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Posts Tagged ‘multipolar’

A Multipolar World Order

Posted by M. C. on February 27, 2024

by Nick Giambruno

Instead, Russia, China, and their allies want to transform the current world order from unipolar to multipolar and give themselves a bigger seat at the table in the process.

The US and its allies want the unipolar status quo to prevail.

This is World War 3. It’s happening right now and rapidly escalating.

In fact, World War 3 has been going on for over ten years.

A Multipolar World Order

Russia, China, and Iran are the primary geopolitical challengers to the US-led world order.

While they resent US dominance, Russia and China have a seat at the table in the current US-led world order as junior members. They have permanent seats at the UN Security Council and are members of core international organizations like the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, etc.

Further, China and Russia are the only countries with sophisticated enough nuclear arsenals to go toe-to-toe with the US up to the top of the military escalation ladder, a concept to describe how the severity of a military conflict can increase.

In other words, the US military can’t attack Russia and China with impunity because they can match each move up to all-out nuclear war—the very top of the military escalation ladder.

For this reason, Russia, China, and the US are deterred from entering a direct military conflict with each other. They all understand that “The only winning move is not to play.”

That’s also why, at this point, it doesn’t seem that Russia and China want to flip the board and create their own new world order—as Germany and Japan tried to do during World War 2. Doing so could invite nuclear Armageddon.

Instead, Russia, China, and their allies want to transform the current world order from unipolar to multipolar and give themselves a bigger seat at the table in the process.

The US and its allies want the unipolar status quo to prevail.

The conflict is being played out below the threshold of direct kinetic warfare—proxy wars, economic wars, financial wars, cyber wars, biological wars, deniable sabotage, information wars, and other domains.

This is World War 3. It’s happening right now and rapidly escalating.

In fact, World War 3 has been going on for over ten years.

While World War 3 doesn’t have a precise starting date, we can point to two key events in 2013 and 2014 that signified a conflict had started among Russia, China, and the US—the largest world powers—to reshape the world order.

The first was the rise to power of Xi Jinping in March 2013, after which it was clear that China was no longer content with being a mere junior member in the US-led world order. Beijing wanted a bigger role commensurate with its size. That means, at a minimum, being equal to the US or even becoming the world’s dominant power.

The second was the US-backed coup in Kiev in February 2014, which culminated in the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s corrupt pro-Russia government, which a corrupt pro-US government replaced.

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Two Years On… Ukraine Conflict a Historic Watershed Exposing Western Imperialism’s Dead-End

Posted by M. C. on February 27, 2024

The emerging multipolar world order led by Russia, China, and the Global South is pushing the old Western arrogant order into historical oblivion

The upshot is that Ukraine has been callously devastated by the United States and its imperialist partners in a proxy war against Russia – a war that the Western powers have all but lost.

But this epoch-making conflict has significance way beyond the disaster of Ukraine.

Two Years On… Ukraine Conflict a Historic Watershed Exposing Western Imperialism’s Dead-End

This week marks the second anniversary of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022. President Vladimir Putin ordered the intervention of Russian forces for two reasons: to protect the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass region which had endured eight years of NATO-backed aggression; and, secondly, to denazify the regime that the Western powers had illegally installed with a coup d’état in Kiev in 2014. The tenth anniversary of that coup on February 22 was also marked this week.

Two years on, the first objective has been substantially achieved. Russian forces control most of the Donbass region, as well as Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea. These regions are now legally part of the Russian Federation following historic referenda. In sum, Ukraine has lost about 20 percent of its pre-conflict territory to Russia. The concerned populations contend that they have rejoined Mother Russia.

The military victory last week for Russian forces in the key city of Avdeevka portends the imminent full taking of the Donbass along its historic provincial lines. That breakthrough also speaks of the near collapse of the Kiev regime forces. Two years on, the cities and towns of Donetsk and Lugansk have been rebuilt after suffering the vandalism and war crimes of the Kiev regime. The NATO-backed regime still attacks communities but the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine are appreciably safer and better off than they were two years ago.

As for the second objective, the denazification of the Kiev regime has still not yet been achieved. However, the regime is but a shell of its former incarnation when with the help of NATO weapons and military advisers it was waging a brutal aggression against ethnic Russian communities.

Moscow has stated that it will continue its military operation in Ukraine until the neo-nazi regime is eliminated. There seems to be little doubt that that objective will be met given the superior firepower on the Russian side and the rapidly deteriorating condition of the NATO-backed forces.

The Russian achievement is quite remarkable given that the U.S.-led NATO bloc (30 nations) has flooded Ukraine with a vast array of heavy weapons. The United States and its European allies have spent – wasted – up to $200 billion in supporting the Kiev regime over the past two years. Despite the inordinate flow of weaponry and mercenaries, Russia has secured the territory it set out to obtain, and the NATO-backed side is facing collapse.

The course of the war is on Russia’s side. From the outset, Moscow said it had no intention to occupy all of Ukraine. But the collapse of the regime in a rump state is no doubt something that Russia wants, and the betting odds point to that eventuality as the cabal in Kiev descends into corruption, backstabbing, and infighting.

But, importantly, the military situation in Ukraine is only part of a much bigger picture of global confrontation and one that speaks to an existential crisis for Western imperialism.

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In a World Fraught With War and Danger… Signs of Hope

Posted by M. C. on January 8, 2024

In a World Fraught With War and Danger… Signs of Hope

The emergence of a multipolar world is a reminder that the world has a lot to be optimistic about – despite the ravages of conflict and manifold perilous tensions.

Russia and China’s strength to face down U.S. aggression is one such assurance of a better world taking shape.

Out with the old and in with the new. There is an unerring sense that we are witnessing not merely one year giving way to the next.

The world is undergoing truly historic changes that are related to the inexorable decline of the U.S.-led Western order and the emergence of a multipolar global order.

The United States is still undoubtedly a global power with hegemonic ambitions. Its possession of hundreds of military bases in over 100 countries around the world is a testimony to its formidable military strength.

Nevertheless, the Washington-dominated Western order – or so-called “rules-based order” – is in fateful decline. The emergence of a multipolar alternative order is illustrated by numerous fora, the BRICS with its growing membership, the increasing influence of the G20, and the dynamism of the Eurasian economies. All these developments bear witness to the demise of the Western order.

The substantial move away from the U.S. dollar as the premier currency of trade is perhaps the most consequential manifestation of the global shifts in power.

Empires rarely expire quietly as millennia of history show. There is always a hard-bitten struggle to maintain privileges and monopoly control. The fading of the U.S. is no different. The empire is going down screaming and kicking.

This would account for the mainspring of tensions and conflict in today’s world. The proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, the eruption of genocidal violence in the Middle East and the incendiary tensions in the Asia-Pacific with China are all related to the U.S. loss of imperial power.

Given the appalling violence and danger of these conflicts escalating into a conflagration, we nevertheless conclude the year with hopeful realism.

Russia, China, and many other nations are steadfastly refusing to capitulate to U.S. aggression.

The American empire is cornered by its own corruption and internal crisis. There was a time in history when Western powers could shoot their way out of trouble by starting wars overseas under all sorts of false pretences.

Those days are over. The U.S. and its Western partners are bankrupt in every way, financially, morally and politically. The world can see that as clear as the fable of the naked emperor.

Russia, China and other nations that aspire for a new, fairer world based on respect for international law and the founding principles of the United Nations are not going to pander to the geopolitical blackmail of the U.S. and its dying Western empire.

Despite the grim circumstances existing in parts, the world has much to look forward to in terms of achieving international cooperation, development and peace. Signs of hope are all around us.

When an empire goes down there is much grinding and gnashing. But it goes down and the world goes on.

Happy New Year to all our readers.

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The G7 in Hiroshima: The Latest Attempt to Impose a Unipolar World | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on June 19, 2023

As was already proposed through the Mises Institute, libertarians should support the multipolar world against the unipolar world. Yet rejecting US economic and legal imperialism does not, of course, signify supporting the Chinese political system. On the contrary, libertarians see that illiberal practices already in existence in China have been, or are about to be, implemented in the West, such as mandatory confinements, intelligence agencies’ control of social media, the introduction of a universal digital pass, and the use of facial recognition technologies by the authorities.

https://mises.org/wire/g7-hiroshima-latest-attempt-impose-unipolar-world

Finn Andreen

The last Group of Seven (G7) summit that took place May 19–21, 2023, in Hiroshima deserves attention because it exposes the latest Western attempt to impose its unipolar worldview. But first, a bit of background on the G7.

The G7 is the group of seven nations (USA, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and the United Kingdom) that in the ’70s comprised the major industrialized countries of the capitalist world. But because of the enrichment of a large part of the world’s population and the economic stagnation of many Western nations, the situation has changed dramatically. The G7’s share of the world gross domestic product has gone from 70 percent to only 27 percent, contributing just 15 percent of overall growth in 2012–21. Moreover, they now account for only 10 percent of the world’s population.

By comparison, the five “BRICS” nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) now contribute almost 31.5 percent of world gross domestic product and account for a significant share of global growth as well as 42 percent of the world’s population.

Moreover, these differences between the G7 and the BRICS will only become starker. Most G7 members are teetering on the brink of economic recession, self-inflicted by years of irresponsible monetary policy and price inflation (a result of artificially low interest rates and a voluntary increase of energy prices).

The G7 nations therefore no longer convene, in reality, as major industrial powers but rather as ideological and geostrategic allies. This becomes obvious in view of the agenda of the Hiroshima summit, aimed at giving the rest of the world the Western position to adopt on virtually every subject from security to climate change.

The G7 against Russia

With regard to the Ukrainian conflict, the G7 was an opportunity for President Joe Biden to announce the training of Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s, although this training has probably already started. This announcement is not only an exercise in political communication to confirm continued US support, but it is also a worrying Western escalation of the conflict, which increasingly resembles a North Atlantic Treaty Organization proxy war against Russia.

It is not the likely delivery of F-16s itself that is worrying because a few dozen or so old fighter jets will have no impact on the conflict, as has been confirmed by both the Pentagon and the Kremlin. What is concerning about this decision is the determination of the G7 leaders to continue to support this conflict, rejecting negotiations. This attitude reflects a long-standing geopolitical goal as well as an ideological obsession to weaken Russia, as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin put it. The costs of this senseless policy are being borne by the Ukrainian people through their loss of life and the destruction of their country as well as by all Westerners in the form of long-term decline.

Given the turn of the war in Ukraine, with the Ukrainian army in ever more dire straits as its recent defeat in the city of Bakhmut confirms, Western leaders are trying to pressure China, insistently but vainly, to use its influence with Moscow to prevent the conflict from ending in debacle for the West.

The G7 versus China

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Gee, Thanks America! U.S. Sanctions Make Russian Economy Stronger and Precipitate Multipolar World

Posted by M. C. on June 19, 2023

As with many other empires in the annals of history that have collapsed, arrogance and hubris often precede the fall. The American and Western elite thought they had an eternal license to wreak havoc for their own selfish gain. Their economic plunder and weaponry are now turning on their own heads. And it’s long overdue.

https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/06/16/gee-thanks-america-us-sanctions-make-russian-economy-stronger-and-precipitate-multipolar-world/

The paradoxical thing is that U.S. and European sanctions against Russia while intended to cripple the Russian economy have made the stronger.

Russia’s economy is performing strongly, according to recent forecasts from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The outcome defies earlier predictions by the United States and its European allies which held that Western sanctions would bring the Russian economy to its knees and force it to submissively “Cry Uncle”.

When the conflict in Ukraine escalated 16 months ago (after eight years of NATO-sponsored aggression using the Kiev Neo-Nazi regime), various Western politicians and pundits were relishing the prospect of the Russian economy collapsing from “Total War” launched against its international banking and trade.

Well, it didn’t turn out like that. Far from it. As the World Bank noted above, the Western sanctions have simply helped Russia boost alternative markets in China, India, and elsewhere around the globe. A principal earner for Russia is energy exports of oil and gas. Increased sales to Asia have maintained revenues despite the loss of European markets due to Western sanctions.

The paradoxical thing is that U.S. and European sanctions against Russia while intended to cripple the Russian economy have actually made the latter stronger.

Michael Hudson, an American global economics analyst, points out: “The sanctions have obliged Russia to become self-sufficient in food production, manufacturing production and consumer goods.”

Hudson also notes that the U.S. geopolitical strategy is to use sanctions in order to make its supposed European allies more dependent and subservient to Washington.

Another respected commentator, Glenn Diesen, a Norwegian geoeconomics professor, likened the use of Western sanctions to the self-destructive behavior of “self-harm”. The United States and European Union, he says, have “handed over a huge market to the rest of the world”.

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Vladimir Putin’s Vision of a Multipolar World

Posted by M. C. on December 1, 2022

An end to US hegemony?

https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/vladimir-putins-vision-of-a-multipolar-world/?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=pgiraldi

PHILIP GIRALDI

In history books as well as in politics every story is shaped by where one chooses to begin the tale. The current fighting in Ukraine, which many observers believe to already be what might be considered the opening phase of World War 3, is just such a development. Did the seeds of conflict arise subsequent to Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s consent to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 after having received a commitment from the United States and its allies not to advance the West’s military alliance NATO into Eastern Europe? That was a pledge that was quickly ignored by President Bill Clinton, who intervened militarily in the former Yugoslavia before adding new NATO members from amidst the ruins of the Warsaw Pact.

Since that time NATO has continued its expansion at the expense of Russian national security interests. Ukraine, as one of the largest of the former Soviet republics, soon became the focal point for potential conflict. The US interfered openly in Ukrainian politics, featuring frequent visits by relentlessly hawkish Senator John McCain and State Department monster Victoria Nuland as well as the investment of a reported $5 billion to destabilize the situation, bringing about regime change to remove the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovich and replace it with a regime friendly to America and its European allies. When this occurred it inevitably led to a proposed invitation to Ukraine to join NATO, a move which Moscow repeatedly warned would constitute an existential threat to Russia itself.

Finally, Moscow tried assiduously to negotiate a solution to the developing Ukraine crisis in 2020-2021 but the US and its allies were not interested, allowing the corrupt Ukrainian government of Volodymyr Zelensky to refuse any accommodation. So Russia itself has perceived that it has been misled or even lied to repeatedly by the US and its allies. It has been particularly vexed by the looting of its natural resources by mostly Western oligarchs operating under protection afforded by the feckless President Boris Yeltsin between 1991 and 1999, a puppet installed and sustained through US and European interference in the Russian elections. Just when Russia was on its knees, perhaps intentionally, there arrived on the scene in 1999 former KGB officer Vladimir Putin who, as Prime Minister and later president, proceeded to clean house. Ever since that time, Putin has very carefully explained himself and what he has been doing, making clear that he is no enemy of the West but rather a partner in a relationship that respects the interests and cultures of all players in a global economy that maximizes freedom and individuality.

Given the danger of dramatic escalation of the current situation in Ukraine, with talk coming from both sides about the conditions for the use of nuclear weapons, an October 27th speech made by President Vladimir Putin at the 19th meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, held near Moscow, should be required reading for the Joe Bidens and Jens Stoltenbergs of this world. The theme of the meeting was A Post-Hegemonic World: Justice and Security for Everyone. The four day-long session included 111 academics, politicians, diplomats and economists from Russia and 40 foreign countries, including Afghanistan, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Turkey, Uzbekistan and the United States. In his speech, Putin laid out his vision of a multipolar world in which there is no concept of a politically hegemonic “rules based world order” which substitutes “rules for international law.” And, he observed, the rules have themselves been regularly dictated by one country or group of countries. Putin instead urged a transition into a willingness to accept that all countries have interests and rights that should be respected.

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‘Samarkand Spirit’ to Be Driven by ‘Responsible Powers’ Russia and China

Posted by M. C. on September 19, 2022

The SCO summit of Asian power players delineated a road map for strengthening the multipolar world

By Pepe Escobar
The Cradle

Arguably the biggest takeaway of this week’s Samarkand summit is that Chinese President Xi Jinping presented China and Russia, together, as “responsible global powers” bent on securing the emergence of multipolarity, and refusing the arbitrary “order” imposed by the United States and its unipolar worldview.

https://thecradle.co/Article/Columns/15771

Amidst serious tremors in the world of geopolitics, it is so fitting that this year’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) heads of state summit should have taken place in Samarkand – the ultimate Silk Road crossroads for 2,500 years.

When in 329 BC Alexander the Great reached the then Sogdian city of Marakanda, part of the Achaemenid empire, he was stunned: “Everything I have heard about Samarkand it’s true, except it is even more beautiful than I had imagined.”

Fast forward to an Op-Ed by Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev published ahead of the SCO summit, where he stresses how Samarkand now “can become a platform that is able to unite and reconcile states with various foreign policy priorities.”

After all, historically, the world from the point of view of the Silk Road landmark has always been “perceived as one and indivisible, not divided. This is the essence of a unique phenomenon – the ‘Samarkand spirit’.”

And here Mirziyoyev ties the “Samarkand Spirit” to the original SCO “Shanghai Spirit” established in early 2001, a few months before the events of September 11, when the world was forced into strife and endless war, almost overnight.

All these years, the culture of the SCO has been evolving in a distinctive Chinese way. Initially, the Shanghai Five were focused on fighting terrorism – months before the US war of terror (italics mine) metastasized from Afghanistan to Iraq and beyond.

Over the years, the initial “three no’s” – no alliance, no confrontation, no targeting any third party – ended up equipping a fast, hybrid vehicle whose ‘four wheels’ are ‘politics, security, economy, and humanities,’ complete with a Global Development Initiative, all of which contrast sharply with the priorities of a hegemonic, confrontational west.

Arguably the biggest takeaway of this week’s Samarkand summit is that Chinese President Xi Jinping presented China and Russia, together, as “responsible global powers” bent on securing the emergence of multipolarity, and refusing the arbitrary “order” imposed by the United States and its unipolar worldview.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pronounced Xi’s bilateral conversation with President Vladimir Putin as “excellent.” Xi Jinping, previous to their meeting, and addressing Putin directly, had already stressed the common Russia-China objectives:

“In the face of the colossal changes of our time on a global scale, unprecedented in history, we are ready with our Russian colleagues to set an example of a responsible world power and play a leading role in order to put such a rapidly changing world on the trajectory of sustainable and positive development.”

Later, in the preamble to the heads of state meeting, Xi went straight to the point: it is important to “prevent attempts by external forces to organize ‘color revolutions’ in the SCO countries.” Well, Europe wouldn’t be able to tell, because it has been color-revolutionized non-stop since 1945.

Putin, for his part, sent a message that will be ringing all across the Global South: “Fundamental transformations have been outlined in world politics and economics, and they are irreversible.” (italics mine)

Iran: it’s showtime

Iran was the guest star of the Samarkand show, officially embraced as the 9th member of the SCO. President Ebrahim Raisi, significantly, stressed before meeting Putin that “Iran does not recognize sanctions against Russia.” Their strategic partnership will be enhanced. On the business front, a hefty delegation comprising leaders of 80 large Russian companies will be visiting Tehran next week.

The increasing Russia-China-Iran interpolation – the three top drivers of Eurasia integration – scares the hell out of the usual suspects, who may be starting to grasp how the SCO represents, in the long run, a serious challenge to their geoeconomic game. So, as every grain of sand in every Heartland desert is already aware, the geopolitical pressure against the trio will increase exponentially.

And then there was the mega-crucial Samarkand trilateral: Russia-China-Mongolia. There were no official leaks, but this trio arguably discussed the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline – the interconnector to be built across Mongolia; and Mongolia’s enhanced role in a crucial Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) connectivity corridor, now that China is not using the Trans-Siberian route for exports to Europe because of sanctions.

Putin briefed Xi on all aspects of Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, and arguably answered some really tough questions, many of them circulating wildly on the Chinese web for months now.

Which brings us to Putin’s presser at the end of the summit – with virtually all questions predictably revolving around the military theater in Ukraine.

The key takeaway from the Russian president: “There are no changes on the SMO plan. The main tasks are being implemented.” On peace prospects, it is Ukraine that “is not ready to talk to Russia.” And overall, “it is regrettable that the west had the idea to use Ukraine to try to collapse Russia.”

On the fertilizer soap opera, Putin remarked, “food supply, energy supply, they (the west) created these problems, and now are trying to resolve them at the expense of someone else” – meaning the poorest nations. “European countries are former colonial powers and they still have this paradigm of colonial philosophy. The time has come to change their behavior, to become more civilized.”

On his meeting with Xi Jinping: “It was just a regular meeting, it’s been quite some time we haven’t had a meeting face to face.” They talked about how to “expand trade turnover” and circumvent the “trade wars caused by our so-called partners,” with “expansion of settlements in national currencies not progressing as fast as we want.”

Strenghtening multipolarity

Putin’s bilateral with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi could not have been more cordial – on a “very special friendship” register – with Modi calling for serious solutions to the food and fuel crises, actually addressing the west. Meanwhile, the State Bank of India will be opening special rupee accounts to handle Russia-related trade.

This is Xi’s first foreign trip since the Covid pandemic. He could do it because he’s totally confident of being awarded a third term during the Communist Party Congress next month in Beijing. Xi now controls and/or has allies placed in at least 90 percent of the Politburo.

The other serious reason was to recharge the appeal of BRI in close connection to the SCO. China’s ambitious BRI project was officially launched by Xi in Astana (now Nur-Sultan) nine years ago. It will remain the overarching Chinese foreign policy concept for decades ahead.

BRI’s emphasis on trade and connectivity ties in with the SCO’s evolving multilateral cooperation mechanisms, congregating nations focusing on economic development independent from the hazy, hegemonic “rules-based order.” Even India under Modi is having second thoughts about relying on western blocs, where New Delhi is at best a neo-colonized “partner.”

So Xi and Putin, in Samarkand, for all practical purposes delineated a road map for strengthening multipolarity – as stressed by the final  Samarkand declaration  signed by all SCO members.

The Kazakh puzzle 

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