THE year 2022 in just the first six months has seen massive, chaotic shifts in the world’s politics and economies. Never have so many simultaneous crises blown up, and continue to be intentionally built up, than in this period. A major war, focused on a single country, Ukraine, but involving the entire world, has broken out. The US is actively pursuing alliances to divide the world militarily, financially and technologically.
Without precedence, the dimensions of these conflicts are now extended to include financial clearing systems, restriction of education and joint research, even allowing the elimination of major languages which Ukraine was allowed to do years ago to Russians. The banning is without consistent criteria, of sale of commonly used technologies. And it is extending worldwide — the reach of the laws of a single country, the US, to allow the illegal detention of foreign citizens in third world countries, confiscation of national reserves, and public statements to overthrow leaders of other nations, as when US President Joe Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot remain in power, and when former US senator John McCain and secretary of state Hillary Clinton made public speeches in front of Kyiv crowds to change an elected government.
Biden usurped questions meant for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a media interview earlier this year, taking over the leadership of Germany. The $11-billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline is now abandoned, forcing the Germans to pay for more expensive energy. The US and the UK recently made Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy withdraw from an agreement reached with Russia, convincing him he could win. And now Ukraine, by not fulfilling the Minsk agreement it signed along with Germany and France to give autonomy to Donbas regions and continuing offensive wars, stands to lose its access to ports in the Black Sea, and almost its entire East Ukraine, although western media kept touting its victories. Really?
Biden calls the Russian war unexpected, although Russia has been warning of it for 30 years, and even then Senator Biden in 1997 also said that “NATO expansion would provoke a “hostile reaction” from Russia” … the US (not Ukraine) repeatedly refused to agenda Russian security concerns about NATO weapons possibly 10 minutes away from Moscow in the discussions.
Biden calls the worldwide inflation a “Putin tax,” although the US is the one banning nations from buying from Venezuela, Iran or Russia. Russia is allowing food to be exported from Ukraine and oil to be sold through it, but Zelenskyy is the one restricting food exports when it didn’t get the weapons it wanted from the west.
The potential disastrous hunger of several Ukrainian-and-Russian-wheat-and-foodstuff dependent nations, and the higher allocation by billions of Euros for defense are due to a war the US had declared was meant to instigate the fall of Putin.
The massive inflation, stagflation, and currency devaluations around the world are due to massive US and UK currency releases, without increases in production of goods or substantive services.
NATO EXPANDING ALL THE WAY TO EAST ASIA… What defensive alliance? It’s an offensive alliance, meant to protect the US not from attack but from declining to second status. Kishore Mahbubani reminds the world that the during the past 20 years, the Western powers dropped 326,000 bombs, while the East Asians dropped ZERO bombs.
Part of US desperation, including the organizing of Aukus, 5 eyes, TPP, Indo Pacific Economic Framework and new infrastructure programs all exclude China, with the aim of containing it, whereas the initiatives of China welcome cooperation with those who would like to join, from RCEP to the Belt and Road Initiative.
The main concern of people around the world is their own lives, to be prosperous, independent, want cooperation, not confrontation… But with the hostile posturing of the US against China and Russia, the US is forcing them to react, and not to remain docile.
No one wants war, not Russia or China, not the American people — only the US rulers who want to maintain US hegemony.
The inner peace of peoples is being undermined under the distortion of truth by western media. The creation of anger and rise of selfish philosophies will be the reaction, just as communism rose from monarchic and oligarchic insensitivities, even cruelties. The loss of identity, i.e., Germany and Ukraine becoming ghosts, is palpable.
For the West to rebuild, it must not believe its own lies. Reality must be the basis.
For the world to rebuild, it must have mutual security, not islands or alliances… just like the designs of chips or logistic networks, or any system. Individual rights cannot be the sole basis, nor just the powers of the majority.
New rising powers. India, China, Russia are resurgent due to leadership grounded on reality, and while not without their shortcomings, make an effort to prioritize the needs of their people. The US media covered the mass shooting in a suburb in Chicago on Independence day that killed seven people, but hardly reported on the fact that over 45,000 Americans died from gun-related injuries and 100,000 died of opioids overdose annually, and over a million have died due to Covid-19.
Leadership models are like business models. Better performance by extending innovative or successful leaders and models, but even then, they cannot stay forever. Statistics and history show that any curve has peaks and valleys.
The US is still powerful and remains to be one of the most innovative countries. All countries continue to want to work with the US, but unlike before, they now want to be treated more as partners, and are also willing to take a bigger share of the responsibilities. Relations with the US have their benefits, but nations also have to be aware of how the US uses its allies.
The Philippines will definitely be targeted by the US to be part of its web of alliances that are required to be against any nation not subjected to US rule.
How should the Marcos Jr. government manage this in a way that is pro-Philippines on an overall basis?
Stay tuned for Part 2 on how the world is reformatting as the US hegemony crumbles.
A similar version was published in Manila Times on July 9 2021. We welcome logical feedback and possibly working together with compatible frameworks. (idsicenter@gmail.com)
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