TK POOE | ‘Political creative destruction’ is reshaping the world and testing South Africa’s statecraft

Over the past three years I have used a phrase to describe both South Africa’s internal turmoil and the global moment we are living through: political creative destruction.

It refers to periods in which old political orders collapse faster than new ones can form. Institutions weaken, power shifts and new arrangements emerge unevenly and often violently. The recent US–Israel military strike against the Islamic Republic of Iran is not an anomaly. It is one of the clearest expressions of this transition.

For South Africa — and for the wider Global South — this is not a distant geopolitical drama. It marks a structural shift that will shape the international system for at least the next decade at precisely the moment when South Africa has struggled to articulate a coherent doctrine of statecraft or national interest.

Four major shifts now define the global environment.

First, the end of consensual American leadership. The US remains the most powerful military actor in the international system, but its influence is increasingly exercised through coercion — sanctions, targeted strikes and technological restrictions — rather than the normative leadership that once underpinned the so-called “rules-based order”.

Other powers such as China, India, Turkey and the Gulf states are no longer simply reacting to Washington; they are pursuing their own strategic agendas.

Second, economic fragmentation. Sanctions regimes, “friend-shoring”, alternative payment systems and de-risking strategies are slowly breaking the global economy into parallel circuits. For countries in the Global South this creates opportunity — more partners to work with — but also new risks, as economic interdependence becomes a geopolitical weapon.

For countries such as South Africa, alignment with the Global South can increase diplomatic leverage, but it cannot be treated as a security umbrella.

Third, polycrisis fatigue. Climate shocks, food insecurity, youth unemployment, migration pressures and institutional breakdown are no longer episodic disruptions; they are becoming the normal condition of politics. As a result, traditional political parties are losing legitimacy while new movements, populist leaders and unstable coalitions proliferate.

Fourth, contested technology and contested norms. Artificial intelligence, cyber warfare, drones and surveillance technologies are changing the balance of power between states. At the same time, the legal frameworks that once governed international behaviour — from sanctions to military intervention — are increasingly disputed.

Together these dynamics illustrate what political creative destruction looks like: the erosion of old orders followed by uncertain and often unstable attempts to build new ones.

From a Global South perspective, one of the most common analytical mistakes is to treat Donald Trump as the central disruption to international stability. The truth is less comforting. The US has a long history of interventionist foreign policy, from Cold War covert operations to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and military campaigns in Libya and Syria. The recent strike against Iranian leadership continues this pattern.

Three structural features underpin this behaviour: the growing freedom of the American presidency to use force without congressional approval, a persistent belief that foreign policy problems are essentially regime problems, and a pragmatic willingness to use multilateral institutions when convenient and bypass them when they are not.

Trump’s contribution is mainly stylistic. His transactional diplomacy and closer alignment with Israeli regional strategy accelerate existing tendencies rather than create new ones.

The Iran strike also reflects a deeper strategic reality that is often avoided in polite diplomatic conversation: the growing alignment between US power and an Israeli project of regional dominance. The dismantling of Iranian leadership structures and proxy networks across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq is not simply about containing Iran. It is about removing Iran as a competing centre of regional power and consolidating Israeli primacy in the Middle East.

If that is the trajectory, the strategic question becomes obvious: who might face pressure next? Turkey remains the most significant regional competitor to Israeli influence, while Qatar’s political support for Hamas and independent foreign policy have long irritated both Tel Aviv and Riyadh. Neither state faces an imminent military assault, but regional hegemony does not always require direct war. Economic pressure, diplomatic isolation and covert operations can reshape the strategic landscape just as effectively.

For the Global South, the lesson is sobering. The norms now being normalised — leadership decapitation, pre-emptive strikes and the bypassing of multilateral institutions — are unlikely to remain confined to the Middle East.

The Iran crisis has also exposed an uncomfortable truth about the Global South itself. Institutions such as Brics+ and the G77 provide valuable platforms for diplomatic co-ordination and economic cooperation. But they are not alliances. Unlike Nato or other Western security arrangements, they lack collective defence commitments and shared military structures. When Iran was attacked, the predictable result followed: statements of concern, calls for restraint and diplomatic criticism, but no material deterrent.

The real test for South Africa is therefore not what it says in New York, Brussels or Beijing. It is whether it can rebuild the foundations of statecraft at home and in its immediate neighbourhood.

This does not invalidate South-South co-operation. It simply clarifies its limits. For countries such as South Africa, alignment with the Global South can increase diplomatic leverage, but it cannot be treated as a security umbrella.

South Africa’s foreign policy has long relied on three assumptions: that the international system retains some rules-based coherence, that rhetorical positioning generates influence, and that time allows domestic problems to be managed gradually. All three assumptions are becoming increasingly fragile.

If the emerging global order is defined by selective enforcement of rules and expanding hegemonic projects, countries that rely primarily on moral positioning will find themselves marginalised. The real test for South Africa is therefore not what it says in New York, Brussels or Beijing. It is whether it can rebuild the foundations of statecraft at home and in its immediate neighbourhood.

That means restoring the capacity of core state institutions, stabilising the energy and logistics systems that underpin economic growth, and exercising far more decisive leadership within the Southern African region.

South Africa’s most important foreign policy audience today is not Washington or Beijing. It is Maputo, Harare, Kinshasa, Lusaka, Maseru and Gaborone — the neighbourhood where South Africa’s credibility as a regional power will either be rebuilt or quietly lost.

Political creative destruction is reshaping the world. The question is whether South Africa will adapt to that reality or continue pretending the old order still exists.

• TK Pooe is an associate professor at the African School of Governance (Kigali). He writes in his personal capacity.