"Let's Talk about Peace"

 In this Labour Day, let's turn this "floor" to the best leader the British Labour Party had since the 80's.  

"With Russian shells raining down on Ukrainian cities, an uneasy ceasefire in Yemen, the attack on Palestinians at prayer in Jerusalem and many other conflicts around the world, it might seem to some to be inappropriate to talk about peace.

When a war is going on, though, it is absolutely the time to talk about peace. How else can we prevent even further loss of life or yet more millions forced into refuge somewhere else in the world? It is welcome that at last the United Nations has taken an initiative with the welcome request by Secretary-General António Guterres for face-to-face meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

There must be an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine followed by a Russian troop withdrawal and agreement between Russia and Ukraine on future security arrangements.

All wars end in a negotiation of some sort—so why not now?

Everyone knows this is what will happen at some point. There is no reason to delay it for bombing and killing, more refugees, more dead and more grieving families in Ukraine and Russia. But instead of urging peace, most European nations have taken the opportunity to ramp up arms supplies, feed the war machine and boost the share prices of weapons manufacturers.

It is also the time to talk about our humanity, or lack of it, to people in deep distress as a result of armed conflict, the abuse of their rights or the grinding poverty that many face as a result of the global economic system.

Almost 10 percent of the population of Ukraine is now in exile, suffering trauma, loss and fear. Most countries in Europe have been supportive of Ukrainian refugees. The British government pretends to be as well, but then ensnares Ukrainians in the Home Office’s deliberately labyrinthine and nightmarish bureaucracy to deter them. Instead, Ukrainian refugees should be supported and made welcome. That’s what the British people by and large want; the huge generosity of ordinary people is showing the best of our humanity.

However, in the treatment of desperate refugees from wars where Britain has a direct responsibility, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, the story is painfully different.

If someone is so desperate that they risk all to attempt to cross the English Channel in a dangerous, flimsy dinghy, they deserve sympathy and support. Instead, the Home Office plan is to remove them to Rwanda. If we believe in humanity, and the rights of refugees, then they should all be treated equally and decently and allowed to make their contribution to our society, not criminalized and incarcerated. If the Conservative Party gets away with this outsourcing, other European countries will do the same. The Danish government has already spoken warmly about the cruel and unworkable proposal.

The effects of this war on the politics and hopes of our society are going to be huge, not least for the world’s institutions. The United Nations was established after World War II to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Since then, we can reel off the long and lengthening list of conflicts and proxy wars that the world has endured and that have taken the lives of millions. Korea, Vietnam, Iran-Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, India-Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and many other conflicts have been barely reported on by mainstream media, maybe because they were conflicts against colonial occupation such as Kenya.

A huge question must be asked of the UN in the Ukraine conflict. When Russia brutally and illegally invaded Ukraine, was not that the moment for the UN to send its secretary-general to Moscow to demand a ceasefire? The UN has been too slow to act, and too much of the interstate system has pushed for escalation, not negotiation.

The call for more effective and proactive international institutions to support peace was powerfully made in April 2022 in Madrid at a conference hosted by Spain’s left-wing Podemos party, following a dialogue initiated by the left-wing activist organization Progressive International. Every one of the 17 speakers condemned the war and occupation and called for a ceasefire and a future of peace for the people of Ukraine and Russia. The participants knew about the dangers of escalation of this conflict and the further hot wars and violence a new cold war would bring. There are 1,800 nuclear warheads in the world primed and ready for use. One “tactical” weapon would kill hundreds of thousands; a nuclear bomb would kill millions. It cannot be contained, nor can its effects be limited.

In June, Vienna will host a major series of peace events around the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This treaty, supported by the UN General Assembly and opposed by the declared nuclear weapons states, provides the best hope and opportunity for a nonnuclear weapons future. The opportunity should be grasped with both hands.

Some say to discuss peace at a time of war is a sign of some kind of weakness; the opposite is true. It is the bravery of peace protesters around the world that stopped some governments from being involved in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen or any of the dozens of other conflicts going on.

Peace is not just the absence of war; it is real security. The security of knowing you will be able to eat, your children will be educated and cared for and a health service will be there when you need it. For millions, that is not a reality now; the aftereffects of the war in Ukraine will take that away from millions more.

Meanwhile, many countries are now increasing arms spending and investing resources in more and more dangerous weapons. The United States has just approved its biggest-ever defense budget. These resources used for weapons are all resources not used for health, education, housing or environmental protection.

This is a perilous and dangerous time. Watching the horror play out and then preparing for more conflicts in the future will not ensure the climate crisis, poverty crisis or food supply is addressed. It’s up to all of us to build and support movements that can chart another course for peace, security and justice for all."

By, Jeremy Corbyn

USA vs Peace in Korea: Is Biden building World War III in Europe and in Asia?

 

An end-of-war declaration would be an important step towards reducing the dire threat of war and opening the way to further accommodations… The best policy I think would be in the general spirit of the Sunshine policy: steps toward accommodation, relaxation of tensions, withdrawal of threats and provocations. – Noam Chomsky

Isn’t it a good prelude to avoid USA’s taking back the reins of South Korea sponsoring conservative Yoon Suk-yeol’s razor-thin 0.7% victory margin in South Korea’s March 9 presidential election, which was far from a public mandate for his much-touted hawkish foreign policy.

Yoon’s sharp rhetoric on a tougher stance toward North Korea–including repeated references to pre-emptive strikes against Pyongyang–is out of step with the South Korean electorate, the majority of whom want peace with the North. His foreign policy stance promises to force South Korea into the front lines of a new US-led Cold War. By doing his part to ensure that a state of tension is maintained in the Korean peninsula, Yoon is faithfully serving US strategic interests by placing the Korean nation at risk while enabling Washington to continue justifying its nearly eight-decade occupation of South Korea in order to secure its forward military position against China.

Five years after the ignominious end of the conservative Park administration, South Korea’s conservatives are back in power, a development that does not bode well for Korea or the rest of the world. Yoon’s controversial past, his lack of practical experience, and his hawkish views combine to form a dangerous political free radical in the game of brinkmanship that continues to be played out in the Korean Peninsula. Yoon lost no time in labeling Pyongyang as Seoul’s “main enemy,” marking a departure from his predecessor Moon Jae-in. Amplifying Yoon’s rhetoric, his foreign policy delegation to Washington has advocated for a policy of Complete, Verifiable and Irreversible Denuclearization (CVID) with respect to the North. The delegation also stressed South Korea’s commitment to the US strategy of containing China and advocated for the redeployment of US strategic assets such as nuclear-capable aircraft carriers, bombers and submarines to the Korean peninsula.

Unsurprisingly, Yoon’s hawkish pivot has been warmly welcomed by the Biden administration and the foreign policy elite in Washington, who believe his victory will give the US an upper hand in arm wrestling South Korea into its strategy of containing China. Conservative US news outlets lauded the “pro-US Yoon victory” and predicted that “South Korea’s hawkish new president will be good for the western alliance”, while emphasizing that Yoon’s victory signaled that “The time to reconstitute pressure on Pyongyang is now.”

Echoing this chorus, Philip Goldberg, the nominee for US ambassador to South Korea and former enforcer of UN sanctions against the North, stated that the United States should “resolutely pursue complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” of “the rogue regime in North Korea”. However, Washington’s strategy of demanding concessions in the absence of meaningful assurances has only increased Pyongyang’s determination to acquire nuclear deterrence capability as a security guarantee against the US. Daniel DePetris observes that: The chances of Kim relinquishing his nuclear deterrent at this late stage in the game is somewhere between slim to none. No country has undergone such large opportunity costs over a period of decades to develop as many as 65 nuclear warheads, only to suddenly trade those weapons away in exchange for economic and political concessions and vague security guarantees.

Only last week, China, stressing that the additional US sanctions imposed on Pyongyang were only raising tensions, proposed a halt to the historically provocative annual US-South Korea military drills in exchange for the North’s suspension of ICBM and nuclear testing. The US rejected China’s proposal.

On March 31, South Korea and the United States upgraded their joint wartime operations plans to include a response to North Korean nuclear measures, and senior US, Japanese, and South Korean military leaders discussed trilateral cooperation, ostensibly to “deter the North’s threats”–a euphemism for the Biden administration’s priority of hemming in China. A majority of Koreans oppose such a provocative military alliance that would threaten regional peace and stability.

On April 14, under the pretext of deterring the North’s “aggression,” the US dispatched the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group to conduct bilateral operations with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force near the Korean Peninsula, marking the first time since 2017 that a US carrier group has been deployed to the waters between South Korea and Japan.

On April 18, the US and South Korea began their controversial annual joint military drills, in spite of the opposition of the majority of Koreans and over 350 US, South Korean, and international organizations who released a statement calling for their suspension. The drills, which mobilize considerable numbers of US troops and ordnance on the Korean Peninsula and simulate military engagement against the North, have historically served as a reliable means to increase regional tensions: In recent years, these war drills have been based on operation plans that reportedly include preemptive strikes and “decapitation measures” against the North Korean leadership. They also have involved the use of B-2 and B-52H bombers (which are designed to drop nuclear bombs) and nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. While the United States and South Korea have called them defensive in nature, these military exercises have long been a trigger point for heightened military and political tensions on the Korean Peninsula, due to their scale and provocative nature.

Thus far, Yoon’s hawkish policies have failed to garner public support.  According to a series of recent polls conducted in 2021, over 70 percent of South Koreans do not regard the North as an enemy; 70 percent support an End of War declaration; 61 percent support relaxing sanctions on the North; and, 79 percent support peace with Pyongyang. This sentiment persists even among Yoon supporters, a majority of whom support a peace treaty, breaking with his rhetoric calling for a tougher stance toward North Korea.

While Yoon’s victory bodes well for Washington’s unrelenting campaign to drive Seoul into the front lines of its anti-China crusade, his stated policy stance of  “no” to North Korea and China and “yes to the US” will be easier said than done, not the least because of the far-ranging economic interdependence between South Korea and China. In 2021, China took in more than a quarter of all Korean exports, while the United States accounted for only 15 percent. According to a 2021 survey, Koreans remain unenthusiastic about America’s anti-China containment strategy, with a majority supporting a neutral stance in the US-China rivalry”.

Yoon’s refusal to engage with the North or to exert any degree of sovereignty vis-a-vis the US ensures that South Korea remains a semi-occupied subservient “force multiplier” existing primarily to serve Washington’s growing strategic interests in Northeast Asia.

The US itself, having waged a brutal war in the Korean peninsula that left millions dead, continues to block all attempts at reconciliation by the two Koreas, refusing to support constructive diplomacy, sign a peace treaty or even declare a symbolic end to the nearly eight-decade Korean war. Instead, Washington’s policies, and the limits they place on South Korean sovereignty and inter-Korean relations, ensure the maintenance of a permanent state of tension in the Korean Peninsula, providing the US with perpetual justification for its unprecedented seventy-seven year military occupation and political subjugation of the South.

The “North Korean threat” serves as a cover for Washington’s anti-China policy and its expanding military projection into Asia. In this context, Yoon’s victory is a component of a transnational hawkish pivot that threatens peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and all of Northeast Asia. In addition to the tensions Washington built in Europe on Ukrainian ground.

Does Biden want to go down in history as the American president responsible for World War III?  

USA & NATO vs Russia in Ukraine: A New World Order in the Horizon? IV

 

Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine has brought strong US and European condemnation and sanctions, but as we have already seen here, many nations around the world have chosen not to join this united front.

Dozens of governments outside the USA, Canada and Europe have been reluctant to censure Russia, and many more have refrained from joining multilateral sanctions. China has tacitly supported the Kremlin since its February affirmation of a Sino-Russian friendship with “no limits.” A few others have backed Russia vocally, among them Belarus, which has served as a staging ground for the Russian invasion.

Meanwhile, other governments have sat on the fence. Brasil said pointedly that would not take sides. Indian leaders have reaffirmed their policy of nonalignment, implying that their nation will seek to stay out of the fight. South Africa, Pakistan and numerous other nations are following a similar path.

I believe responses to this current conflict shed light on how governments throughout what is known as the Global South are apt to behave if a new Cold War takes shape. Unless governments are threatened directly, many appear content to espouse nonalignment – a policy of avoiding strong support for the the USA and Euriope or for its principal rivals in Moscow and Beijing.

Nonalignment may be a sensible strategy for individual countries as a way to preserve autonomy and avoid costly choices between major powers. 

The concept of nonalignment emerged in the 1950s. It implied a refusal to join the rival Cold War blocs led by Washington and Moscow. The concept was pioneered by a group of post-World War II leaders including India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, Indonesia’s Sukarno, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito.

Despite representing a broad range of political ideologies, they all saw nonalignment as a way to resist colonial and imperial powers, preserve independence and stay out of the Soviet-American conflict.

These ideas led to the 1961 establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement, a loosely organized group that soon included most of the world’s countries and population. Several core principles guided the movement, including anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, nonaggression and noninterference.

Yet the movement faced a dilemma from the start. When a powerful state violates core principles like sovereignty and territorial integrity, should members of the Non-Aligned Movement take sides to oppose it?

The movement’s diverse members occasionally took strong unified stands. For example, they joined in opposing colonial rule in Rhodesia and apartheid in Namibia and South Africa. When superpower interests were more directly in play, however, nonaligned states failed to agree on when to take sides.

Leftist leaders in states such as Cuba and Vietnam saw USA's powers as neoimperial threats and sided clearly with Moscow despite joining the Non-Aligned Movement. Conservative states, such as Saudi Arabia and Morocco, tilted consistently toward Washington. Many sought relative neutrality. But all these states remained in the movement, which has no agreed standard for what degree of alignment is acceptable.

The differences among members of the Non-Aligned Movement undermined their ability to exercise collective clout, even when superpowers rode roughshod over norms of sovereignty and self-determination.

In 1979, for example, members were deeply divided over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Fifty-six voted to condemn the Soviet invasion at the United Nations, but nine supported Moscow and 26 abstained. Those numbers are remarkably similar to recent votes on Ukraine. Divisions over the Soviet war in Afghanistan weakened the Non-Aligned Movement and undercut its ability to enforce international norms and influence Soviet policy.

The movement’s relevance declined after the Cold War, as its diverse members struggled to define its role in a world no longer shaped by a Soviet-American standoff. Still, the movement has survived, and its 120 members recently celebrated the group’s 60th anniversary in Belgrade.

The Non-Aligned Movement faces new challenges today, as the war in Ukraine continues.

For many governments in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, nonalignment remains appealing. Most depend heavily on trade, aid and investment both from the USA and Europe powers and from China (if not also from Russia). Choosing sides could thus be crippling economically. That danger is apparent in Belarus, which faces stiff Western sanctions for aiding the Russian war effort. Countries opposing Russia also risk debilitating energy cutoffs. Taking sides against China in any future scenario, such as conflict over Taiwan, would be even more costly.

Relative nonalignment is also attractive from a security standpoint. It enables governments to obtain weapons from multiple sources and limit dependence on any single power. This is a major factor for India, which remains heavily reliant on Russian arms, and to a lesser extent for countries like Vietnam.

Nonalignment helps keep diplomatic doors open as well. This appeals to governments wary of losing policy autonomy if they rely too much on one powerful state or bloc for political support.

For all of these reasons, nonalignment is likely to continue to be common. In fact, its strategic appeal is arguably stronger now than it was during the Cold War because of greater global integration. Unlike the 1950s, most countries now have strong economic, political and, in some cases, military linkages to both East and West.

Nonalignment may be sensible policy for individual states, but it could spell trouble for USA's ruling. Russian President Vladimir Putin has shattered the illusion that territorial conquest and great-power wars were consigned to the NATO members. Reluctance to take sides in such a clear case of aggression can weaken USA's international norms and undermine Washington's security rules.

At this stage, most members of the Non-Aligned Movement have condemned Russian attacks. Yet only one, Singapore, has imposed sanctions. Others are passing the buck, making the war in Ukraine the deserved burden for the United States and its core allies to bear.

USA & NATO vs Russia in Ukraine: A New World Order in the Horizon? III

 

An article written by authors John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge for Bloomberg on March 24 sounded the alarm to announce the end of “the second great age of globalization.” The Western trade war and sanctions against China that predated the pandemic have now been joined by the stiff Western sanctions imposed against Russia after it invaded Ukraine. These sanctions are like an iron curtain being built by the United States and its allies around Eurasia. But according to Micklethwait and Wooldridge, this iron curtain will not only descend around China and Russia but will also have far-reaching consequences across the world.

Australia and many countries in Asia, including India and Japan—which are otherwise reliable allies of the United States—are unwilling to break their economic and political ties with China and Russia. The 38 countries that did not vote at the United Nations General Assembly meeting on March 24 to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine included China and India; both of these countries “account for the majority of the world’s population,” Micklethwait and Wooldridge observe in their Bloomberg article. If the world bifurcates, “the second great age of globalization… [will come] to a catastrophic close,” the article states.

In 2000, Micklethwait and Wooldridge published the manual on this wave of globalization called A Future Perfect: The Challenge and Promise of Globalization. That book cheered on the liberalization of trade and finance, although its authors acknowledged that in this free market society that they championed, “businesspeople are the most obvious beneficiaries.” The inequalities generated by globalization would be lessened, they suggested, by the greater choices afforded to the consumers (although, as social inequality increased during the 2000s, consumers simply did not have the money to exercise their choices). When Micklethwait and Wooldridge wrote A Future Perfect, they both worked for the Economist, which has been one of the cheerleaders of Western-shaped globalization. Both Micklethwait and Wooldridge are now at Bloomberg, another significant voice of the business elites.

In an article for the International Monetary Fund, Kenneth Rogoff, a professor at Harvard University, warns of the risk of deglobalization. Such an unraveling, he notes, “would surely be a huge negative shock for the world economy.” Rogoff, like Micklethwait and Wooldridge, uses the word “catastrophic” to describe the impact of deglobalization. Unlike Micklethwait and Wooldridge, however, Rogoff’s article seems to imply that deglobalization is the production of Russia’s war on Ukraine and that it could be “temporary.” Russia, he states, “looks set to be isolated for an extended period.” In his article, Rogoff does not delve very much into concerns about what this means to the people in many parts of the world (such as Central Asia and Europe). “The real hit to globalization,” he worries, “will happen if trade between advanced economies and China also drops.” If that happens, then deglobalization would not be temporary since countries such as China and Russia will seek other pathways for trade and development.

None of these wishful thinking  writers acknowledges in these recent narrow sighted articles that deglobalization, which is a retreat from Western-designed globalization, did not begin during the pandemic or during the war on Ukraine. This process has its origins in the Great Recession of 2007-2009. With the faltering of the Western economies, both China and Russia, as well as other major economic powers, began to seek alternative ways to globalize. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which was announced in 2013, is a signal of this gradual shift, with China developing its own linkages first in Central and South Asia and then beyond Asia and toward Africa, Europe and Latin America. It is telling that the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, a backwater event founded in 1997, has become a meeting place for Asian and European business and political leaders who see this meeting as much more significant than the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting held in Davos, Switzerland.

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, countries such as China began to de-dollarize their currency reserves. They moved from a largely dollar-based reserve to one that was more diversified. It is this move toward diversification that led to the drop in the dollar’s share in global currency reserves from 70 percent in 2000 to 59 percent in 2020. According to author Tony Norfield, the share of dollars in Russian foreign exchange reserves was 23.6 percent in 2019 and dropped to 10.9 percent by 2021. Deprived of dollars due to the sanctions imposed by the West, the Central Bank of Russia has attempted various maneuvers to de-dollarize its currency reserves as well, including by anchoring the ruble to gold, by preventing the outward flow of dollars and by demanding that its buyers of fuel and food pay in rubles rather than in dollars.

As the United States widens its net to sanction more and more countries, these countries—such as China and Russia—seek to build up trade mechanisms that are not reliant upon Western institutions anymore.

On January 1, 2022, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership(RCEP)—the world’s largest free trade pact—went into effect. Two years ago, 15 countries met virtually in Hanoi, Vietnam, to sign this treaty. These countries include close allies of the United States, such as Australia, Japan and South Korea, as well as countries that face U.S. sanctions, such as China and Myanmar. A third of humanity is included in RCEP, which accounts for a third of global gross domestic product, not mentioning Brasil, ready to jump in as soon as Lula comes back to power.

The Asian Development Bank is hopeful that RCEP will provide relief to countries struggling to emerge from the negative economic impact of the pandemic.

Blocs such as RCEP and projects like the BRI are not antithetical to the internationalization of trade and development. Economists at the HKUST Business School in Hong Kong show that the BRI “significantly increases bilateral trade flows between BRI countries.” China’s purchases from BRI countries have increased, although much of this is in the realm of energy and minerals rather than in high-value goods; exports from China to the BRI countries, on the other hand, remain steady. The Asian Development Bank estimates that the BRI project would require $1.7 trillion annually for infrastructural development in Asia, including climate-related investments.

The pandemic has certainly stalled the progress of the BRI project, with debt problems affecting a range of countries due to lower than capacity use of their BRI-funded infrastructure. The economic and political crises in Pakistan and Sri Lanka are partly related to the global slowdown of trade. These countries are integral to the BRI project. Rising food and fuel prices due to the war in Ukraine will further complicate matters for countries in the Global South.

The appetite in many parts of the world has already increased for an alternative to Western-shaped globalization, but this does not necessarily mean deglobalization. It could mean a globalization platform that no longer has its epicenter located in Washington and Brussels.

To make a long story short, in their attempt to ostracize Russia, the USA and European allies may, once again, where their shoes really pinche) have shot themselves in the foot. This time, economically and financially, that is, where their shoes really pinche.

USA & NATO vs Russia in Ukraine: A New World Order in the Horizon? II

 

The meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in the Chinese eastern city of Huangshan on March 30, is likely to go down in history as a decisive meeting in the relations between the two Asian giants.

The meeting was not only important due to its timing or the fact that it reaffirmed the growing ties between Moscow and Beijing, but because of the resolute political discourse articulated by the two top diplomats.

In Huangshan, there was no place for ambiguity. Lavrov spoke of a new ‘world order’, arguing that the world is now “living through a very serious stage in the history of international relations” in reference to the escalating Russia-Ukraine/NATO conflict.

“We, together with you (China) and with our sympathizers,” Sergei Lavrov added with assuredness, “will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order.”

For his part, Wang Yi restated his country’s position regarding its relations with Russia and the West with precise words, some of which were used before in the February 4 meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. “China-Russia cooperation has no limits … Our striving for peace has no limits, our upholding of security has no limits, our opposition towards hegemony has no limits,” Wang said.

Those following the evolution of the Russia-China political discourse, even before the start of the Russia-Ukraine war on February 24, will notice that the language employed supersedes that of a regional conflict, into the desire to bring about the reordering of world affairs altogether.

Though the readiness to push against US-led western hegemony is inherent in both countries’ political objectives, rarely did Moscow and Beijing move forward in challenging western dominance, as is the case today. The fact that China has refused to support western economic sanctions, condemn or isolate Russia is indicative of a clear Chinese forward thinking policy.

Moreover, Beijing and Moscow are clearly not basing their future relation on the outcome of the Ukraine war alone. What they are working to achieve is a long term political strategy that they hope would ultimately lead to a multipolar world.

Russia’s motives behind the coveted paradigm shift are obvious: resisting NATO’s eastern expansion, reasserting itself as a global power and freeing itself from the humiliating legacy of the post-Soviet Union. China, too, has a regional and global agenda. Though China’s ambitions are partly linked to different geopolitical spheres – South and East China Seas and the Indo-Pacific region – much of Beijing’s grievances, and priorities, overlap with those of Moscow.

Aside from the direct economic interests between Russia and China, who share massive and growing markets, they are faced with similar challenges: both are hoping to gain greater access to waterways and to push back against US-western military advancements in some of the world’s most important trade routes.

It was no surprise that one of Russia’s top strategic priorities from its war with Ukraine is to widen its access to the Black Sea, a major trade hub with a sizable percentage of world trade, especially in wheat and other essential food supplies.

Like Russia, China too has been laboring to escape US military hegemony, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. The exponential rise in the Chinese military budget – estimated to grow by 7.1% in 2022, speaks of the way that China sees its role in world affairs, now and in the future.

The US trade war against China, which was accelerated by former US President Donald Trump, was a clear reminder to Beijing that global economic power can only be guaranteed through an equal military might. This realization explains China’s decision to open its first overseas military base in Djibouti, in the very strategic Horn of Africa, in 2017, in addition to Beijing’s military moves in the three artificial islands in the South China Sea, and its latest military deal with Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.

While the Russian and Chinese motives, as enunciated by top officials on both sides are clear – to “move towards a multipolar world order” – the US and its allies are not motivated by a specific, forward thinking political doctrine, as was often the case in the past. Washington simply aims to contain the two rising powers as stated in the yet-to-be officially released 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS). According to the NDS, “the growing multi-domain threat posed by the (People’s Republic of China) PRC” is the primary challenge to US interests, followed by the “acute threats” posed by Russia.

Considering the complex interests of both Russia and China, and the fact that the two countries are facing the same mutual enemy, chances are the war in Ukraine is merely a prelude to a protracted conflict that will manifest itself through economic, political and diplomatic pressures and even outright wars.

Though it is premature to speak about the future of this global conflict with certainty, there is little doubt that we are now living in a new era of global affairs, one which is fundamentally different from the decades that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Equally true, we also know that both China and Russia will be key players in shaping that future, which could indeed push us away from US-OTAN hegemony and “towards a multipolar world order”.

The bell tolls for the American Empire.

That is in case US’s Government & Oligarchs Ukraine dangerous game doesn’t take us to a new World War that would be the end of us all.