Former special adviser to the finance minister
Professor in the School of Languages & Literatures, University of Cape Town
The world is becoming more lawless, uncertain and dangerous. A major source of this instability is the changing role of the US.
After World War 2 the US emerged as the global hegemon and played a central role in shaping the rules-based international system, from which it also benefited. Now, however, that order is fragmenting. Policy coherence, predictability and stability are giving way to radical uncertainty, while raw power is increasingly displacing established rules.
Longstanding liberal fears that the superpower might grow tired of bearing the burden of international policing have turned out to be dramatically misconceived. The second Trump administration is not merely saving on costs. It wants to extract fees from the world and even acquire territories such as Greenland and Canada.
The dense connections of early globalisation — from financial flows to the dispersion of supply chains — have been exploited by recent American administrations to coerce allies and enemies alike. Stability and predictability have given way to radical uncertainty, while raw power has been used to destroy the rules-based order and free trade has succumbed to protectionism.
Liberal theory traditionally treats trade and connectivity as forces for peace: the more closely states are integrated, the less likely they are to engage in conflict. American political scientists Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman have turned this view on its head through the concept of “weaponised interdependence”. They show how the networks that sustain the global economy can also become chokepoints.
Examples include the use of the dollar’s central role in the international monetary system to enforce sanctions, threats to restrict strategically important exports such as rare earths, and the use of tariffs or market access to pressure other countries over domestic policy choices. Control over maritime chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz can likewise create leverage for states that would otherwise appear weaker.
This is the dark side of globalisation. The same integration once associated with efficiency, open markets, freedom, peace and prosperity can be repurposed as coercive power. Until a more stable order emerges, weaponised interdependence may become a defining feature of international economic relations.
In this emerging order, power increasingly derives from control over three critical networks:
Technology now sits at the centre of great power rivalry. The US uses its dominance in digital and financial networks to constrain China’s technological advance, while China can respond through its control over strategically important commodities and supply chains, including rare earths and soya beans. As economic coercion expands beyond adversaries to allies, both friends and rivals are seeking ways to reduce their dependence on US-controlled networks.
The infrastructure that powers the modern economy therefore gives the countries that control it substantial coercive capacity. States have long used tariffs, sanctions and export controls to advance national interests, but weaponised interdependence magnifies their impact because today’s global economy is so deeply integrated. The postwar faith in open markets and liberal convergence has consequently weakened, leaving a more fragmented and unstable system.
The Bretton Woods system was neither benign nor consistently beneficial for Africa and the wider Global South; it was often imposed rather than freely chosen. As the international environment changes, middle powers will need to act strategically and collectively. Raw power matters, but durable influence also depends on legitimacy, co-operation and consent.
The renewed interest in geoeconomics — the use of financial and trade relationships to pursue geopolitical and economic objectives — reflects this shift. Technology now sits at the centre of great power rivalry, as we see in the case of AI. The US uses its dominance in digital and financial networks to constrain China’s technological advance, while China can respond through its control over strategically important commodities and supply chains, including rare earths and soya beans. As economic coercion expands beyond adversaries to allies, both friends and rivals are seeking ways to reduce their dependence on US-controlled networks.
And yet the exercise of American power has rarely proved so unsuccessful as in Iran, Ukraine and Gaza. The US economy as a proportion of the global economy is far smaller than during the Cold War, and the world as a whole is far less centralised regarding military and economic power. For a decade it seemed that the mere threat of withdrawal of the African Growth & Opportunity Act (Agoa) privileges was enough to focus the attention of the South African government on no other possibility.
What can and should South Africa do to increase national resilience and capability? As the country is largely a price taker rather than a price maker it lacks full strategic autonomy. That does not mean it must simply capitulate, but that it must inventory its own sources of leverage that arise from the control over strategically important routes, resources, technologies or markets.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s 2026 Davos speech applies. His call for middle powers to build coalitions, alliances and broader movements offers a practical response to the risk of domination by stronger states. South Africa, with other middle powers, must treat geopolitics not as an external variable but as an integral part of economic policy. Pragmatism requires engagement with both superpowers without becoming subordinate to either.
Putting national interests first should involve three priorities:
Above all, the South African state should internalise the function of economic and strategic self-protection. There should be representation in the cabinet and key ministries of the function of economic self-defence. And we cannot simply rely on the tentative solidarity of the Brics countries to guard our economy from external ruin. We need to catalogue the elements of the global supply chain that fall in our borders, including rare earths, platinum (about 85% of global reserves), manganese (80% of reserves), chrome (72% of reserves), and military-grade vanadium, of which we are the primary supplier.
A forward-looking military and foreign policy team would take legal and other steps towards ensuring that these assets can be used, if necessary, to support national goals. The coastline itself and South Africa’s geographical position are assets at a time of turbulence in Middle Eastern seas and growth of Antarctic exploration.
These are the steps on the road to maintaining the “perfect balance under all circumstances” suggested by Confucian discourse. This, as in so many other ways, is no more than the basic prudence of statecraft.
• Cassim is a former special adviser to the finance minister, and Coovadia a professor in the University of Cape Town’s School of Languages & Literatures.

source