Has the unipolar world finally come to an end?

Russia and the Latin American Leap to Multipolarity

Oriental Reveiw wrote:

Russia’s role as a global strategic balancer and irresistible economic partner is now clear to all in the hemisphere, and it is rapidly creating a new geopolitical reality in the US’ backyard that could slam the nail in the coffin of unipolarity.

The article reviews the evolving relationships between Russia and Latin American countries, excluding Mexico, and how much that has changed during the era of Putin's Presidency and the return from the "ashes of the Soviet collapse".  It is really quite unprecedented and out-does anything similar in the Soviet era.

Is the multi-polar world irreversible? Probably.

By the same token, this irreversibility may explain the feverish, war-mongering, blood-thirsty, atrocity-loving actions of the Empire in Washington. They want to stop the world changing and all they really have left is endless violence. Hence we see support for ISIL in Syria to overthrow the regime disobedient to the Empire; right next door the US bombs the very same fighters to support a puppet regime that replaced Saad'am Hussein. In Ukraine, the Empire unblinkingly funds fascists and ex-Nazis to ethnically clease NovoRussia. The US funds Israel's final solution of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. And on and on. The Sauron-like  lidless eye of the Empire reaches far. But the world is changing.

And the monster is enraged.

Interesting remarks from Lavrov about the Arctic and Baird's typical incendiary and stoo-pid comments. It's good to know that we're not the only ones who are noticing what asshats the Harper jackboot Conservatives are.

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Question: The Russian American Pacific Partnership (RAPP) is to hold its regular meeting in September 2014. What is the Russian stance on the Arctic development prospects in conditions of the currently tense Russian-US relations?

Sergey Lavrov: Military rhetoric must never apply to the Arctic. A Canadian colleague said the other day that Canada, or he personally, was concerned about Russia’s activity in the Arctic, and that Canada would be prepared for a military stand-off with the Russian Federation in the northern latitudes. A day later, his press service said he had been misunderstood, and that his statement had been distorted. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that it was distorted. Sometimes he makes such statements. His predecessor also said that Russia had no such right.

As you remember, when our great Arctic explorer Artur Chilingarov and his team planted the Russian flag at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean beneath the North Pole, Canada also voiced terrible accusations towards Russia and claimed that it was trying to seize territories just like during the Gold Rush. This is foolish. We don’t want the Arctic to become a stage for confrontation. There is the Arctic Council, whose members are the five countries that have direct access to the Arctic Ocean. This legitimate format guarantees the rights of regional countries, so that they can work out the rules of regional cooperation and those for the safe and frugal use of the region’s colossal resources.

The first inter-governmental agreements on preventing and containing Arctic oil spills have already been signed. Therefore, Greenpeace need not worry because, instead of merely heeding these concerns, we share them. As opposed to loud protests, members of the Arctic Council take real action to preserve the environment of this unique region. This body stipulates special programmes to support indigenous Arctic nations and to preserve their lifestyle, traditions and culture. Recently, Arctic Council members decided to accept observers. This was a long process. Several EU countries, China, India and a number of other countries, including Japan and Korea, have joined in.

The approved decision expressly states that Arctic countries, members of the Arctic Council, determine cooperation rules in the Arctic. When we meet during this forum, no one mentions any conflicts or talks about confrontation. Everyone is interested in developing this region on the basis of cooperation, respect for international law, including decisions to demarcate the boundaries of the continental shelf. Russia is actively involved in this work. We have already proved our rights to the entire Okhotsk Sea. The process of formalising continental shelf rights is currently being finalised. This will be a lengthy procedure. We are confident that we have everything we need to formalse Russia’s rights to the entire continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.

What is also of note is that Canada and Russia have at least one thing in common; both countries - with the North West Passage in Canada and the "North East Passage" in Russia - take the view that these are territorial waters, domestic waters, and not international waters. You wouldn't know that judging from Baird's typically stupid Russophobic remarks. But perhaps he can't help himself.

Lavrov makes specific reference to Greenpeace and indigenous arctic nations. Those Conservative idiots could learn something from him about that. While he disagrees with Greenpeace, Lavrov actually takes the time to address their concerns.

Lavrov has, in a number of pieces that I have read lately, addressed this "winner take all" attitude in politics, and its harmfulness. I think we could learn from this discourse; we need to learn how to torpedo and sink these obstinate and hateful political views, in which democracy simply becomes a series of short term dictatorships. If you don't take people's legitimate interests into account, then you will be creating more conflict and problems. Western politicians don't ever seem to get this. We on the left must because it is us, and not the political right, who will make the world a safer place. They seem to just want war, judging by morons like Baird and Harper.

The Bear and the Dragon.

Interesting remarks by P Escobar. Brilliant, really. "Bide your time and hide your abilities." lol. Thanks to TINA, Thatcher style, the West is really going down the sewer thanks to the 1%, the neo-cons and their coup in Ukraine, and so on.

The future is Asian.

The Russian President, V.V. Putin, has made a substantial speech at the Valdai (debate) Club and a full transcript is now available. There is also a video with the English language subtitles.

(The video includes the other speakers as well and I think some quick question and answer remarks which are probably good to look at. The whole video is almost 3 hours. Amazing. I mention this as well because Putin's ability to participate in such lengthy debate, much of it extemporaneous (as well as prepared remarks) is really an amazing contrast to most of our Western politicians who are, sadly, characterized by an inability to string a few coherent sentences together. I wish our own politicians, whatever their stripe, could do as well. )

In the remarks, Putin outlines his views of the current changes, from the dictat of the US in the unipolar world to a new, poly-central, multi-polar world. It's clear that he views such changes in a positive light.

V.V. Putin wrote:

Today’s discussion took place under the theme: New Rules or a Game without Rules. I think that this formula accurately describes the historic turning point we have reached today and the choice we all face. ...

As we analyse today’s situation, let us not forget history’s lessons. First of all, changes in the world order – and what we are seeing today are events on this scale – have usually been accompanied by if not global war and conflict, then by chains of intensive local-level conflicts. Second, global politics is above all about economic leadership, issues of war and peace, and the humanitarian dimension, including human rights....

Yes, many of the mechanisms we have for ensuring the world order were created quite a long time ago now, including and above all in the period immediately following World War II. Let me stress that the solidity of the system created back then rested not only on the balance of power and the rights of the victor countries, but on the fact that this system’s ‘founding fathers’ had respect for each other, did not try to put the squeeze on others, but attempted to reach agreements.

The main thing is that this system needs to develop, and despite its various shortcomings, needs to at least be capable of keeping the world’s current problems within certain limits and regulating the intensity of the natural competition between countries.

It is my conviction that we could not take this mechanism of checks and balances that we built over the last decades, sometimes with such effort and difficulty, and simply tear it apart without building anything in its place. Otherwise we would be left with no instruments other than brute force.

So, what happened in Putin's view?

V.V. Putin wrote:

But the United States, having declared itself the winner of the Cold War, saw no need for this. Instead of establishing a new balance of power, essential for maintaining order and stability, they took steps that threw the system into sharp and deep imbalance.

The Cold War ended, but it did not end with the signing of a peace treaty with clear and transparent agreements on respecting existing rules or creating new rules and standards. This created the impression that the so-called ‘victors’ in the Cold War had decided to pressure events and reshape the world to suit their own needs and interests. If the existing system of international relations, international law and the checks and balances in place got in the way of these aims, this system was declared worthless, outdated and in need of immediate demolition.

Pardon the analogy, but this is the way nouveaux riches behave when they suddenly end up with a great fortune, in this case, in the shape of world leadership and domination. Instead of managing their wealth wisely, for their own benefit too of course, I think they have committed many follies.

And so on. Very clear.

More on the crumbling Yanqui Empire and the end of the Unipolar dictat by the lidless eye in Washington.

Pepe Escobar wrote:

There’s hardly a more graphic illustration of where the multipolar world is going than what just happened at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing.

Take a very good look at the official photos. This is all about positioning – and this being China, pregnant with symbolic meaning. Guess who’s in the place of honor, side by side with President Xi Jinping. And guess where the lame duck leader of the “indispensable nation” has been relegated. The Chinese can also be masters at sending a global message.

How's it feel to be so "indispensable", Uncle Sam? aha ha ha ha ha!

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Gorbachev was spot on in Berlin when he stressed how, breaking the promise personally made to him by Bush the father, NATO embarked on an eternal eastward expansion; and how the West – essentially the US plus a few European vassals – now seems obsessed in launching a new cold war, with the new Berlin Wall – metaphorically – transplanted to Kiev.

In conclusion, then,

"A quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall the US, for all practical purposes, is run by an oligarchy. Europe is geopolitically irrelevant. “Democracy” has been degraded to self-parody in most of the West. “Humanitarian” – as well as neo-con - imperialism in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and beyond has led to disaster after disaster. Financial turbo-capitalism is a time bomb.

Russia and China may not be proposing an alternative system – yet. Still, as the dogs of war, of hate, of inequality - bark, the China-Russia caravan passes. The caravan is selling Eurasia economic integration – not bombs. Real Asia-Pacific integration may still be a long dream away. Yet what APEC has shown – graphically – once again is the spectacular implosion, in slow motion, of the former indispensable nation’s geopolitical dominance."

From "running dogs" to "barking dogs". Heh. But Escobar has such a way with words, huh?

The American Century is over. The Eurasian Century has begun.  Too f*cking bad, Uncle Sam.

The dominance of the views of such neo-cons as Brzezinski, Wolfowitz, etc., and bare-faced li*rs like Colin Powell (over fictitious WMDs in Iraq) as well, leads to the sort of catastrophic "failures" of US foreign policy that we've seen in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and so on. The beat just goes on.

I put "failure" in scare quotes because, failing to obtain their desired results, Plan "B" for the Empire is general chaos and death. Literally. This is the legacy of the USA.  There is a myopic ideology of an "indispensable" country, meaning, of course, that EVERYONE ELSE IS DISPENSABLE AND SUBJECT, LITERALLY, TO EXTERMINATION, which is pronounced, noisily, even by this lame duck President. The hubris is ... breathtaking. And monstrous.

The venomous Russophobic and Putin-phobic campaigns, with the volume turned up as high as Cold War I, puts back the solution to critical regional and global problems by years or even decades. The American Nero fiddles while the rest of the world, for all they care, can burn to the ground.

There is a complete unwillingness to accept that other countries have interests of their own, that the USA is not the provider of blessings but rather, more often than not, is the instrument of mass death, and this is demonstrated by the frothing hatred towards Russia's President and that country generally. The Russians are failing to conduct themselves as "losers" of the Cold War, failing to crawl on their belly when the Master speaks, failing to allow the US to defecate in their face and meekly ask for seconds, faling to submit when ethnic Russians are "cleansed" from Ukraine, and so on.

All this makes the neo-cons, and those who follow them, rabid and frothing with rage. The "losers", it turns out, like their sovereignty, have their own view of the world, aren't interested in secret scum-bag deals with the USA, who always, in any case, renege on their promises (the most important of which was the "solemn" promises to Gorbachev that NATO would not move one inch closer to Russia), and have, at very long last said, "No," to the bully.

This "No" is leading to a chain of events, inexorable as life, in which the bully will be ignored, restrained, and finally tamed. That is, of course, if the bully doesn't kill everyone and everything on this Planet.

When the British Empire was in decline, when the Soviet regime was in decline, these regimes did not lash out like the beast - the lidless eye of the Five Eyes - in Washington does. This is a different sort of Empire ... a truly global Empire and the first of its kind. May it be the very last on Planet Earth.

A very good article about the full spectrum war on Russia also includes some remarks about the end of the unipolar world.

See From Energy War to Currency War: America’s Attack on the Russian Ruble

Here is the relevant quote.

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In the words of Sergey Glazyev, Moscow is thinking of a «systemic and comprehensive» response «aimed at exposing and ending US political domination, and, most importantly, at undermining US military-political power based on the printing of dollars as a global currency». [22] His solution includes the creation of «a coalition of sound forces advocating stability — in essence, a global anti-war coalition with a positive plan for rearranging the international financial and economic architecture on the principles of mutual benefit, fairness, and respect for national sovereignty». [23]

The coming century will not be the «American Century» as the neo-conservatives in Washington think. It will be a «Eurasian Century». Washington has taken on more than it can handle, this may be why the US government has announced an end to its sanctions regime against Cuba and why the US is trying to rekindle trade ties with Iran. Despite this, the architecture of the post-Second World War or post-1945 global order is now in its death bed and finished. This is what the Kremlin and Putin’s presidential spokesman and press secretary Dmitry Peskov mean when they impart—as Peskov stated to Rossiya-24 in a December 17, 2014 interview — that the year 2014 has finally led to «a paradigm shift in the international system».

The rest of the article relates to a useful summary of US attack on Russia which rightly belongs in another thread.

On the occassion of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the UN, there are some meetings and discussion at that body over the future of the UN. What the Chinese and Russian reps had to say was very interesting.

No doubt the US regime will make some bellicose and threatening statement, while brutal arm-twisting and threats of regime change go on behind the scenes, to an empty room.

What kind of UN do we want?

RT wrote:

The UN would be effective in settling international disputes, if some member-states didn’t try to use it for dominating world affairs, Russian Foreign Minister believes, adding that such efforts led to bombings in Serbia, war in Iraq and chaos in Libya.

Lavrov had an interesting remark, quoting the UN's 2nd Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld: "The UN was not created to take humanity to paradise. It was created to prevent humanity from sinking into hell."

It's probably a useful reminder to calm excessively optimistic fantasies about the role of the UN.  

Some things mentioned in Lavrov's remarks: polycentric world order, attempts to dominate world affairs (not mentioning who but rather obvious, and enumerating the techniques used:  regime change, arm twisting, outside interference, unfolding media war that can actually lead to "hot" war (this is new), etc.).

The Chinese leader of the discussion also showed that it is not just Russia who has these polycentric views.

RT wrote:

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi – who chaired the debate, as China holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for February – called the Cold War mentality worth "the ash heap of history." Relations between the countries should be built upon principles of equality and cooperation, he said, adding that "no country in the world has the right to impose its will upon others and displace legitimate governments."

Wang Yi also warned the countries of the threats of the use of military power, and expressed concerns over continuing attempts to rewrite history by bettering the reputations of Nazi criminals.

Without saying their names, one thinks of Canada, USA, and Ukraine and their recent disgrace at the UN over (refusing to) rebuffing Nazi propaganda.

Ash can of history, indeed.  Get with the program, you losers. The Nazis lost in 1945 but their supporters and fellow travellers keep trying to revive their odious views and practices in new circumstances. 

See Obama:

MORE: Obama: 'We have to twist arms when countries don't do what we need them to'

What a stark contrast between the declining hegemon, blundering and creating horrific oceans and lakes of death, igniting conflagrations everywhere it can, and the genuine best interests of humanity for a peaceful, safe, and, yes, kindly world.

That other world is possible, many have said this, but it's going to be a long and difficult fight.

voice of the damned wrote:

Kosmos: You do realize, right, that China is the country that was a pretty major collaborator with US imperialism for about a twenty year period, starting with the Angloan conflict in the 70s and continuing all the way into the 80s and 90s with supporting the Khmer Rouga against the Hun Sen's government.

I didn't know about the role of China in Angola but the role wrt the Khmer had probably a lot to do with China's anti-Viet Namese policy as well. China's current role in Africa is one of a rival of the imperial powers and, as such, they can play a role of giving Africans a wider choice of who to deal with in economic development.

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And now you think they're suddenly going to embrace a co-operative ethic on the world stage because...their leaders are giving boilerplate speeches about peace and kindness?

Do you really want to compare an Empire that has 1,000 military bases around the world, outside its own territory, and any one of its much smaller regional rivals? A poly-centric world can be a safer world.

If you wish, go ahead and support the single hegemonic Empire. I'm sure there will be plenty of Americans who will share your 'sensible' views.

Supplemental: even the liberal Huffington Post can't help but lift the lid a little to expose the horror.

Why Does the U.S. Keep Getting Involved in Conflict?

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Ukraine. Gaza. Syria. Yemen. Pakistan. If it feels like the United States is always at war somewhere, that's because it is. Not just Iraq and Afghanistan - the two wars we all know about. And, granted, we're not only talking boots on the ground. It's our money, our weapons and - more often in recent weeks - our Secretary of State, engaged in high-stakes diplomacy to uneven results. At his last count, investigative journalist Kevin Gosztola put the U.S. war count at 74. These are mostly unannounced and undeclared wars against enemies that have different aspirations, strategies and ideologies.

That is 74 wars at the time of the writing of the article.

The author then goes into the convulutions that the US State Department goes into to justify these endless wars.

Quote:

"Perpetual war for perpetual peace," is how historian Charles Beard described the national security doctrine of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, and it largely remains the blueprint for U.S. foreign policy today. HuffPost Live looked at the reasons why last week in "Always At War," a three-part series I hosted ...

The "War on Terror" is one such example. It is, quite literally, endless war.

As Orwell wrote, imagine a boot in the face of humanity. Forever.

This is the future dominated by the US Empire. It is the first trully global Empire. If human being are going to survive into the future, it had better be the last. There are simply too many problems for which the clock is ticking, too many lethal weapons whose use will eventually become inevitable. Then William Shirer's grim prediction will come true.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich wrote:

“In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on and uninhabited planet.”

Michael Moriarity wrote:

Very well put. Nationalism is just a distraction from the power of the trans-national oligarchs.

I don't know if it's true or not, but there is a famous story in which Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was discussing the powerful influence of the Vatican.

"How many divisions does the Vatican have?" he asked.

So, in the same way, let's ask ... "How many divisions do the oligarchs have?"

Ans: In Ukraine, quite a few. But they're getting their asses kicked by a rag-tag bunch of rebels and resistance. Miners and truck drivers. It is still the US regime and its military (ok, its military industrial complex to be more precise) which plays the role as outlined above.

voice of the damned wrote:

... Doesn't mean we need to take it at face value when Apple runs ads saying "We care about our customers."

Everything has to be evaluated on its own merit, even if it is a very good guide to initial understanding of practically any international  issue to note that "if the Empire is for it, then it's probably bad." We have far too many babblers who seem to operate from the opposite premise, i.e., "if the USA is for it, then it's probably good."