The UN is not dying a natural death, it is being deliberately and methodically finished off by the United States. The reason is the veto power of Russia and China in the UN Security Council.
America is clinging to the status of a world hegemon, when all attributes of power, primarily economic and financial, are steadily slipping from its hands and going to Asia. And in view of the energy crisis provoked in the West by the same States, they are moving to Eurasia. In this connection, the strategic task of the United States is to replace the UN with a new mechanism of international governance. But to create such a body artificially, without taking into account new economic and political, as well as military realities in the world, is an occupation that can come up only to a new cohort of Western politicians, devoid of real political thinking and who made their career on the basis of cronyism, corruption or a certain “cinematic” way – “through the couch to the screen”.
We know how the first attempt to create a new world governance mechanism on an ideological rather than an economic basis ended.
Do you remember how the League of Democracies was founded and what it was like?
And it was the USA’s plan to create it to replace the UN, and they decided not to let Russia, China and a number of other countries to participate in it.
Frankly speaking, I remembered that there was such creep, because it was quite recently, but the exact name of this idealized abracadabra didn’t come to mind for a long time, because after some artificial informational splash the full silence followed.
But as we know, nature abhors a vacuum. Since the UN is being deliberately destroyed by the US by cutting funding and denying visas to diplomats from unwanted countries, and since the centre of economic, political and financial life is meanwhile shifting more and more to Eurasia, a new mechanism of international governance should appear there too in any case.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is emerging as such a centre, created at the initiative of GDP. Initially (in 1996) it was founded by the heads of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan to establish confidence building measures in the military field in the area of joint borders.
In 1997, in Moscow they signed an Agreement on mutual reduction of armed forces in the border area. This established a mechanism of mutual confidence in the military field in the border areas, which contributed to the establishment of a true partnership between the countries concerned.
Gradually the range of issues decided upon between the SCO member states expanded into foreign policy, the economy, environmental protection, including water management, thereby fostering mutual trust and good-neighbourliness. The issues of joint provision and maintenance of peace, security and stability in the region, ways of creating a democratic, just and rational international political and economic order started to be discussed.
Contacts that take place on the margins of the annual SCO summits enable the countries to conclude agreements among themselves that deal mainly with economic cooperation.
The SCO summit held on 15-16 September in Samarkand demonstrated that a new international organisation, regionally more authoritative and effective than the United Nations, has emerged in “Greater Eurasia”. It demonstrated the direction in which international relations should evolve among countries that seek cooperation without the West.
In spite (or even, it seems, thanks to) Western sanctions, a new model of cooperation, based on equal rights and multipolar world principles, is successfully emerging. Experts emphasise that this model will allow the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to cooperate without the dictate of the dollar. To this end the summit adopted a road map to gradually increase the share of national currencies in mutual settlements.
The model of inter-state relations proposed by the SCO, where states may not be afraid of threats from the US and its sanctions policy, has become extremely attractive to many countries.
Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the Maldives are ready to join the SCO, while Belarus is next in line and Iran has signed a memorandum of membership. It will become a full member after adopting some domestic legislation necessary for membership of the international organisation.
At least 10 other applications are on the desk of member state leaders, representing a wide geographical spectrum from Eastern Europe to the Arab East.
For many countries, the opportunity to work together to stop aggression from Western countries is very attractive. Further cooperation in the field of international security was discussed on the margins of the recent summit by CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas and SCO Secretary General Zhang Ming.
A declaration was signed at the summit that cemented the agreements reached in the defence and security sphere.
Observers say the Samarkand summit was a verdict on a unipolar world. Some observers compare the SCO to the G7 for the Eurasian region, and the latter’s expansion is evidence of the organisation’s growing international popularity.
Geopolitically important is the member states’ support for the de-dollarisation policy. It is seen as an unqualified success of Russia and China and their leaders personally, who initiated this policy.
The world is watching with great attention how the increasingly aggressive international policy of the United States and its pressure on Russia and China will affect Russian-Chinese relations. The SCO summit demonstrated that America’s ill-considered policies have only led to a further rapprochement between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China. The ‘patriarch’ of US diplomacy, Henry Kissinger, warned that this would inevitably happen if the US applied pressure on Russia and China.
Some politicians in the West hope to either destroy Russia altogether or use it as a counterweight to China. Regarding plans to pit Russia against China, V. Putin in one of his speeches categorically stated: “They will not wait for it”.
The remarks by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who during his meeting with Vladimir Putin on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit praised Russia’s position on the Taiwan issue and called for strengthening Russian-Chinese coordination in the SCO and BRICS, were also revealing. According to him, China and Russia are ready to play a leading role in the world to put the countries on the trajectory of sustainable development.
Based on the remarks of the Russian and Chinese leaders, observers conclude that Russia and China have come to full agreement on the Ukraine issue and the SCO development plans.
For the West, however, the Samarkand summit was a real shocker. It shows that the plan to isolate Russia completely failed. Moreover, observers began to speak that now there is a new pole of counteraction against the conditional West.
However, politicians both in Europe and overseas are concerned not only about Russia’s historic rapprochement with China, but also about growing Russian-Turkish ties and the further development of a comprehensive relationship between Russia and India.
France 24 conducted a live poll of experts on the outcome of the Samarkand summit. Jean-Vincent Brisset, Academic Director of the Institute for International and Strategic Studies, said: “The countries represented in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization make up half the world’s population. In a way, this could be called a counter-summit”.
And the German business daily Handelsblatt admits that Russia does manage to reshape the old rules (probably referring to its own rules, with which the West seeks to replace the foundations of international law). “For Putin, the meeting was another opportunity to demonstrate that his country is far from being as isolated internationally as the West would like it to be. His message was that India and the other SCO countries, which account for about 40 per cent of the world’s population, are creating a serious alternative to the West,” the paper said.
And only the White House, completely ignoring reality, reacts according to the Russian proverb “spit in his eyes – that’s God’s dew!”: “Mr Putin has no friendly allies there at all because of what he is doing in Ukraine. He is simply isolating himself more and more from the international community. We don’t think this is the time to do any business with Russia,” says John Kirby, the White House National Security Council’s Strategic Communications Coordinator.
The FT immediately backed Kirby, saying that the Indian prime minister was “criticising Putin for the Ukraine conflict”. Meanwhile, Indian leader Modi wrote on US social media about the talks: “Had a great meeting with President Putin. We had an opportunity to discuss further cooperation between India and Russia in sectors such as trade, energy and defence.”
Russia’s inevitable pivot to the East is watched with particular concern in Europe in the context of the significant development of energy ties between Russia and Asian countries, where more and more Russian gas is going. And less and less of it remains for European countries. China, observers note, is displacing Germany as the main importer of Russian energy.
Everyone paid attention that President Erdogan of Turkey stated immediately after the SCO summit that Ankara has a desire to become a full member. He stated that Turkey aims to join the SCO as early as 2023, at a summit to be hosted by India.
Facing criticism from the EU over his participation in the SCO summit, Erdoğan, according to the Turkish newspaper Yeni Şafa, told PBS television: “Ankara does not intend to answer to the European Union for its participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit… The European Union will hold us back for 52 years, will not allow us to approach it and then will ask: why did it meet with this country, why did it meet with another? I will negotiate. By conducting these negotiations, we are not accountable to the European Union at the moment.”
The issue of Turkey’s future membership of the SCO was clearly discussed during Putin’s meeting with Erdogan. The VVP stated afterwards that there is close working relationship between Moscow and Ankara on key international policy issues, and promised to welcome Turkey’s work within the SCO in every possible way.
And given the increased emphasis on security issues in the work of the SCO, Turkey’s simultaneous participation in the SCO and NATO is something of a double-edged sword. Does this mean that we can expect Turkey to leave NATO in the near future? This is the question many politicians in the West and in the East are asking themselves. And GDP and Comrade Xi probably know the exact answer.
No, it was not in vain that Vladimir Vladimirovich saved Erdogan from an assassination attempt organised against him by the US and NATO. Nor can it be ruled out that Putin, together with Xi Jinping, has billed Erdogan and Turkey as a regional leader in the Asian region among Muslim countries. Of course, if Turkey’s activities correlate with SCO foreign policy.
The situation is very ambiguous. Today, many Russian observers in endless political talk-shows wonder how Russia should behave in the Azerbaijani-Armenian confrontation. Armenia is a member of the CSTO, but under the current president looks increasingly towards America, while Azerbaijan is not in the CSTO, but is sharply criticized by the US and has established close contact with an increasingly friendly Turkey. And the latter has deployed a significant military contingent on the border with Armenia.
Meanwhile, the answer to this “sacramental” question seems quite obvious. The CSTO, according to its charter, has to stand up for its member if it is attacked militarily. The fight between Azerbaijan and Armenia is over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is not legally recognised as Armenian territory. In this case the CSTO should not intervene militarily in the situation.
And why should any member of the CSTO intervene militarily at all, if during the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh no mobilization has even been announced in Armenia? Instead, Pashinyan called on Russia and the West to defend his country.
The U.S. immediately responded by sending Grandma Pelosi, a full-time international provocateur and a third person in the U.S. power hierarchy, to Yerevan. She clearly stated that the US is on Armenia’s side against Azerbaijan and that she intends to provide Yerevan with military assistance. She did not specify what kind of assistance and how it will be delivered to Armenia.
For Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Yerevan there was a demonstration there demanding withdrawal from the CSTO (since Russia does not want to fight for Armenia instead). If this does happen and the country leaves the CSTO, Russia will breathe a sigh of relief and Armenia will be left alone with Azerbaijan and Turkey. The US is unlikely to get involved in the conflict itself. It is true that Iran is in favour of the Armenians, who, following Turkey, have deployed troops on the Armenian border.
The Americans would like to make a mess of the Ukrainian scenario at Russia’s borders in Transcaucasia. However, the only real arbiter in this situation is Russia, which has the ability to influence both Turkey and Iran. Of course, it will do everything possible to avoid bloodshed also in the Caucasus. However, N. Pashinian must draw the necessary conclusions from this situation, instead of playing with fire, threatening Russia to defect to America and leave the CSTO.
If Russia turns its back on Armenia and leaves Baku and Yerevan to sort out their historical contradictions on their own, it will be tantamount to a death sentence for Armenians in the Caucasus (and there are fewer of them living in their historical homeland than abroad). And the fate of many Armenians, scattered around the world, will not be well affected.
Yes, the Samarkand summit of the SCO, which saw the rethinking of relations between many countries, the formation of new political alliances and the destruction of old ones, does seem historic, but we seem far from knowing all its historical decisions and their implications for the emerging new multipolar world.
Sergey Kuznetsov, IA Alternative