Against the West's ambition to impose its values on the world - democracy, human rights - stand Lavrov's realpolitik principles: non-interference in the internal affairs of nations; each nation to develop in its own way according to its own national, cultural and religious traditions; the world to be not 'unipolar' (US supreme), not bi-polar as in the days of US vs USSR, but multipolar - America, Russia, China and a handful of other major States.
Starkey points out that only 20% of the world's population lives in a full democracy. Many other countries have different ways of doing things, so only 11 of the G20 nations have joined in sanctions against Russia. The US hasn't yet woken up to the real world as it is now.
This notion of a watershed in the world order is echoed in the thoughts of Sergey Glazyev, an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Putin's former special adviser. He takes a long-historic view, saying that advances in technology, economic changes and the introduction of more flexible, market-based systems of management are ushering in a new, ideologically socialist world economic order in which, as in the example of India, the State seeks to maximize growth rates in order to combat poverty.
In the 2008 financial crisis America and Europe, says Glazyev, wasted their monetary stimulus on financial bubbles and inflated budget deficits, whereas in China the money was 'completely directed to the growth of production and the development of new technologies.' Failing to defeat China in a trade war, the US turned to using Ukraine 'as a weapon of war to destroy Russia, and then to seize control of [Russian] resources in order, I repeat, to strengthen their position and weaken the position of China.'
Following WWII, says Glazyev, the British Empire 'collapsed like a house of cards, because the other two winners — the USSR and the United States — did not need this empire and considered it an anachronism. Similarly, the world will not need American multinational corporations, the US dollar, US currency and financial technologies and financial pyramids. All this will soon be a thing of the past. Southeast Asia will become an obvious leader in global economic development, and a new world economic order will be formed before our eyes.'
Glazyev may understimate the degree to which China still depends on its trade with the US and the West, but it's clear which way Eurasia and the Far East think the wind is blowing.
7 comments:
Don't interfere in the internal politics of other nations, except for supporting one candidate and poisoning his rival (Ukraine), or invading them (Ukraine, Georgia, et al), or supplying information to one party to attack their rivals (the US elections in 2016 and 2020, and likely those in the UK).
Watch Starkey, he says Russia sees at least part of Ukraine as an extension of itself, always has.
Also the US has interfered in Russian politics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-9e57fc2GY , used the Green Berets to train Ukrainian forces in 214 (CIA chief there also) and of course has ignited the whole thing with its NATO/EU push in the first place. This whole thing could have been avoided.
@Sackerson - By 'interference', it generally implies not requested. Not that the US has clean hands at all. But this was about the claims of the Russian minister in question.
Not claims, principles of future international action. How did the US manage to blow two huge tranches of British money and the completely dominating lead it had in 1945?
@Sackerson - By believing 'American exceptionalism', and refusing to recognize that Japan and Germany rebuilt and modernized their factories, while the US sat on its laurels. Using up most of the easily-accessible oil by the 1970's didn't help.
Well, the Japanese thought they'd detected something similar about the world in relation to the USA (and Britain) in 1941. Not a mistake anyone should rush to emulate.
"Western decadence" is easy to identify - and easy to over-extrapolate (both by contemptuous outsiders and disgusted westerners). Has been for >100 years at least.
There's always a first time: but big bets against the USA, the $ etc, have tended to look a bit silly after a while.
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PS, Starkey is always good value but not remotely infallible. He was very dismissive of "Ukraine as a nation" shortly before this all kicked off (echoing Putin), with the strong implication they wouldn't fight.
Personally I compare Lavrov to the kind of physically overbearing bully one often finds in many 'domestic' spheres of life, business etc, that routinely takes advantage of grown adults merely by glowering at them. Grown adults shouldn't roll over in this way, but they all-too-frequently do. It's some kind of menace-reflex, where against all reason their instincts tell them they are about to be physically pounded to the ground.
@ND: Starkey might have been right had it not been for training, resources and moral impetus from the great hegemon. Btw Ukraine is not one nation, obviously.
If you've been following 'Paddington' here it seems that the US has its own internal strains. Unless they invent fusion power or find something else that guarantees them the energy wealth to support their civilisation as is, maybe the hinge of history will indeed turn. P fears civil war is coming.
I can't claim to know Russians, but it seems to me that Lavrov, Putin etc play to the Slav's notion of what a Slav should be: macho.
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