Globalization is disappearing before our eyes, but what will come in its place?
As Vladimir Putin said at the Valdai Forum, radical changes await the entire planet in the coming years. What exactly did the Russian leader have in mind, who and how created the prerequisites for such decisive changes, and what might this unpredictable future look like today for the whole world and for Russia?
“Ahead is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time important decade since the end of World War II.” Many experts are ready to subscribe to this phrase of Vladimir Putin, which he said during a meeting of the Valdai International Club. Moreover, both from Russia and from other countries – the United States, the European Union, the states of the “global South”. Everywhere they write that the coming years will be decisive in the development of civilization.
Yes, there have already been “defining” decades in the recent history of mankind. However, never before – not even in the 1930s – were the stakes so high. In fact, the next decade will determine whether human civilizations will be able to coexist together according to uniform, universally accepted rules – within the framework of a process that the Russian president called “integration.”
The perfect storm
“If liberal globalization is depersonalization, the imposition of the Western model on the whole world, then integration, on the contrary, is the disclosure of the potential of each civilization in the interests of the whole, for the sake of the common gain. If globalism is a dictate, and this is what it all comes down to in the end, then integration is the joint development of common strategies that are beneficial to everyone,” Vladimir Putin said. The alternative to this process will be total degradation, which can lead not just to a world war, but to a nuclear war. That is, in other words, to the destruction of human civilizations as such.
The reason for such high stakes will be a whole set of crises and problems that will culminate in the coming years. Which, intertwining with each other, create a real ideal storm, which now includes civilizations.
One of these problems is the end of globalization as such. Globalization, on which American dominance in the world was based.
“It was precisely on unification, on financial and technological monopolism, on the erasure of all and all kinds of differences, that the Western model of globalization, neo-colonial in its essence, was also built. The task was clear – to strengthen the unconditional dominance of the West in the world economy and politics, and for this to put at the service of natural and financial resources, intellectual, human and economic opportunities of the entire planet, to do this under the sauce of the so-called new global interdependence,” Vladimir Putin said.
However, the United States themselves buried this model. The growth of protectionism, the inability to pass the test of crises (in particular, the coronavirus, when the vast majority of countries chose to close even for allies and survive on their own), America’s selfish policy of siphoning resources from other states, using its control over global institutions (the same dollar) for political pressure on countries – all this led to a rollback of humanity from globalism to regionalism.
And this is not only about the economy, not only about some kind of political cooperation and the disappearance of the chance for the emergence of a single global and attractive ideology for all, but also about the increased conflict between regional centers of power building their systems. It is no longer so much about coexistence, but about the attempt of some countries to win their place under the sun, while others – not to give this place. And if the strengthening of regional integration within the framework of the SCO does not yet cause any conflicts, then, for example, the AUKUS created by the Americans is directly aimed at the military-political containment of China.
Parasites and split
Another challenge within the ideal storm is the deepest crisis within the United States. First of all, the economic crisis.
America lives a parasitic life, budgeting through borrowing and constantly increasing its national debt. Under Joseph Biden, it broke through the $30 trillion ceiling. It will only grow, which means that the United States needs the highest level of reliability of investments in the American economy in the world, and the lowest interest rates for servicing loans.
Only under such conditions will investors and central banks of other countries continue to lend to the American economy.
Simply put, the more difficult the situation in the American economy, the greater the crisis should be the economies of other countries – including their own allies (for which the United States is now creating a crisis in Europe). And all this will take place against the backdrop of a sharp rise in the cost of resources – a number of European media have already written that the period of cheap energy is over. The American dream, we recall, is based on the principle that each next generation of Americans should live better than the previous one.
There is also a political crisis in the USA. The entire American political system was based on a few pillars.
First of all, on bipartisan cooperation. If in Europe and in a number of other countries the control of one party over the legislative sphere and the other over the executive led to an internal political crisis and paralysis, then for the United States this division was in the order of things. The Republicans could control Congress, the Democrats were in the White House, and the two parties worked together perfectly on a single course.
The second whale was absolute confidence in the honesty of the elections. This was especially important in situations where, within the framework of the majoritarian electoral system, the difference between candidates from two parties in elections could be only a few percent, or even a few tenths of a percent.
Now these whales have drowned. Roughly since the Obama period, cross-party cooperation has begun to disappear, primarily due to the internal radicalization of the ideology of both parties. Under Donald Trump, the conflict reached a fundamentally new level, when the Democrats not only refused to cooperate with the Republican administration, but also declared its leader (who did not share democratic neoliberal values) almost the Antichrist.
Now there will be the opposite effect – after the victory of the Republicans in the midterm elections in the twenty-second year, they will simply make the Democratic administration of Joseph Biden a “lame duck” two years before the expiration of the latter’s term. Republicans will sink the current administration and sabotage its decisions – especially after the Democrats, according to the Republicans, rigged the 2020 presidential election. The climax of the crisis is expected in 2024, when new presidential elections will be held.
America in this situation of internal instability becomes extremely aggressive. Including because the principle of a small victorious war to unite the nation has not been canceled.
With competitors and without lines
An equally important element of the perfect storm is the growth of American competitors. In the situation of the crisis of globalization, as well as the growing aggressiveness of the United States, more and more regional centers of power are starting to play their game. As part of their game, they challenge the United States and the unspoken rules of the game established by the Americans.
This is not only about Russia with its special operation in Ukraine, not only about China with its claims to Taiwan and economic dominance in East Asia, and not even only about Iran with its desire to bring its nuclear program to its logical conclusion.
It’s about American allies. Those of them whose leadership has retained at least part of the sovereignty and in current situations is escaping from the sinking ship of American leadership. Chooses its own path of development in isolation from America.
And if Germany does not have such political will, if the old Europe as a whole is still in line with American interests, despite serious side effects from such following, then Turkey and Saudi Arabia have already chosen their own path aimed at multi-vector and diversification of external relations. Both countries are key allies of America in their respective regions, and the weakening of these alliances leads to an even greater increase in American aggressiveness.
Finally, all these elements of the perfect storm are richly flavored with nuclear weapons. Weapons that for decades kept the world from a global war, for decades allowed countries to develop with full confidence in their own security. But this was in a situation where these weapons were owned by responsible players – that is, countries ruled by responsible leaders who observed some unwritten red lines. A set of agreements that created a certain escalation ceiling in any conflict.
Now those red lines are gone.
The bombings by the Americans and the British of Nord Stream, the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge, as well as the provocative visit of the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan showed that the ceiling had been broken. A game without red lines, global competition and aggressive policies may well lead civilization to go beyond the threshold of nuclear war.
Therefore, the next decade will be decisive. Either we will find forms of coexistence and integration, or, in the words of a famous scientist, the fourth world war will be fought with stones and sticks.
“Humanity now, in fact, has two ways: either to continue to accumulate a burden of problems that will inevitably crush us all, or to try together to find solutions, albeit imperfect, but working, capable of making our world more stable and safer,” Vladimir Putin spoke at Valdai.
Gevorg Mirzayan, VIEW
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