The end of the unipolar world has come.
Unipolar, in this context refers to the near monopoly that Western countries, NATO in particular, have over geopolitical issues and military violence. Violence from Western countries is typically tolerated, or at the most, a scathing propaganda piece is published in China’s Global Times. This status quo, the idea that the West can force the hand of other countries, is what is at stake.
As the current conflict in Ukraine has accelerated, it has cemented the fall of NATO and the notion that the West could be the leaders of the world. This conflict has irreparably damaged the global system that was established at the end of the second world war.
For context, the policy of much of the Western world, even pre WWII, was to establish strong economic ties between countries, in the hope that international conflict could be avoided. This originally started with the League of Nations, effectively a proto-UN. Later, the Bank for International Settlements was created. After WWII, the International Monetary Fund was created with the intention to facilitate international trade. Not coincidentally, the United Nations was created only two months prior, October of 1945. Later in the century, the SWIFT payment system was introduced, to enable international banks to easily facilitate financial transactions with one another.
Strictly speaking, one can view these policies as nothing more than a way to devalue the wages of the workers in Western countries, by allowing trade with countries with little to no worker protections. And while this view is certainly valid and does have merit, it also stands to reason that the West, with this policy and geopolitical position, was hoping to keep the world from having a global conflict ever again.
However, it now seems that the belief that economic cooperation would prevent war has now been disproved by the very same empire that was so ardent to see other countries adopt these policies as well. The West, by putting forth the absolutely brutal economic sanctions on Russia, has effectively lost all trust on the geopolitical stage. By banning Russia’s access to the Swift payment system, as well as suspending Russia from using the Bank for International settlements, we have forced Russia’s hand. Russia, now backed into a corner, has no other recourse than to completely detach itself from the West. It may well be the case that there are no other options for the West to consider, but in establishing these sanctions, we have tipped the first domino, and have set in motion the birth of a multipolar globe.
Russia now seeks to force the West’s hand by forcing “Hostile Nations” (read “NATO and its allies”) to pay for Oil and Gas, not in US Dollars, but in Rubles. Normally such challenges to the petrodollar are met with absolute destruction of the nation that dares attack the system. However, this case is different. Putin, seemingly correctly, predicted that the West would not be willing to risk nuclear war over Ukraine.
I think it was naive of the West to think that its geopolitical influence would last forever. Peace, rather tragically, is not the natural state of the world, and to convince ourselves that we have progressed past the human inclination to War was incredibly foolish. Instead, we have now effectively been thrown back into the tarpit of geopolitical survival. If the West wants to preserve this system, then we will have to risk everything in the struggle. This moment provides us with a very real possibility to reevaluate our position in the world, and what a future multipolar globe may look like.
The profoundly tragic irony in this is that the West was willing to invade countries and institute regime changes to governments and countries who would challenge this system in the past. But now it seems that the West finally has an opponent who they can’t just democratize with a CIA plot.
You can also view this article here.