If the replacement of the G7 by the G20 as the major forum for discussion of international economic governance in 2008 had marked the acknowledgement of multipolarity in an economic sense, recent events have forced upon the US and the West a long overdue acknowledgement of geopolitical multipolarity.The Antalya G20 summit has been overshadowed by the 13 November carnage in Paris and the Vienna meeting of the International Syria Support Group the next day which announced a common if shaky framework to end the conflict in Syria. If the Antalya Summit was reported at all, it was mostly to note that the West had finally been forced to acknowledge that President Putin could no longer be treated as an “outcast” and had to be regarded as a “problem solver” in the Middle Eastern and specifically the Syrian situation. Major world leaders, including President Obama, sought to confer with him on the sidelines of the official meetings. Clearly, the Russian intervention in Syria, though it exacted a terrible price in the downing of the Metrojet airliner, is being vindicated.
