameful inequalities, gross poverty, terrible wastes of resources - and mortal danger for many inhabitants of the planet. Increasingly it is recognised that such poverty and degradation represent a threat to the security and welfare of everybody - and not only to the poorest who are most immediately affected. Human rights are recognised, too, as a indispensable means of pursuing development.
Such ideas of common security need to be developed co-operatively, involving debt cancellations, North-South trade reform, more extensive programmes of development aid and strengthened international institutions. A growing realisation of these facts has broken complacent assumptions that simple market forces on their own could achieve equitable and sustainable development. This new consciousness is driven by international coalitions of activists and non-governmental organisations from various parts of the political spectrum. Governments are having to take more and more account of them - a major transition in political affairs compared to the 1990s.
The question arises of whether and how such a new awareness can be harnessed to political power and engagement so that effective action can be taken to address these issues. Or is the main priority how to protect the richest fifth of the world from the human and security consequences of growing inequality and environmental degradation? That choice is starkly posed in this transitional period. Within the developed world it looks as if varying responses could differentiate European and United States approaches to world affairs in coming years.
Ireland has a role to play in addressing them as it takes up a two year position on the UN Security Council next week. The Government is committed to quadrupling its development aid over the next seven years. There is an honourable tradition of providing aid for the poorest African countries. Peacekeeping skills and experience can be developed in parallel between the UN and EU systems. Ireland will also have a role in orchestrating EU approaches to foreign policy issues within the UN. Alongside that there is the chance to develop more effective means of addressing climate change within the EU and UN alike. These are political choices, but they have much to offer a more discerning and aware public, more alert to the opportunities as well as the dangers of a changing world.