Restructuring global order
In last week’s editorial, I reviewed the rampant double standards in international politics, as in dealing with the causes and fallout of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. I wrote that the global system formed in the wake of WWII, with the United Nations tasked to maintain a just peace in the world, has teetered and lost its ability to play its part, and that the world scene is now ready for the birth of a new system and new standards.
Among the most important reason for today’s global situation is that international politics have abandoned concepts of parity, concord, mutual interests and collaboration in favour of concepts of belligerence, conflict, and the hegemony of a single superpower. That global single superpower has spread a global climate of hostility, defiance, domination of international relations, drawing allies, and reproducing cold wars, with all what this entails of disturbing world peace and creating military clashes. It gave itself the right to tamper with the sovereignty of States, interfere with their domestic affairs, and justify the inexcusable crimes it committed in the process, in order to hold sway over global politics. This it did through imposing double standards that gave it an edge denied to others, as international law organisations swallowed the situation.
It is obvious now that the era of rapprochement that prevailed for a good part of the past three decades between the two superpowers, the US and Russia has come to an end. Instead of accepting a multipolar world that would embrace such new powers as the EU, China and India, the US opted to go back to a single superpower world, refusing to share leadership. In so doing, the US worked to fuel conflicts, rivalries and clashes that led to a world of lost peace, friendship and confidence: exactly the ingredients that gave rise to the Russia-Ukraine war. The arrogance and belligerence with which the American administration and NATO have been dealing with this war has made matters worse by creating what political analysts believe to be an irreparable global rift of hostility, wariness and distrust.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), in this new era of Great Power competition, the US cannot afford to alienate allies that can help deter authoritarian aggressors bent on harming US interests and values. The US is paying the price in the Ukraine crisis for having lost the Saudis. The Saudi bungle highlights the failure of Mr. Biden’s brand of righteous liberal internationalism.. The Saudis are recalculating their interests now that they fear they cannot rely on the US— amid the Biden Administration’s hostility and the horrifying Afghanistan withdrawal. The Crown Prince has refused Mr Biden’s entreaties to pump more oil, and he is reported even to have refused to take the President’s phone call.
Quoting WSJ: “Saudi Arabia committed in 1974 to conduct its oil trade only in dollars, in exchange for security guarantees from Washington. The Biden Administration has undermined that relationship at every turn, and by all accounts the Saudis are fed up.” The result now is that the US is cross over the SaudiEmirati coordination with Putin regarding the energy crisis. This was evident in Boris Johnson’s failure to obtain a Gulf pledge to increase oil production.
China could step into the breach, and it could benefit if it can coax Riyadh into a yuan-for-oil arrangement. “Doing so would help Beijing start building the scaffolding for a global yuan, including greater dispersion of the currency around the world. This in turn could open the door for China to offer the yuan as a trading currency to US adversaries such as Russia and Iran. US economic sanctions would be that much less effective,” WSJ wrote, pointing out that Biden and his foreign-policy advisers seem to think grandstanding about human rights and the climate will win the day for US.
Russia’s Central Bank for its part has announced that the Russian economy is entering a large scale restructuring phase. And Ria Novosti announced on behalf of the Russian foreign ministry that Moscow is preparing a response to the illegal sanctions imposed by the US and the EU.
On another note, China has said that Washington and Kyiv must provide responses to questions raised by Russia regarding military biological activity in Ukraine. The UN claims it does not hold technicalities that would aid it to investigate the presence of American biological programmes in Ukraine. This is a flagrant model of the UN’s incapacity and double standards in handling the international crisis.
Echoing the beliefs of many on the international scene, Serbia has announced that NATO is letting us know that it cannot defeat Russia, and that a new world is actually being formed, some of its features actually taking shape already.
In his address to the Russian people, President Vladimir Putin said that his administration has begun to plan for a new era that is more balanced and respectful of international relations. The countries that have violated the principles and standards that they always touted, will be globally isolated, he said. “Today we reap the fruit of our apprehension of policies of a single superpower and those who blindly followed it without free will or reasonable thought.” He said there will be no mercy for those who followed the unbridled policies of the US.
President Putin told his people that the Americans have breached all their treaties with Russia, that ensured neither country would threaten the national security of the other. “They came to our borders and threatened the national security of our people,” Putin said, “who is at fault now? The offender or the ones who defend their national security?”
For 17 years, Mr Putin said, Americans have been pointlessly killing Afghans until they left Afghanistan in ruins. They killed one million Iraqis under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction, then they pulled out of Iraq and said the information they had had not been accurate. The same happened, he said, in Syria, Libya and Yemen, for the alleged cause of upholding democracy, while the true reason was to support extremists and terrorists, and to fragment these countries. This caused tens of millions to flee their countries and turn into refugees; now, he said, the world is crying over Ukrainian refugees flocking to Eastern European countries.
Putin was in favour of an end to the United Nations, the Security Council, the International Court of Justice, the World Health Organisation and all affiliated human rights organisations that renounce their neutrality and follow the US. He decided to close all their headquarters in Russia and confiscate their property. When he was told that the UN will kick Russia and China out of the Security Council, Putin reiterated: “Is there still a UN?”
It looks like the world is on the verge of a new global system. But the question is: will power balances change while the same hegemonic policies remain, or will the world learn its lesson and recapture the lost concord, cooperation and mulitpolarity?