Geopolitics 101 for the 2020s

The ‘information ecology’ of people living in the English-speaking world is collapsing as fast as, if not faster than, natural ecosystems. On the one hand, mainstream corporate and state media now regularly mislead us about our health, economy, environment and society, whenever that protects the established order. Even ‘progressive’ media institutions muddy the waters about ongoing imperialist exploitation and violence. On the other hand, most non-traditional media in the form of celebrity pundits and independent journalists, don’t have the capacity to do more than react critically to news from the mainstream, and often spin simplistic or sensational narratives to gain attention. For people who have the time to find independent expert voices on various topics, such as war, economy and public health, then there is much available. But most people don’t have the time for that. Therefore, I have noticed a rise in the number of people who have distorted views of what is happening in the world, even if they work on matters of common concern. Combined with the widespread use of moral psychology in modern media, whereby differing opinions are made out to be disgusting or dangerous, this can lead to some awkward interactions in-person and online. That is why I am so relieved that Brave New Europe regularly produce well-informed left-of-centre analysis of European and global affairs. You can read my past essays with them, mainly on climate issues, here. But what caught my eye last week was their summary of geopolitical shifts during 2023, written by Mathew D Rose. It provided a synthesis rarely, if ever, found in Western media, whether mainstream or not. Mathew focuses on the major shift in global power that is underway – something largely hidden from the citizens of the West. I recommend you take time to read it below, and then browse other articles from them.

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Summary of the year from Brave New Europe:

About this time of year thousands of columns, blogs, opinion pieces, and podcasts are produced predicting what will happen in the new year, in the current case 2024.

Thinking about this, I felt we do not have the least notion of what happened in 2023, where we are now, and where we are going. So I thought I would make some predictions about the past, as odd as that may sound.

In the course of 2023 we have probably experienced the greatest geopolitical shift since the collapse of the Soviet Union, following which we became a “unipolar” world. This is an unfortunate term as it presupposes that outside of the United States everyone else sort of sat about and did nothing, playing the role of extras to US hegemony. On the other hand, maybe we did.

In 2023 we experienced tectonic shifts in world power and influence. Not only have we seen the end of the “unipolar” world, whereby I do not solely mean the duopoly with China challenging US world economic dominance. It is much more complex and vast than that. Some have titled this shift as “End of Empire”, predicting an accelerating run of calamitous political developments in the US and other Western nations as their hegemonial power slowly disintegrates.

Let us start with the West’s prime project for 2023: the planned neutralisation of Russia as an opponent to US hegemony via a proxy war in Ukraine. By the beginning of 2023 Russia had been written off by Western state and corporate media. Not only did they claim that a Russian defeat in Ukraine was inevitable, but its economy was destined to collapse under the weight of Western economic and financial sanctions. Putin was purportedly living on borrowed time.

Simultaneously the West was whetting it knives in preparation to cutting China off from much of the world market by banning exports and imports. As in Ukraine, this was flanked by a massive military build up around China by the US and its NATO vassal states. The Empire appeared unstoppable. By the end of the year the situation had drastically changed.

Today it appears consensus that Ukraine has lost the war. The question has become what will the defeat look like? The West is staring still another military defeat in the eye following Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Iraq. It will be of no surprise if many people in the world are slowly coming to the realisation that the US military, so powerful as it may be on paper and its apparent unlimited ability to deliver mass destruction anywhere in the world, is not invincible. To the contrary, it cannot win a war. This may be because the US does not need to win a war, simply destroy any threat to its hegemony. Death and destruction have become the goal, not the means.

We are seeing a similar challenge to Western dominance in former French African colonial nations that have been throwing the French and its European military allies out. Interestingly they ignore US military presence. That says a lot about the more rapid geopolitical decline of Europe.

Furthermore, Russia has built up an impressive military-industrial complex that has blunted everything the West could throw at it in Ukraine. That means that once the war in Ukraine is ended, it will become an armaments export powerhouse offering recently battlefield tested products against Western military technology. With its revitalised defence industries Russia has overtaken Germany to become the fifth-wealthiest economy in the world and the largest in Europe in terms of purchasing power parity. It is difficult to judge what the rest of the Russian economy is doing, but it has pivoted away from Europe and is in the process of integrating its economy with Southeast Asia and the rest of the Global South, apparently successfully. A major market and supplier of raw materials has been lost for Europe, with undeniable economic and political consequences.

Russia’ survival has exposed the assumed economic and financial invincibility of the United States as somewhat threadbare. Now the West threatens to go nuclear and expropriate the round 300 billion dollars of Russian assets the West had blocked in 2022. As far as Russia is concerned, the money is gone. What the effect of such a drastic measure will have upon nations that are not part of the Western Block, which is most of the world, will be interesting. It is somewhat like being told by your bank that they can steal the money on your account with impunity if they wish. The message is clear: there are no rules and laws for the world’s hegemon except those it pulls out of its sleeve. The reputation of the US as an honest arbiter of world finance has been discredited.

Nor has the economic offensive against China been more successful. As in Russia it has been a fillip to developing its own technologies as a substitute to what it can no longer access in the West. As always Europe will pay the price. China has Europe, especially Germany, over a barrel, as many industries are dependent upon the Chinese market, not to mention the billions in investments they have in China.

In its quest to restore its hegemony the US has created a China-Russia axis and motivated many nations to find ways to avoid US economic and financial blackmail to force them to join in in its military aggression and trade sanctions. One must add that European corporations and banks are doing much the same. One only needs to view the astronomical increase in trade between European companies and nations on Russia’s southern border to understand how goods are being rerouted.

Altogether the rule based order propagated as the guiding principle of the United States has been fraying for quite a while. The inability of the West to mobilise the rest of the world against Russia diplomatically has repeatedly failed, despite pressure and bribes. The writing is on the wall.

Most of these developments among others resulted in the reanimation of BRICS. It is still early days and there is much instability within the group itself, raising doubts of its short term effectiveness. The event in itself however is already a clear indication in a change of thinking in the Global South: a geopolitical order beyond the USA and the West.

Then came Israel’s genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Had there been any doubt, the perception that the US or West embodied any sort of moral righteousness has been destroyed. Their support of Israeli war crimes had been without limit. Once again hegemonial death and destruction have prevailed.

The West’s hypocrisy with regard to the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza has been exceedingly embarrassing. Diplomacy or goodwill are not in their operative handbook, solely feeble rallying cries of irreparably discredited propaganda machines. In the UN the US has blatantly defied world opinion and values, most recently vetoing a ceasefire in the Security Council. It is South Africa that has filed an application instituting proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, for alleged violations by Israel of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the “Genocide Convention”) with regard to Palestinians in the Gaza.

Nor is it clear how Israel’s war of annihilation against the Palestinian people will evolve or expand. The war in Gaza drags on, despite massive Palestinian civilian casualties, mostly children and women, inflicted by Israel. It has always been a precarious situation with many potential war parties. Unexpectedly the Houthi government in Yemen has entered the war, attempting to close the Red Sea for Israeli shipping and cargoes. If you think about it, such an international intervention of this magnitude by a little nation like Yemen would have been unimaginable at the beginning of 2023.

The rise of China has also altered the geopolitical perception of many in the Global South. China is not regarded as an element of death and destruction as is the US. How benevolent it is will become clearer in the course of time, but beyond dubious US and European claims, there is little evidence of aggressive trade or financial relations between China and other nations as are predominant in their relations with the West. For many nations in the Global South China has become a figure of hope – or at least a better deal.

Wherever this goes, the situation at the beginning of 2023 has vastly altered, a shift that is not only irreversible, but most probably will continue. Although it is not yet definable, there is a sense of finality. Nothing will be like it was at the beginning of 2023. In the West and in the Global South.

And who knows, and this would be my prediction for 2024, that second greatest academic opportunist of all time after Alan Dershowitz, Francis Fukuyama, may grace us with a new essay: “The Beginning of History 2.0”.

Last but not least, there is the ever increasing ravages of climate breakdown. Although we have no idea when and where the next calamity will occur and what its effects will be, we all know that they will occur. I am not sure what to best compare the current situation to, a time bomb or whack-a-mole.

Two things are in the meantime clear. Capitalist and US interests will always have priority over climate and environment. The United States with its policy of death and destruction to protect its hegemony will make no concessions concerning climate. With its limitless support of genocide by Israel in Gaza, the ultimate red line with regard to respect for life has been crossed. Everyone and everything will have to be sacrificed in the service of capitalist profit and US interests. Governmental efforts to counter the climate emergency have become immense celebrations of capitalism as we saw at COP28.

So one probably does not need to make any major predictions for 2024. The stage has been set, the curtain raised, the rest is a question of how quickly the action will evolve.

Read more articles at https://braveneweurope.com/

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One of the ways to become more adept at coping with a degraded information environment, where different factions of capital are trying to manipulate our ideas and emotions, is to develop our critical literacy. That is why I included a whole chapter on that in my book Breaking Together. You can listen to the chapter for free here. It is also why critical thinking is such a central part of my courses on Leading Through Collapse.

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