West’s summits promise more world woes

US President Joe Biden looks set to take full advantage of next week’s two important summit meetings with the leaders of the other Western countries to forge a more cohesive stance against Russia and China. According to media reports, apart from exerting more pressure on Russia over the Ukraine crisis, both the upcoming G7 Summit and the NATO Summit will have a special focus on China. The Joe Biden administration seems to be eager to co-opt the two organizations within the framework of its ideological foreign policy, on the premise that the United States and its Western allies have shared “values”.

At the G7 summit, scheduled to be held from Sunday to Tuesday in Germany, Biden is expected to launch a global infrastructure initiative, which will mark the group’s latest efforts to counter the growing influence of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

NATO, the world’s largest military alliance, is then due to adopt its new Strategic Concept at its summit in Madrid in the latter part of the week. The transatlantic alliance’s revamped strategy highlights its intention to become stronger militarily, get more politically involved in strategic issues and pursue a more global approach.

In other words, it is planning to indulge its predatoriness in the Asia-Pacific as well as Europe.

The confrontational messages that seem certain to be sent from the summits offer little hope that there will be a reset in world affairs.

The US has demonstrated no willingness to try and improve ties with China, let alone adopt a conciliatory stance toward Russia.

The outcomes of the two summits therefore are likely to be toxic. For the world, which is in dire need of solidarity and unity to give impetus to a reluctant post-pandemic recovery and to end the ongoing Ukraine crisis, attempts to create more divisions and confrontations are a grim prospect.

The world today is clearly in dire need of multilateralism and cooperation more than ever to address its many woes. It doesn’t need the Western leaders reviving a colonialist mentality that seeks to subjugate, manipulate and exploit the non-Western world.

The adversarial stance that the two summits seem set to propagate shows the US and its Western allies are still far from recognizing that times have changed, and this is no longer the era in which they could intimidate others with their gunboats.

The Cold War too is over. But having donned the armor of self-righteousness, the next-generation warriors in Washington are lost in Hollywood make-believe. Which is fine for a screen, but ruinous in the real world as the Ukraine conflict shows.