Western world in half-life
Challenge thrown
Perhaps, no one has any doubts that the world order that took shape after World War II, and the hegemony of the United States, established after the collapse of the USSR, have been destroyed almost to the ground. Instead, as indicated in the official US doctrinal documents, the era of great power rivalry has begun – Russia, the United States and China. Domestic analysts came to the same conclusions, but the view of the Europeans on the situation that has developed until recently has remained, as it were, in the shadows.
And now the Center for Security Studies in Zurich, Switzerland, has prepared a voluminous report called “Strategic Trends 2023”, which sets out a European perspective on key events in global politics. According to the Center’s experts, Russia and China are challenging the concept of a liberal international order. Moreover, the desire to weaken the United States, as they believe, is “an important driving force in the Sino-Russian partnership.”
A special military operation in Ukraine is said to have undermined European security, while the threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan confirms current global security threats. At the same time, the statement about “limitless friendship” between Russia and China leads the authors of the report to conclude that Chinese leader Xi Jinping may view the conflict in Ukraine as “the first salvo in a broad confrontation between East and West for control of the international system.”
Experts agree with the US National Security Strategy published in October 2022, which states that both Russia and China are challenging international peace and stability by “exporting an illiberal model of international order.” At the same time, it is China that is named in the report as the only competitor that has the ability to change the international order, and Russia is just an “acute threat” for the United States. In this context, the report uses the following wording: “Russia is an outcast, not an equal; China is an equal, not an outcast.”
It should be noted here that, of course, China is not satisfied with American hegemony, but the current rules of the international order are quite satisfied, since Beijing, which Washington does not doubt, today receives the greatest benefit from the globalization that America has built for itself. As you know, even before the end of the Cold War, the United States made considerable efforts to liberalize China and turn it into its industrial and production appendage, encouraging the further integration of the Celestial Empire into the world economy and international institutions. The culmination was China’s accession to the WTO.
To a certain extent, the result was achieved: the United States focused mainly on the financial market and practically lost its industrial base, and China has turned into a “world factory”, and now the WTO rules are “playing” against the United States, which, in fact, was recognized by the US presidential adviser on national security Jake Sullivan, when he narrated The Strategy for Restoring American Economic Leadership.
Russia is not satisfied with either US hegemony or the rules of the international order established after the collapse of the USSR, where it is destined to play the role of a raw material appendage of the West. But even in big politics there is a blessing in disguise, and the fact that American and European strategists put China in the first place in the priority of threats, by and large, only plays into Moscow’s hands, unless, of course, one gets hung up on phantom ambitions. Underestimating Russia, the West automatically directs the main resources to confronting China, and as a result, it is unlikely that it will be able to endlessly, as it is now stated, support Ukraine in a conflict with Russia. The US is already in a pre-default state.
Actually, such a trend is already visible to the naked eye: if at first military assistance to Ukraine was in the billions, now it is in the millions. At the same time, the White House, which has not yet been able to reach an agreement with the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, says that it does not plan to ask Congress for funds to support Kyiv until the end of the fiscal year. And there are already fears that the “Ukrainian budget” of the Pentagon will end by mid-summer.
A block world
According to the authors of the report, the West is most concerned about the active participation of Beijing in international institutions, where the United States is by definition closed, and the opportunity to influence is minimal, these are the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), as well as China’s own economic initiative “One Belt – One Road” and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
At the same time, China, experts from Zurich state, is seeking to limit the US presence in the Asian region, declaring even broader ambitions – to create a “community of a common destiny for all mankind”, naturally, in the Chinese paradigm. Speaking at the 2017 CCP Congress, Xi Jinping said in almost blunt terms that China had entered “a new era in which it must take center stage.” And here are the words of Comrade Xi after he became the chairman of the PRC for the third time:
“The world is undergoing profound changes unprecedented in a century, but the time and the situation favor us.”
On this basis, European experts conclude that China can strive not only to create a sphere of influence in Asia, but also to create a “China-centric” world order in which China will play a leading role and form the rules of the global game at its own discretion, taking over “leadership of a diverse grouping of states composed primarily of the undemocratic developing countries of the Global South.” That’s what the West is afraid of.
To counter this trend, the authors of the report propose an expansion of the alliance of “countries with liberal democracies” both in Europe and in Asia under the guise of the “American nuclear umbrella”. Moreover, in an expanded sense, which involves the deployment of US nuclear weapons on the territory of these countries and the training of local personnel to use them.
In fact, nothing new: the same “bloc thinking”, the same division of countries into those that look into the mouth of the United States and recognize the so-called liberal rules, and those that remain adherents of the international order – the countries of “democracies” and ” autocracies”, based on the positions voiced by the United States. And another “language” of international communication, except for the language of the liberal dictatorship (hence the labeling in essence), has not been mastered in Washington.
And that’s what’s important. Despite the fundamental coincidence of key points in the national policy of Russia and China (for example, the need to fight US hegemony), reflected in the joint statement of February 4, 2022, as well as on the results of Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow in March of this year, European experts express hope that “a close military alliance between Russia and China will not be concluded.” Say, on the contrary, the growth of China’s activity in Central Asia, in their opinion, will infringe on the interests of Russia.
Possible options…
The authors of the report consider three scenarios for the further development of the world order. The first option: after the “fragmentation” of the world, no country will have the opportunity to manage the international agenda, and then the world, in the absence of common rules of conduct, can slide into chaos. In the event of establishing a multipolar world, which, for example, Russia and China are seeking, the United States, as an option, would have to accept the thesis that the new status of these countries, claiming regional leadership, would not threaten American interests. However, according to experts, the so-called liberal democracies are unlikely to put up with this order of things.
As a result, the authors come to the conclusion that the most likely scenario could be an “antagonistic world order”, which establishes a confrontation between East and West, expressed by the US and its allies confronting China in partnership with Russia. This situation is somewhat reminiscent of the classic cold war between the US and the USSR, only on an expanded scale.
With the difference that in the days of the former Cold War, when there was minimal economic interaction between competing blocs, today China’s economy is closely connected with the economy of the US and its allies in both Asia and Europe. Therefore, the set of checks and balances will be larger, which will require agreements of a different nature, not only in the security sphere, but also in the economy. But who will negotiate if there is practically no dialogue?
Eyes wide shut
But all these scenarios are built on the paradigm of the early 2000s, when the liberal ideology was still attractive. Since then, the United States and its allies have managed to bomb Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and this world community has not forgotten. In addition, with its militant Russophobic policy, the West called into question its own value orientations, which were projected onto the world. The inviolability of private property, the principles of legality, tolerance, freedom of speech and equal access to information have been destroyed to such an extent that it is no longer possible to restore them in their former format.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin noted in March 2022, anti-Russian sanctions are hitting the West itself and the entire global economy, and the myth of the “golden billion” is literally crumbling before our eyes, as well as the attitude towards the Western world. In the end, US President Joe Biden was forced to admit: “As for food shortages, they will be real. The price of sanctions is not only borne by Russia, but also by a huge number of countries, including European countries and our country.” So the West is doomed to descend from the “Peak of Pleasures” to the sinful earth – the golden times are gone.
This is to the fact that America still wants to rule the world, but can no longer – rather, it only harms it. Russophobia imposed by Washington led to the fact that even in the central countries of Europe, by the end of 2022, food inflation was approximately twice as high than in Russia. The leaders of France and Germany directly say that the peak of abundance in their countries has passed, since European abundance was built primarily on cheap energy resources from Russia and the Chinese market. Now it won’t.
So the American-style global world now lacks not only a moral basis, but also an economic one. The military remained, but this is also a double-edged sword. Of course, experts from the Swiss Center for Security Research did not dare to voice such conclusions. But you won’t be able to live long with your eyes wide shut.
Oleg Ladogin, “Star”
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