G20 J'Burg, a beta test for 'US plus one'

The world without the US is ridiculous. As the largest economy and one of the richest, not to mention home to still the most effective military-industrial-technological complex, an America-less global view - cataract and all - would be seeing the world with the lights switched off. Yet, the 2-day G20 summit that concluded on Sunday in Johannesburg presented a rare view of just that: a global pow-wow sans the Big Guy. Trump's boycott - citing since-discredited charges of 'genocide' of White South Africans - was in keeping with the Mar-a-Lago regime's tactic of pulling out of anything that doesn't follow its script. But South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, along with others including Modi, Macron, Lula, Meloni and Merz, seemed to treat it as a beta test for 'US Plus One' multilateralism.

Such a scenario may well recur, so might as well get used to it. G20 minus 1 successfully adopted a declaration that stressed on better adaptation to climate change, pushing gender equality, and fighting against terrorism of all hues, an agenda Modi pushed with aplomb. The Trump regime has opposed or been iffy on these issues it perceives as 'America Last'. So, US presence would have just created headlines, without any semblance of international engagement.

The US' blanket boycott marks a 'post-rattled' trajectory for its allies. While Macron did warn that the absence of about one-third of full leadership participation (China and Russia sent representatives) posed a serious risk to G20's future relevance, J'Burg can be treated as a thought experiment for multilateral geo-politicking. The way Austrian physicist used the term 'Gedankenexperiment': imaginary conduct of a real experiment that could, one day, be performed as a real physical experiment.