UK, EU, and Nato - all in need of a 'new world order'?

TheGuardian: Nation state boundaries less and less relevant

• All conflicts are connected
• Federalism not necessarily a dirty word

More than 50 years ago, Henry Kissinger, America's best known political scientist, hugely controversial diplomat and national security adviser, wrote his first book.

A World Restored is a study, a celebration really, of how Count Metternich, the Austrian chancellor, brilliantly managed the international order, balancing power through a maze of alliances, in the early nineteenth century.

Kissinger was also a keen student of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia which established principles of international order based on sovereign states (and empires) following the Thirty Years War.

Two years ago, Kissinger warned of the consequences of the Arab Spring and humanitarian intervention in a state's internal affairs.

"In reacting to one human tragedy, we must be careful not to facilitate another", he warned readers of the Washington Post. "In the absence of a clearly articulated strategic concept, a world order that erodes borders and merges international and civil wars can never catch its breath."

Later this week, Kissinger publishes his latest work, World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History (Allen Lane). He compares the Middle East today with Europe's 17th century wars of religion.

"Domestic and international conflicts reinforce each other. Political, sectarian, tribal, territorial, ideological, and traditional national-interest disputes merge", he wrote in an extract for the Sunday Times.

If order cannot be established, "vast areas risk being opened to anarchy and to forms of extremism that will spread organically into other regions." The world, says Kissinger, awaits "the distillation of a new regional order by America and other countries in a position to take a global view".

This is a good moment to consider Kissinger's concerns, whatever one thinks of his own past interventions, in Cambodia for example, his own particular view of the world.

This week's Nato summit in Newport in South Wales takes place against the background of the crisis in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has called for "statehood" for the east of the country - though his advisers said he realy meant some kind of federal constitution for Ukraine.

The boundary between Syria and Iraq, drawn in the sand by Britain and France 98 years ago, is disappearing. In Syria, control over territory is fractured as rebel groups fight each other as well as Syrian government forces.

In Iraq, it is determined by members of different religious or ethnic group - Sunni or Shia, or Kurd.

Jihadists from Europe and elsewhere are crossing the Turkish frontier into Syria where the Assad government is supported by Russia and Shia Iran. Extreme and violent Islamist groups are crossing borders in east, northern, and west Africa.

The Israeli government, meanwhile, has laid claim to nearly 1000 acres of land - said to be the largest appropriation of Palestinian land in 30 years - in the occupied West Bank near Bethlehem.

David Cameron used tough language on Monday in the House of Commons described the Israeli move as "utterly deplorable" before announcing new anti-terror measures and proposals designed to stop potential British jihadists from leaving the UK, or returning home.

Cameron's pitch was rather less shrill on terrorism than his earlier rhetoric after the propaganda video apparently showing a Briton killing the American journalist, James Foley (He was clearly terrified about Washington's response).

But listening to advice from his more sober officials, including government lawyers, and after warnings from Liberal Democrats (and former senior MI6 officers) Cameron toughed about the need to introduce "tough" measures but also a "patient" approach.

Cameron spoke of specific and targeted measures, and discretionary powers. It all depends, of course, on how they are used, notably by the police.

It is curious, that at the time of globalisation- whether it is jihadism, the movement of labour, financial markets, trade, social media, music, fashion – and when close international cooperation is essential in the battle against terrorism and the causes of terrorism (as Cameron himself admits) that an apparently growing number of people in Scotland want to become "independent", and an apparently growing number of people in England – UKIP supporters – want to leave the EU.

Even a "two-state" solution for Israel and Palestine would not be quite what it may suggest, given the porous borders and almost certain Israeli control over Palestinian airspace.

Old national borders are becoming increasingly irrelevant. The concept of national sovereignty is eroding all the time. Even Putin must appreciate that.

The question is how to respond to the challenge posed by Kissinger, and others, and counter nationalists who want to erect new borders and internationalists who want to break them down, not to promote cooperation but to impose their own sectarian and violent creeds.

A "new regional order" could be based not on erecting new national state structures but on a new kind of federalism - federalism in Ukraine, in Scotland, Spain (where it is already rooted) and elsewhere.

Federalism need not be a dirty word if it is democratic and comes from the bottom up – something Brussels above all would need to understand.