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Why the Left Should Not Join Trump or BRICS' Attack on Globalism
US hegemony and a neoliberal faith in unfettered markets are noxious to be sure, but don’t be fooled by autocrats championing sovereignty
Nov 05, 2025
President Donald Trump hates Antifa. He hates late-night TV hosts, Democratic-controlled cities, and anyone who has ever challenged him in court. As of October, he officially hates the Nobel committee for not giving him a peace prize, despite his efforts to strong-arm its members into voting for him.
The president has gone after everyone he thinks has ever done him wrong. But there is a Venn diagram to his vendettas, an overlap in his circle of obsessions.
Map out his attacks, subtracting the purely personal and the primarily partisan, and you’ll see that they converge on a profound disgust for the liberal international order. That Trump has personally profited from that very global order—his portfolio of international real estate, his business’s reliance on global supply chains, the unacknowledged benefits he’s accrued from the international rule of law—makes no difference.
“Globalists” like Barack Obama, George Soros, and Emmanuel Macron have made fun of him, not fully accepting him into their ranks and refusing to acknowledge his brilliance with medals and awards. In the president’s skewed accounting ledger, the gatekeepers at the global country club who don’t want him as a member must be made to pay.
The dalliance between left and right is taking place at the margins where a mutual disgust for liberalism fuels the romance.
Trump has attacked the liberal international order in seemingly every conceivable way. He’s initiated a global trade war. He’s dismantled US humanitarian assistance to impoverished lands and put pressure on allies to spend more money on war preparations, not welfare programs or foreign aid. He’s destroyed relationships with liberal allies like Canada and the non-Hungarian members of the European Union. He’s levied sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) in an effort to shut it down. He’s gleefully ignored international law by embracing ICC scofflaws like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu. And he’s committed his own crimes, like the extrajudicial murder of the crews of nine boats near the Venezuelan coast and five in the Pacific Ocean.
The United States had long been a pillar of the liberal international order. So, when Trump takes a sledgehammer to its base, he causes potentially irreparable damage to the reputation, power, and global position of the United States. Many Americans, particularly those in the political center, are aghast at the self-inflicted wounds this country is now suffering.
In other quarters, however, there’s celebration.
America’s right wing has long hated everything that shimmers in the distance beyond the territorial waters of this country. The United Nations gives it indigestion. Ditto the European Union, the Third World, and anything connected to universal human rights. The most reactionary elements of the Republican Party have blocked Washington’s ratification of international treaties, undermined global efforts to address threats like climate change, and claimed to spot communist (or Islamist or terrorist) conspiracies behind every international institution and many nationalist movements. Such right-wingers have pushed to eliminate all forms of soft power in favor of beefed-up hard power. The ascendancy of Trump has provided them with an opportunity to force conventional conservatives from their party, while consolidating an America First position.
Elements of the left, too, have rejoiced in Trump’s globalism bashing. The most predictable support has come from unions that believe the president’s tariffs will protect American jobs. But some leftists have also been hesitant to support the work of the now largely shuttered US Agency for International Development (USAID)—even its distribution of AIDS medicines and climate funds—because of its legacy as a “destructive arm of American imperialism.” Some have even joined hands with Trump to deride NATO and echo Kremlin talking points on Ukraine. In the lead-up to the 2024 election, the odd progressive even mistook Trump for an anti-imperialist.
Once upon a time, adventurous theorists imagined that communism and capitalism might both end up adopting some version of democratic socialism, as a reformed Soviet Union and an increasingly welfare-state-oriented United States seemed to be converging on the Swedish model. In the early 1980s, however, the leaders of the two superpowers of that time, Leonid Brezhnev and Ronald Reagan, teamed up to drive a knife through that particular fantasy.
Today, a different convergence is in process and the two poles are not meeting in the middle. Rather, the dalliance between left and right is taking place at the margins where a mutual disgust for liberalism fuels the romance. This courtship has developed its own love language. Both sides love to hate “globalism”—and, of course, the globalists who globalized it.
Trump stands astride that consensus like an angry god, urging his followers to tear down the temples and wreak vengeance on those who worship foreign deities. Meanwhile, some Marxists mutter approvingly of “sharpening the contradictions”—the notion that Trump will make things so bad that the masses will rise up in reaction. Meanwhile, MAGA followers love the spectacle of destruction that clears the way for white people, rich people, or just plain mean people to take over.
The left and the right still maintain very different visions of the future: maximum justice versus maximum injustice. But their odd convergence against the international liberal elite helps to explain MAGA’s success in certain Democratic strongholds. “Throw the globalist bums out” is a tagline that can appeal to both ends of the political spectrum.
As the poet William Butler Yeats observed after the end of the First World War, the center is not holding, while the best lack all conviction. During this second coming of Donald Trump, however, you better believe that it won’t be mere anarchy that is loosed upon the world.
Globalism, No. Multipolarism, Yes?
Multipolarism has lately become all the rage. The notion that the world could have multiple centers of power in contrast to the bipolarism of the Cold War or the aspirational unipolarism of the United States after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 is anything but new. Still, with the “rise of the rest” and the ascent of China in particular, the world has begun to look ever less US-centric.
For many, however, multipolarism isn’t just a description, it’s a prescription, too.
On the right, philosophers like Alexander Dugin in Russia and Olavo de Carvalho in Brazil have used the concept as part of their ultra-nationalist projects. For Dugin, Russia must reassert its superpower status as part of a new Eurasian force to block the Anglo-Saxons and their NATO henchmen. For Carvalho, who died in 2022, multipolarism would enable Brazil to move closer to the Christian West, while shrugging off its subservience to global elites.
Some on the left, too, have identified multipolarism as a sign of a more equitable geopolitics—and a potential cudgel against American imperialism. As the Tricontinental editorialized in 2022:
The longed-for Western, globalised capitalist world has not lived up to the expectations of even its most enthusiastic advocates. Today we are witnessing a shift towards a multipolar world, despite the aspirations of neoliberal globalists, neoconservatives, and those who favour the US model of development (‘Americanists’).
Enter the BRICS
If multipolarism seems like a magic elixir to many, today’s vessel of choice for it is the BRICS. Over the years, many multipolar efforts have fallen by the wayside, including the Non-Aligned Movement, the New International Economic Order, the Group of 77, and the World Social Forum. But the institutions created by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) beginning in 2010 were seen by multipolarists as the inheritors of those earlier movements for non-alignment and so a potential counterforce to US and Western power. According to such a scenario, the BRICS would sooner or later replace the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), dethrone the dollar, and remake the entire global economy.
For some on the left, support for the transformative nature of BRICS recalls arguments used to defend Russia from charges of imperial designs on Ukraine. By supposedly holding the line against the enlargement of the European Union and the expansion of NATO, Russia was seen as standing up to the West. The globalists responded with the same kind of sanctions they’d applied to Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela. Unlike the leaders of those three countries, however, Vladimir Putin has never pretended to be a man of the left. Instead, as a right-wing authoritarian leader, he’s killed opponents; thrown dissidents in jail; eliminated an independent media in Russia; and imposed a religious, anti-LGBT, misogynistic agenda on its society. He’s also revived Russian imperialism with his invasion of Ukraine, his political meddling in Moldova, and his cyber-interference in the Baltic countries.
The cognitive dissonance required for a progressive to defend Putin carries over to any enthusiasm for BRICS as a whole. After all, a majority of the countries in that 11-member group—Russia, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—are presided over by autocrats. Only Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and India are democracies, and the last two come with asterisks, given the autocratic tendencies of their current leaders. Moreover, the anti-imperial credentials of the bloc are suspect, considering Russia’s interference in its “near abroad,” China’s position toward Taiwan, India’s efforts in Kashmir, and the Saudi war in Yemen. At best, many of the BRICS members are sub-imperial, as political economist Patrick Bond has long argued.
As a bloc of mostly authoritarian, eco-unfriendly, and socio-economically conservative countries masquerading as a geopolitical counterbalance, the BRICS represent the multipolarism of fools.
The BRICS also generally have a distinctly regressive position on climate change, which is hardly surprising given that the majority of them are significant fossil-fuel exporters. Brazil has been pushing its fellow members to focus on climate change as a threat to the planet, and a number of BRICS statements do acknowledge the importance of reducing carbon emissions. But China, despite its massive investments in the green energy revolution, remains stunningly dependent on the worst of the fossil fuels, coal, as do India and Indonesia, while carbon neutrality remains a distant goal for Russia (2070). In the latest BRICS statement, the members “acknowledge fossil fuels will still play an important role in the world’s energy mix, particularly for emerging markets and developing economies.”
But the conservative nature of the BRICS is perhaps most strikingly on display in its embrace of the global capitalist economy. Its July 2025 statement enthusiastically endorsed both the IMF and the World Bank, and put the World Trade Organization at the center of the global trading system. The principal BRICS institution, the New Development Bank, has been heralded as a building block for a new economic order, but its focus on financing the same old dirty extraction projects makes it a mirror image of the World Bank.
The BRICS mode of multipolarism has but a single progressive attribute: its potential as a counterbalance to US imperial power. Unfortunately, even a tepid challenge to Washington’s authority has produced a predictable backlash from Donald Trump, a leader committed not just to US unipolarism but to his own unileaderism. To the imaginary threat that the BRICS would actually create a currency to challenge the dollar, Trump has repeatedly warned that “any country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% tariff.”
Toward a True Internationalism
In its BRICS form, multipolarism boils down to, at best, an effort to get a better seat at the table with the big boys. At worst, it’s a repudiation of the progressive parts of internationalism, especially global efforts to rein in abuses of power through higher standards on human rights, the environment, and labor.
To support the regressive multipolarism of the BRICS countries, elements of the right and left trumpet the importance of sovereignty and the notion that a country’s leadership has uncontested control over the territory within its borders. Sovereignty is indeed under attack on all sides. At a territorial level, the most obvious violation is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the economic level, neoliberal globalists want to challenge sovereign economic power through corporate attacks on state regulations and the IMF’s imposition of budget austerity in its loan agreements. Internationalists, by contrast, focus on democratically agreed-upon norms around human rights, while challenging the state’s prerogative to deploy child soldiers, employ child workers, or kill off large parts of the population.
Progressive internationalists should, however, be wary of conservative notions of sovereignty. Sure, we loathe the IMF’s overreach and the way oil companies take countries to court to dismantle their environmental regulations. But we also don’t believe that kings, tyrants, or even democratically elected autocrats should have the freedom to invade other countries or engage in extrajudicial killings. Sovereignty is not a trump card (or a Trump card). Popular sovereignty, where power is in the hands of the people, is certainly indispensable in securing more democratic societies. But as Trump and his friends like Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Viktor Orbán of Hungary have demonstrated, autocrats often use the language of popular sovereignty to gain office before concentrating power in their own sovereign hands.
It’s a dispiriting irony that just when the world needs more internationalism to address climate change, economic inequality, and pandemics, among other devastating realities, it’s also experiencing an upsurge in nationalism propagated by the sovereignistas. Promoting internationalism these days feels a lot like embracing a Palestinian state when the material basis for such a state is disappearing beneath a rising tide of Israeli settlements and bombs. In both cases, there is a will but not, it seems, a way.
Progressives should not join hands with the right in a misguided attack on “globalists.” US hegemony and a neoliberal faith in unfettered markets are noxious to be sure, but don’t be fooled by autocrats championing sovereignty. As a bloc of mostly authoritarian, eco-unfriendly, and socio-economically conservative countries masquerading as a geopolitical counterbalance, the BRICS represent the multipolarism of fools. The ends do not justify the BRICS.
Call me a globalist, but someone has to stick up for this planet when so many extremists, whatever they may call themselves, have their knives out to carve Earth up into their own fiefdoms of bigotry.
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Trump’s Bizarre, Authoritarian, Big, Tech-Friendly Tariffs on Brazil
Trump’s actions are not motivated by any real economic or legal factors, but are instead about pushing his authoritarian agenda and doling out favors to Big Tech companies and other corporate cronies.
Jul 11, 2025
On July 9, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would impose tariffs of 50% on all imports from Brazil. In line with the latest round of tariffs announced over the past few days, these tariffs are to take effect on August 1, 2025.
Trump also announced the initiation of an investigation by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) into Brazil’s digital economy regulations, under Section 301 of the Trade Act.
Trump’s social media post outlines three ostensible reasons for the imposition of such high tariff rates. First, the supposed “Witch Hunt” against his friend Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing former president of Brazil, who is currently being prosecuted for allegedly initiating a coup following his electoral loss in 2022. Second, recent rulings by Brazil’s Supreme Court have sought to cast greater responsibility for content moderation on social media companies. And, third, a supposed trade deficit with Brazil caused by “many years of Brazil’s Tariff, and Non-Tariff, Policies and Trade Barriers.” However, a cursory analysis of these reasons makes it clear that Trump’s actions are not motivated by any real economic or legal factors, but are instead about pushing his authoritarian agenda and doling out favors to Big Tech companies and other corporate cronies.
President Trump, given his predilection for authoritarian strongmen, has long supported Brazil’s controversial ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, described by some as the “Trump of the tropics.” Notably, Trump hosted Bolsonaro in the White House in 2019, while also endorsing his run for reelection in 2021 and 2022, describing him as “one of the great presidents of any country in the world.” Importantly, however, Bolsonaro, in addition to sharing a scant regard for human rights, also embraced a “strongly neoliberal agenda” during his time in office, initiating many regulatory actions that mirror Trump’s in the U.S., such as weakening environmental protections, gutting labor regulations, and the like. In contrast, Brazil’s current President Luiz Ignacio Lula de Silva has been vocal in calling out Israel’s war on Gaza, while also seeking to strengthen BRICS—something President Trump is not particularly happy about, given the broader geostrategic challenge this represents to the U.S.
Bolsonaro is currently on trial in Brazil for allegedly instigating a coup that led to violent mobs seeking to take over critical institutions following his loss in the 2022 national elections. Trump appears to see parallels in the case against Bolsonaro with the January 6 insurrection of 2021. Trump’s seemingly blatant interference with domestic political and judicial processes has been strongly condemned by President Lula, who quite rightly insists that Brazil’s sovereignty must be respected.
The second reason cited by Trump pertains to Brazil’s recent attempts at regulating the digital ecosystem in the public interest. Brazil has been at the forefront of countries seeking to find new models of regulation for the digital economy. U.S. Big Tech companies hate Brazil’s proposals to implement a network usage fee and a new digital competition law. It also recently enacted a privacy law that has been called out in an annual U.S. government report that lists supposed non-tariff trade barriers (together with privacy laws in a number of other jurisdictions, such as the E.U., India, Vietnam, etc). This report, which Trump waved around at his April 2 tariff announcement event, is essentially “Project 2025” for trade policy.
It’s clear that the Trump administration will continue to threaten tariffs to countries around the world for standing up for their people’s rights on behalf of his billionaire buddies.
More pertinently, Brazil has been engaged in a standoff with a number of social media companies over the last few years, particularly given the problems of misinformation linked to Brazil’s last election cycle. A number of studies demonstrate how the use of misinformation was widespread during Brazilian elections over the last few years, with Bolsonaro supporters in particular said to have been targeted by propaganda. Brazil’s state institutions have been grappling with how best to address this maelstrom of misinformation, including by threatening to ban X, also known as Twitter, for failing to comply with domestic laws.
More recently, however, Brazil’s Supreme Court has ruled that social media companies have a responsibility to police their platforms against unsafe or illegal content. This goes directly in the face of a model the U.S. has long sought to propagate through the rest of the world—one that replicates its laissez-faire attitude to social media regulation under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. American law provides a “safe harbor” to platforms for carrying illegal user content, arguably reducing the incentive for social media companies to regulate illicit content (while others argue that the provision reduces privatized censorship). There has been a rigorous debate around Section 230 even in the United States, while a number of countries have or are seeking to move away from this model, as the scale of harm that can be caused by social media becomes more apparent and real. This threatens the profits of big companies such as Meta and X. By directly linking the imposition of tariffs to Brazil’s attempts at regulating social media, Trump is merely helping out his billionaire tech-bro buddies—part of his shakedown on behalf of Big Tech.
We have seen similar demands aimed at a number of countries that are seeking to regulate the digital ecosystem. For example, a number of digital regulations in the E.U., such as the General Data Protection Regulation, Digital Services Act, and Digital Markets Act, are reported to be under threat in trade negotiations between the U.S. and the E.U. Trump also recently strong-armed Canada to revoke its Digital Services Tax under threat of suspending trade negotiations. The tax was estimated to cost Big Tech companies in the region of CAD 7.2 billion over five years.
Most laughably, Trump reproduces language used in tariff letters sent to a number of other countries, claiming that he needed to impose the 50% tariff as Brazil has a trade deficit with the U.S. As pointed out by numerous analysts, this is patently wrong. The New York Times notes that “for years, the United States has generally maintained a trade surplus with Brazil. The two countries had about $92 billion in trade together last year, with the United States enjoying a $7.4 billion surplus in goods.” Brazil was even not on Trump’s own list for higher “reciprocal tariffs” announced in April, as the data published by the USTR noted the U.S. trade surplus with Brazil. Trump’s justification for enacting so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries was that their trade deficits with the U.S. constitute an emergency, granting him sweeping powers. This claim has been rejected by a federal court, with appeals still underway. Brazil’s lack of any deficit, let alone an emergency-justifying one, makes these tariffs on Brazil even more legally questionable.
Trump’s letter to Brazil announcing the new tariffs. Highlighted text was present in the form of letters sent to more than a dozen other countries.
So, what are Trump’s real motivations for the imposition of these tariffs on Brazil? As indicated above, he is clearly enamoured of Bolsonaro, while he hasn’t been shy of hiding his dislike for Lula. In addition to helping out his authoritarian buddy, Trump is also clearly seeking to repay Big Tech, significant contributors to his inauguration fund. As we have pointed out previously, Trump’s trade policy has essentially been a scheme to bully countries into deregulation, particularly in the tech space. This also accords with the longstanding U.S. policy to see to it that its digital companies are not regulated by foreign countries.
Looking ahead, things are as unclear as they have always been through the course of Trump’s second term in office. While the tariffs on Brazil are scheduled to go into effect this August, Trump appears to have kept the door open to further negotiations. Barring a diplomatic resolution, the USTR’s S 301 investigation will likely find that Brazil created an unjustifiable burden or restricted American interests, though this could take some time. Such a determination could lead to the imposition of new (more legally sound) tariffs or be used to justify the already announced tariffs against Brazil.
Brazil, meanwhile, has already enacted an Economic Reciprocity law that will allow it to take retaliatory action against the U.S., including by imposing tariffs, suspending commercial concessions and investments, and obligations pertaining to intellectual property rights. It would appear that the Brazilian government is prepared to take steps to protect its sovereignty, though it will also be motivated by the need to ensure continued exports to the U.S., which is an important market for a number of Brazilian products, such as energy, aircraft and machinery, and agricultural and livestock products.
While it is difficult to predict what is likely to happen in the days and months ahead, it’s clear that the Trump administration will continue to threaten tariffs to countries around the world for standing up for their people’s rights on behalf of his billionaire buddies. The question, however, remains: Will countries stand up to Trump’s bullying and instead protect their sovereign right to regulate in the public interest and will Congress hold him accountable for his con on American workers?
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Fair Trade Campaigners Call for World to Stand Up to Trump 'Economic Warfare' and Tariff 'Bullying'
"We don't want an emperor, we are sovereign countries," said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Jul 09, 2025
Campaigners are urging the international community to stand firm against U.S. President Donald Trump as he ramps up trade tensions across the globe, both with traditional American geopolitical rivals and allies.
"Short-term, governments need to stand together to challenge this aggression," said Nick Dearden, director of the U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now. "Long-term, they need to start working towards a fairer trade model, which stops prioritizing the interests of big corporations, and starts putting ordinary people, here and across the world, first."
Dearden's call came after The Independent reported on Tuesday that China is reacting angrily to Trump's threats to level additional tariffs against nations that align with the "BRICS" bloc of nations consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
The Chinese government, through its People's Daily state-run newspaper, accused Trump of "bullying" and threatened retaliation against nations that entered into agreements with the U.S. at China's expense. China also insisted that "dialogue and cooperation are the only correct path" to resolving trade disputes.
On the other side of the ledger, Politico reports that U.S. allies Japan and South Korea feel deep frustration at Trump's latest tariff threats despite the fact that they have been engaging in what they say are good-faith efforts to secure new trade deals.
"To give adjectives to the reaction or response, it would be, number one, shock," a former Japanese official told Politico. "Number two, frustration. And number three, anger."
Another official of a foreign government that has been targeted by Trump similarly expressed exasperation with the president and told Politico, "We have no idea what the hell he's sending, who he's sending it to, or how he's sending it."
However, Trump's latest tariff maneuvers have also produced a sense of defiance both among some political leaders and among fair trade advocacy groups. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva this week made the case that Trump's erratic and capricious trade demands are a good reason for other nations to develop trade partnerships independent of the United States.
"We don't want an emperor, we are sovereign countries," Lula said this week during a BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, as reported by NPR. "It's not right for a president of a country the size of the United States to threaten the world online."
Consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen issued a statement this week that made similar points to those made by Lula and cautioned nations against making concessions to Trump in trade talks, especially since many of his demands align with the interests of corporate America.
"During his April 2 'reciprocal tariffs' announcement, Trump waved around the annual National Trade Estimates report, which details the hit list of other countries' policies that large U.S. corporations don’t like," argued Public Citizen. "The Trump team has made clear that this is a blueprint for the 'non-tariff barriers' they seek to eliminate, even though many are public interest laws. The Trump team will continue to bully countries, like he did with Canada on its digital services tax. As the deadline approaches, additional countries may feel pressured to cave to these demands for corporate tax cuts, deregulation of Big Tech, and expanded monopolies for Big Pharma—either explicitly or in under-the-table agreements."
Public Citizen further warned that Trump has shown himself open to pure corruption in his dealings with other nations.
"Trump may continue to punt the deadlines for some countries, claiming progress toward deals—allowing him to continue to extract sweetheart deals for himself and his cronies," the organization wrote. "Potentially endless extensions give Trump more time to push his corporate deregulatory agenda, as well as to accept personal 'gifts' from countries looking to avoid tariffs, like luxury jets, rubber-stamped development projects, and purchases of his meme coin."
Global Justice Now's Dearden also warned nations against letting themselves getting taken advantage of by Trump.
"It's another week of bullying and bluster from Donald Trump, with the U.S. president threatening further economic warfare against a wide range of governments," he said. "Countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia would be devastated by these tariffs. We simply don't know whether these newly-threatened tariffs will come to pass, but we do know that they are being used to bully governments into handing even more of their sovereignty to some of the biggest corporations in the world."
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How Can the Global South Fulfill the Promise of Bandung in the 21st Century?
To celebrate the spirit of Bandung is not simply to mark 70 years since the Asia-Africa Conference, but to affirm what being faithful to its principles and ideals means today.
May 08, 2025
The Bandung Conference in April 1955 has achieved the status of a mythical moment in the history of the Global South. There have been many accounts that have highlighted its downsides—among them, the underrepresentation of leaders from sub-Saharan Africa and the absence of anyone from Latin America, the way Cold War geopolitical rivalries found their way into the meeting, its legitimization of the nation state as the principal unit of interaction among the peoples of the postcolonial world to the detriment of other avenues of expressing and harnessing solidarity, and the disappointing aftermath exemplified by the India-China frontier war in the Himalayas in 1962.
Despite these undoubtedly important though arguably revisionist assertions, the “Bandung Moment” has achieved mythical status since, while its expression in the conference proceedings may have been less than perfect, the spirit of postcolonial unity among the rising peoples of the Global South pervaded the conference. Moreover, this spirit of Bandung has been a constant spur to many political actors to reproduce it in its imagined pristine form, leading to dissatisfaction with successive manifestations of Third World solidarity. To celebrate the spirit of Bandung is not simply to mark 70 years since the Asia-Africa Conference, but to affirm what being faithful to its principles and ideals means today.
It took determined resistance from the peoples of Vietnam, the Middle East, and other parts of the world to force the United States and its allies to learn the consequences of violating these principles, but it was at the cost of millions of lives in the Global South.
The Bandung document was primarily an anti-colonial document, and it is heartening to note that so many governments and peoples in the Global South have rallied behind the people of Palestine as they fight genocide and settler-colonialism in Gaza and the West Bank. The role of South Africa in lodging and pursuing the charge of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice, with the formal support of 31 other governments, is exemplary in this regard.
Bandung and Vietnam
April 2025 , the 70th anniversary of Bandung, is also the 50th anniversary of the reunification of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The celebrations over the last few days in Ho Chi Minh City brought back images of that decisive defeat of the American empire—the iconic photos of a tank of the People’s Army smashing through the gate of the presidential palace in Saigon and the frenzied evacuation by helicopter of collaborators from the rooftop of the U.S. embassy. In retrospect, the defeat in Vietnam was the decisive blow dealt to American arms in the last century, one from which it never really recovered. True, the empire appeared to have a second wind in 2001 and 2003, with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, but that illusion was shattered with the panicked, shameful exit of the United States and its Afghan subordinates from Kabul in 2021, the images of which evoked the memories of the debacle in Saigon decades earlier.
The defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan were the dramatic bookends of the military debacle of the empire, which had massive repercussions both globally and in the imperial heartland. Bandung underlined as key principles “Respect of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations” and “Non-intervention or non-interference into the internal affairs of another country.” It took determined resistance from the peoples of Vietnam, the Middle East, and other parts of the world to force the United States and its allies to learn the consequences of violating these principles, but it was at the cost of millions of lives in the Global South. And it is by no means certain that the era of aggressive Western interventionism has come to an end.
Ascent and Counterrevolution
The economic dimension of the struggle between the Global South and the Global North since Bandung might have been less dramatic, but it was no less consequential. And it was equally tortuous. Bandung was followed by the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade in 1961, the formation of the Group of 77, and the establishment of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). This upward arc in the struggle of the Global South for structural change in the global economy climaxed with the call for the New International Economic Order (NIEO) in 1974.
Then the counterrevolution began. Taking advantage of the Third World debt crisis in the early 1980s, structural adjustment was foisted on the Global South via the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, United Nations agencies like the U.N. Center for Transnational Corporations were either abolished or defanged, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) supplanted the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and sidelined UNCTAD. The “jewel in the crown of multilateralism,” the WTO was meant to discipline the Global South not only with trade rules benefiting the Global North but also with anti-development regimes in intellectual property rights, investment, competition, and government procurement.
Will the BRICS or any other alternative multilateral system be able to avoid replicating the old order of power and hierarchy?
Instead of the promised “development decades” heralded by the rhetoric of the United Nations, Africa and Latin America experienced lost decades in the 1980s and 1990s, and in 1997, a massive regional financial crisis instigated by Western speculative capital and austerity programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund ended the “Asian Economic Miracle.”
Although most governments submitted to IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs, some, like Argentina, Venezuela, and Thailand resisted successfully, backed by their citizens. But the main area of economic war between North and South was the WTO. A partnership between southern governments and international civil society frustrated the adoption of the so-called Seattle Round during the Third Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Seattle. Then during the Fifth Ministerial Conference in Cancun in 2003, developing country governments staged a dramatic walk out from which the WTO never recovered; indeed, it lost its usefulness as the North’s principal agency of global trade and economic liberalization.
Rise of China and the BRICS
It was the sense of common interest and working together to oppose northern initiatives at the WTO that formed the basis for the formation of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), which gradually emerged as an alternative pole to the U.S.-dominated multilateral system in the second decade of the 21st century.
The anchor of the BRICS was China. A country that had beaten imperialism over five decades of struggle in the first half of the 20th century, the People’s Republic confidently entered into a devil’s bargain with the West: In return for offering cheap labor, it sought massive foreign investment and, most important, advanced technology. Western capital, seeking super profits by exploiting Chinese labor, agreed to the deal, but it was China that got the better end of the bargain, embarking on a crash industrialization process that made it the number one economy in the globe as of today (depending of course on which metric one uses). The Chinese ascent had major implications for the Global South. China not only provided massive resources for development, becoming, as one analyst put it, the “world’s largest development bank.” By reducing dependence on the Western-dominated financial agencies and Western creditors, it also provided policy space for Southern actors to make strategic choices.
The obverse of China’s super industrialization was deindustrialization in the United States and Europe, and coupled with the global financial crisis of 2008, this led to a deep crisis of U.S. hegemony, sparking the recent momentous developments, like U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war against friends and foes alike; his attacks on traditional U.S. allies that he accused of taking advantage of the United States; his abandonment of the WTO and, indeed, of the whole U.S.-dominated multilateral system; and his ongoing retrenchment and refocusing of U.S. economic and military assets in the Western Hemisphere.
All these developments have contributed to the current fluid moment, where the balance in the struggle between the North and South is tipping toward the latter.
Rhetoric and Reality in the Global South Today
But living up to and promoting the spirit of Bandung involves more than tipping the geopolitical and geoeconomic balance toward the Global South. The very first principle of the Bandung Declaration urged “Respect for fundamental human rights and for the purposes and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” Nehru, Nasser, and Zhou En Lai played stellar roles in Bandung, but can it be said that the governments they represented have remained faithful to this principle? India today is ruled by a Hindu nationalist government that considers Muslims to be second-class citizens, the military regime in Egypt has engaged in egregious violations of human rights, and Beijing is carrying out the forcible cultural assimilation of the Uygurs. It is difficult to see how such acts by these governments and others that initiated the historic conference, like Burma where a military junta is engaged in genocide, and Sri Lanka with decades of a violent civil war, can be seen as consistent with this principle.
Indeed, most states of the Global South are dominated by elites that, whether via authoritarian or liberal democratic regimes, keep their people down. The levels of poverty and inequality are shocking. The gini coefficient for Brazil is 0.53, making it one of the most unequal countries in the world. The rate for China, 0.47, also reflects tremendous inequality, despite remarkable successes in poverty reduction. In South Africa, the gini coefficient is an astounding 0.63, and 55.5% of the people live under the poverty line. In India, incomes have been polarizing over the past three decades with a significant increase in bilionaires and other “high net worth” Individuals.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to a new, equitable global order is the fact that all countries remain embedded in a system of global capitalism, where the pursuit of profits remains the engine of economic expansion, both creating great inequalities and posing a threat to the planet.
The vast masses of people throughout the Global South, including Indigenous communities, workers, peasants, fisherfolk, nomadic communities, and women are economically disenfranchised, and in liberal democracies, such as the Philippines, India, Thailand, Indonesia, South Africa, and Kenya, their participation in democracy is often limited to casting votes in periodic, often meaningless, electoral exercises. South-South investment and cooperation models such as the Belt and Road Initiative and free trade agreements frequently entail the capture of land, forests, water, and marine areas, and extraction of natural wealth for the purposes of national development. Local populations—many of whom are Indigenous—are dispossessed of their livelihoods, territories, and ancestral domains with scant legal recourse and access to justice, invoking the specter of homegrown colonialism and counterrevolutions.
Bandung, as noted earlier, institutionalized the nation state as the principal vehicle for cross-border relationships among countries. Had global movements like the Pan-African movement, the women’s movement, the labor movement, and the peasant movement been represented at the 1955 conference, the cross-border solidarities institutionalized in the post-Bandung world could perhaps have counteracted and mitigated, via lateral pressure, elite control of national governments. Those advocating for the self-determination of peoples, and for the redistribution of resources, opportunities, and wealth within national boundaries, would perhaps not have been demonized and persecuted as subversives and threats to national interests.
During this current moment of global transition, as the old Western-dominated multilateral system falls into irreversible decay, the new multipolar word will need new multilateral institutions. The challenge, especially for the big powers of the Global South, is not to create a replica of the old Western-dominated system, where the dominant powers merely used the U.N., WTO, and Bretton Woods institutions to indirectly impose their will and preferences on the vast majority of countries. Will the BRICS or any other alternative multilateral system be able to avoid replicating the old order of power and hierarchy? To be honest, the current political-economic regimes in the most powerful countries in the Global South do not inspire confidence.
Bandung and the Continuing Specter of Capitalism
At the time of the Bandung Conference, the political economy of the globe was more diverse. There was the communist bloc headed by the Soviet Union. There was China, with its push to move from national democracy to socialism. There were the neutralist states like India that were seeking a third way between communism and capitalism. With decades of neoliberal transformation of both the Global North and the Global South, that diversity has vanished. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to a new, equitable global order is the fact that all countries remain embedded in a system of global capitalism, where the pursuit of profits remains the engine of economic expansion, both creating great inequalities and posing a threat to the planet. The dynamic centers of global capitalism may have moved, over the last 500 years, from the Mediterranean to Holland to Britain to the United States and now to the Asia Pacific, but capitalism continues to both penetrate the farthest reaches of the globe and deepen its entrenchment in areas it has subjugated. Capitalism continually melts all that is solid into thin air, to use an image from a famous manifesto, creating inequalities both within and among societies, and exacerbating, indeed threatening to render terminal, the relationship between the planet and the human community.
Can we fulfill the aspirations of Bandung without bringing forth a post-capitalist system of economic, social, and political relations? A system where people in all their diversity and strengths can participate and benefit equally, free from the violence of bigotry, racism, patriarchy, and authoritarianism, and from the slavery to endless growth that is destroying the planet? That is the question, or rather that is the challenge, and the “unfinished business” of Bandung. The 10 principles that form the basis of the Bandung spirit are reflected in international human rights law but have been cynically manipulated to serve particular geopolitical, geoeconomic, racialized, and gendered interests. Being faithful to the spirit of Bandung in our era therefore, requires us to go beyond the limits of Bandung. The Bandung Spirit continues to signify ideals of anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, peace, justice, self-determination, and solidarity—ideals that were shaped by the peoples of Asia and Africa at the forefront of struggles for liberation from colonialism and resistance to imperialism, who gave their lives for liberty. Despite the achievement of independence from colonial occupation—with significant exceptions like Palestine, West Papua, and Kanaky—struggles of rural and urban working classes for freedom from capitalist exploitation and extractivism, and from fascist alliances between capital and authoritarian states continue.
“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake,” declares a character in a famous novel. The world might seem to be on the cusp of a new era, with its promise of a new global order, but the Global South still has to awaken from the nightmare of the last 500 years. It is not coincidental that the birth of capitalism also saw the beginning of the colonial subjugation of the Global South. Only with the coming of a postcapitalist global order will the nightmare truly end.
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The BRICS Summit Should Mark the End of Neocon Delusions
Simply put, the majority of the world does not want or accept U.S. hegemony, and is prepared to face it down rather than submit to its dictates.
Nov 02, 2024
The recent BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia should mark the end of the Neocon delusions encapsulated in the subtitle of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book, The Global Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. Since the 1990s, the goal of American foreign policy has been “primacy,” aka global hegemony. The U.S. methods of choice have been wars, regime change operations, and unilateral coercive measures (economic sanctions). Kazan brought together 35 countries with more than half the world population that reject the U.S. bullying and that are not cowed by U.S. claims of hegemony.
In the Kazan Declaration, the countries underscored “the emergence of new centres of power, policy decision-making and economic growth, which can pave the way for a more equitable, just, democratic and balanced multipolar world order.” They emphasized "the need to adapt the current architecture of international relations to better reflect the contemporary realities,” while declaring their “commitment to multilateralism and upholding the international law, including the Purposes and Principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations (UN) as its indispensable cornerstone.” They took particular aim at the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies, holding that “Such measures undermine the UN Charter, the multilateral trading system, the sustainable development and environmental agreements.”
Time has run out on the neocon delusions, and the U.S. wars of choice.
The neocon quest for global hegemony has deep historical roots in America’s belief in its exceptionalism. In 1630, John Winthrop invoked the Gospels in describing the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a “City on the Hill,” declaring grandiosely that “The eyes of all people are upon us.” In the 19th century, America was guided by Manifest Destiny, to conquer North America by displacing or exterminating the native peoples. In the course of World War II, Americans embraced the idea of the “American Century,” that after the war the U.S. would lead the world.
The U.S. delusions of grandeur were supercharged with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. With America’s Cold War nemesis gone, the ascendant American neoconservatives conceived of a new world order in which the U.S. was the sole superpower and the policeman of the world. Their foreign policy instruments of choice were wars and regime-change operations to overthrow governments they disliked.
Following 9/11, the neocons planned to overthrow seven governments in the Islamic world, starting with Iraq, and then moving on to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. According to Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO, the neocons expected the U.S. to prevail in these wars in 5 years. Yet now, more than 20 years on, the neocon-instigated wars continue while the U.S. has achieved absolutely none of its hegemonic objectives.
The neocons reasoned back in the 1990s that no country or group of countries would ever dare to stand up to U.S. power. Brzezinski, for example, argued in The Grand Chessboard that Russia would have no choice but to submit to the U.S.-led expansion of NATO and the geopolitical dictates of the U.S. and Europe, since there was no realistic prospect of Russia successfully forming an anti-hegemonic coalition with China, Iran and others. As Brzezinski put it:
“Russia’s only real geostrategic option—the option that could give Russia a realistic international role and also maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself—is Europe. And not just any Europe, but the transatlantic Europe of the enlarging EU and NATO.” (emphasis added, Kindle edition, p. 118)
Brzezinski was decisively wrong, and his misjudgment helped to lead to the disaster of the war in Ukraine. Russia did not simply succumb to the U.S. plan to expand NATO to Ukraine, as Brzezinski assumed it would. Russia said a firm no, and was prepared to wage war to stop the U.S. plans. As a result of the neocon miscalculations vis-à-vis Ukraine, Russia is now prevailing on the battlefield, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are dead.
Nor—and this is the plain message from Kazan—did U.S. sanctions and diplomatic pressures isolate Russian in the least. In response to pervasive U.S. bullying, an anti-hegemonic counterweight has emerged. Simply put, the majority of the world does not want or accept U.S. hegemony, and is prepared to face it down rather than submit to its dictates. Nor does the U.S. anymore possess the economic, financial, or military power to enforce its will, if it ever did.
The countries that assembled in Kazan represent a clear majority of the world’s population. The nine BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as the original five, plus Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates), in addition to the delegations of 27 aspiring members, constitute 57 percent of the world’s population and 47 percent of the world’s output (measured at purchasing-power adjusted prices). The U.S., by contrast, constitutes 4.1 percent of the world population and 15 percent of world output. Add in the U.S. allies, and the population share of the U.S.-led alliance is around 15 percent of the global population.
The BRICS will gain in relative economic weight, technological prowess, and military strength in the years ahead. The combined GDP of the BRICS countries is growing at around 5 percent per annum, while the combined GDP of the U.S. and its allies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific is growing at around 2 percent per annum.
Even with their growing clout, however, the BRICS can’t replace the U.S. as a new global hegemon. They simply lack the military, financial, and technological power to defeat the U.S. or even to threaten its vital interests. The BRICS are in practice calling for a new and realistic multipolarity, not an alternative hegemony in which they are in charge.
American strategists should heed the ultimately positive message coming from Kazan. Not only has the neocon quest for global hegemony failed, it has been a costly disaster for the US and the world, leading to bloody and pointless wars, economic shocks, mass displacements of populations, and rising threats of nuclear confrontation. A more inclusive and equitable multipolar world order offers a promising path out of the current morass, one that can benefit the U.S. and its allies as well as the nations that met in Kazan.
The rise of the BRICS is therefore not merely a rebuke to the U.S., but also a potential opening for a far more peaceful and secure world order. The multipolar world order envisioned by the BRICS can be a boon for all countries, including the United States. Time has run out on the neocon delusions, and the U.S. wars of choice. The moment has arrived for a renewed diplomacy to end the conflicts raging around the world.
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'Across the Board, We Need Peace,' Says UN Chief as War Rages in Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine
"We need peace in Ukraine," U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, speaking before Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Oct 24, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking in Russia on Thursday, called for peace in Ukraine and "across the board" as wars also rage in Gaza, Lebanon, and Sudan.
Guterres spoke before Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders from "BRICS Plus" countries gathering in Kazan, a city roughly 500 miles east of Moscow.
"Across the board, we need peace," Guterres said.
"We need peace in Ukraine," he added. "A just peace in line with the U.N. Charter, international law, and U.N. General Assembly resolutions."
After the speech, Guterres renewed his call for a cease-fire in Lebanon and Gaza.
"We need a cease-fire in Lebanon—as we need a cease-fire in Gaza and the immediate release of all hostages," he wrote on social media. "Escalation after escalation is leading to the unimaginable for the people of the region."
We need a ceasefire in Lebanon – as we need a ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate release of all hostages.
Escalation after escalation is leading to the unimaginable for the people of the region. pic.twitter.com/YhwLkSbXzV
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) October 24, 2024
Putin presided over the closing ceremonies of the BRICS conference on Thursday, saying the group provided a counterbalance to the "perverse methods" of the West. Brazil, Russia, India, and China formed the group in the 2000s, with South Africa joining in 2010; BRICS recently expanded to include a number of other developing countries.
The conference drew the largest gathering of international diplomats into Russia since Putin's forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, escalating a conflict that had begun in 2014.
Ukraine's foreign ministry criticized Guterres for attending the conference and noted that he did not attend Ukraine's global peace summit in Switzerland in June.
"This is a wrong choice that does not advance the cause of peace," according to the ministry's social media account. "It only damages the U.N.'s reputation."
Guterres has repeatedly called for a cease-fire in Gaza in the last year. The Israeli government declared him persona non grata earlier this month, barring him from entering the country on the grounds that he had not strongly condemned an Iranian barrage of missiles into Israel—an accusation Guterres denied, saying he did forcefully condemn the Iranian attack.
For U.N. Day, celebrated annually on October 24, Guterres issued a video statement calling for the world's nations to keep the "beacon of hope" that is the U.N. "shining."
The U.N. has had only limited success in stopping or slowing the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and Sudan, which are among many dozens of conflicts across the world and have brought mass death and destruction.
The total number of Ukrainians and Russians who've died since February 2022 has reached roughly one million, The Wall Street Journal reported last month.
In Gaza, more than 42,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces in roughly the last year, following the Hamas-led October 7 attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis. More than 2,500 people have been killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon over the same period, including 1,900 in the escalation that's occurred in the last five weeks, according to Lebanon's health ministry. Dozens of Israelis have also died in that conflict.
A U.N. official said last month that the death toll in Sudan, which has been ravaged by civil war since April 2023, is at least 20,000 and could be much higher. The country is facing the prospect of a large-scale famine, with Save the Children on Tuesday raising the alarm that conditions there are worsening.
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The Perils and Promise of the Emerging Multipolar World
The world economy is experiencing a deep process of economic convergence, according to which regions that once lagged the West in industrialization are now making up for lost time.
Jun 06, 2024
The World Bank’s release on May 30 of its latest estimates of national output (up to the year 2022) offers an occasion to reflect on the new geopolitics. The new data underscore the shift from a U.S.-led world economy to a multipolar world economy, a reality that U.S. strategists have so far failed to recognize, accept, or admit.
The World Bank figures make clear that the economic dominance of the West is over. In 1994, the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, U.K., U.S.) constituted 45.3% of world output, compared with 18.9% of world output in the BRICS countries (Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Russia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates). The tables have turned. The BRICS now produce 35.2% of world output, while the G7 countries produce 29.3%.
As of 2022, the largest five economies in descending order are China, the U.S., India, Russia, and Japan. China’s GDP is around 25% larger than the U.S.’ (roughly 30% of the U.S. GDP per person but with 4.2 times the population). Three of the top five countries are in the BRICS, while two are in the G7. In 1994, the largest five were the U.S., Japan, China, Germany, and India, with three in the G7 and two in the BRICS.
Despite the new global economic realities, the U.S. security state still pursues a grand strategy of “primacy,” that is, the aspiration of the U.S. to be the dominant economic, financial, technological, and military power in every region of the world.
As the shares of world output change, so too does global power. The core U.S.-led alliance, which includes the U.S., Canada, U.K., European Union, Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, was 56% of world output in 1994, but now is only 39.5%. As a result, the U.S. global influence is waning. As a recent vivid example, when the U.S.-led group introduced economic sanctions on Russia in 2022, very few countries outside the core alliance joined. As a result, Russia had little trouble shifting its trade to countries outside the U.S.-led alliance.
The world economy is experiencing a deep process of economic convergence, according to which regions that once lagged the West in industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries are now making up for lost time. Economic convergence actually began in the 1950s as European imperial rule in Africa and Asia came to an end. It has proceeded in waves, starting first in East Asia, then roughly 20 years later India, and for the coming 20-40 years in Africa.
These and some other regions are growing much faster than the Western economies since they have more “headroom” to boost GDP by rapidly raising education levels, boosting workers’ skills, and installing modern infrastructure, including universal access to electrification and digital platforms. The emerging economies are often able to leapfrog the richer countries with state-of-the-art infrastructure (e.g., fast intercity rail, 5G, modern airports and seaports) while the richer countries remain stuck with aging infrastructure and expensive retrofits. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook projects that the emerging and developing economies will average growth of around 4% per year in the coming five years, while the high-income countries will average less than 2% per year.
It’s not only in skills and infrastructure that convergence is occurring. Many of the emerging economies, including China, Russia, Iran, and others, are advancing rapidly in technological innovations as well, in both civilian and military technologies.
China clearly has a large lead in the manufacturing of cutting-edge technologies needed for the global energy transition, including batteries, electric vehicles, 5G, photovoltaics, wind turbines, fourth generation nuclear power, and others. China’s rapid advances in space technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and other technologies is similarly impressive. In response, the U.S. has made the absurd claim that China has an “overcapacity” in these cutting-edge technologies, while the obvious truth is that the U.S. has a significant under-capacity in many sectors. China’s capacity for innovation and low-cost production is underpinned by enormous R&D spending and its vast and growing labor force of scientists and engineers.
Despite the new global economic realities, the U.S. security state still pursues a grand strategy of “primacy,” that is, the aspiration of the U.S. to be the dominant economic, financial, technological, and military power in every region of the world. The U.S. is still trying to maintain primacy in Europe by surrounding Russia in the Black Sea region with NATO forces, yet Russia has resisted this militarily in both Georgia and Ukraine. The U.S. is still trying to maintain primacy in Asia by surrounding China in the South China Sea, a folly that can lead the U.S. into a disastrous war over Taiwan. The U.S. is also losing its standing in the Middle East by resisting the united call of the Arab world for recognition of Palestine as the 194th United Nations member state.
Yet primacy is certainly not possible today, and was hubristic even 30 years ago when U.S. relative power was much greater. Today, the U.S. share of world output stands at 14.8%, compared with 18.5% for China, and the U.S. share of world population is a mere 4.1%, compared with 17.8% for China.
The trend toward broad global economic convergence means that U.S. hegemony will not be replaced by Chinese hegemony. Indeed, China’s share of world output is likely to peak at around 20% during the coming decade and thereafter to decline as China’s population declines. Other parts of the world, notably including India and Africa, are likely to show a large rise in their respective shares of global output, and with that, in their geopolitical weight as well.
We are therefore entering a post-hegemonic, multipolar world. It too is fraught with challenges. It could usher in a new “tragedy of great power politics,” in which several nuclear powers compete—in vain—for hegemony. It could lead to a breakdown of fragile global rules, such as open trade under the World Trade Organization. Or, it could lead to a world in which the great powers exercise mutual tolerance, restraint, and even cooperation, in accord with the U.N. Charter, because they recognize that only such statecraft will keep the world safe in the nuclear age.
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2023: The Year the Bubble of US Leadership Burst
If Ukraine exemplifies yet another iconic U.S. military failure, and BRICS the changing of the guard in the economic realm, the sadistic savagery in Gaza repudiates the moral right of the U.S. to lead… anything.
Dec 29, 2023
Year-ends invite retrospectives. And every year is, by definition, “unprecedented.” After all, it has never occurred before. But “unprecedented” is a cliche that drains the very word of its intended impact.
The year 2023 is not so much “unprecedented” as it is “epochal,” a “turning point,” or, as in the terminology I choose, “The Year the Bubble Burst.” That implies rapidity, for bursting happens quickly, and irreversibility, for burst bubbles don’t reassemble themselves. This bursting is especially true on the foreign front where the U.S. has been the global leader since the end of the Cold War, if not since the end of World War II.
The bubble of U.S. leadership in the world burst in 2023 because of the combined impact of three events: Ukraine, BRICS, and Gaza.
The year will be remembered as the pivot point, the turning away from the post-Cold War unipolar era, and the ushering in of the post-unipolar, post-Western-centric multipolar world.
Ukraine is lost. In a war of attrition, the advantage goes to the side with the greater population. Russia’s population is six times Ukraine’s. And a defense has an inherent 3-to-1 advantage over an offense. Russia, having captured 20% of Ukraine, is now on the defense. Ukraine doesn’t have the manpower, the artillery, the ammunition, the air power, the air defenses, the time, the money, the strategy, or the allies to repel what U.S. News & World Report says is the strongest military in the world.
Absent the U.S. getting directly involved, which is just not going to happen in a presidential election year, there is no plausible scenario in which Ukraine wins. Insiders know this. The public will have to wait until after the 2024 election to get the memo. Either way, the damage done in the loss is incalculable.
The U.S. menaced Russia for decades by relentlessly moving NATO up to Russia’s borders. Then, the U.S. helped overthrow the democratically elected but Russian-leaning government in Kiev and installed its own oligarchic, crypto-fascist, Western-leaning government. That was the 2014 Maidan coup, referred to by one U.S. intelligence asset as “the most blatant coup in history.” The mission was to dismember Russia and put its vast natural wealth in the hands of U.S. corporations.
The failure of that mission cannot be disguised or minimized. It is especially embarrassing after the very public U.S. defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it is all the more damning because Ukraine sacrificed 500,000 of its men to carry out the U.S.’ mission, yet the U.S. couldn’t even keep it supplied with ammunition. Beyond the direct damage, the collateral damage of the loss is staggering.
The never-deserved reputation of the U.S. for military prowess is devastated. NATO is weakened. The Nord Stream pipeline destruction revealed the U.S. to be the world’s greatest perpetrator of international terrorism. The loss of the pipeline has left Europe with energy costs 2.5 times what they were before the war, gravely damaging its international competitiveness. The mythic repute of U.S. weapons, before this only deployed against much lesser foes, is shattered. And, instead of being dismembered, Russia has come out of the war stronger than ever.
In addition to now possessing the world’s strongest military, Russia’s economy shook off “the greatest sanctions regime in the history of the world” and is outstripping those of the U.S. and Europe. It has pivoted east and deepened its strategic ties with China, the world’s leading commercial power and the U.S.’ leading adversary. And it has gained enormous stature in the Global South for having stood up to and defeated the world’s most inveterate bully. Ukraine is an epochal failure for the U.S. in all dimensions, the worse for having been entirely self-inflicted.
Then, Ukraine accelerated the growth of the BRICS consortium. This group, originally made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (hence, the acronym) aims to bypass the U.S.-dominated global trading system, instead building one that allows nations of the Global South to not simply be milked of their wealth by the West, but to prosper in their own right. In August, it named six new nations for membership: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.
These now-11 nations contribute a combined 37% of global GDP, versus 30% for the Western G7 bloc. They are explicitly committed to dethroning the dollar as the world’s international reserve currency, by, among other things, trading with each other in non-dollar currencies. Russia and China, for example, no longer use dollars in trade between themselves.
Of key significance is the composition of the new members. Half of them are major oil exporters, among them, importantly, Saudi Arabia, a formerly staunch U.S. ally. With Russia, they produce 44% of the world’s oil. Why is this important? The dollar’s status as international reserve currency is closely tied to oil. Until recently, oil was only sold in dollars, meaning that all of the world’s nations had to acquire dollars to be able to buy oil. So, when BRICS+ oil exporters begin accepting payment for their oil in non-dollar currencies, it is the dollar that will be damaged.
Nations will no longer need dollars to buy oil. That means they will not need to “buy” dollars by purchasing U.S. Treasury securities. That will make it almost impossible for the U.S. to fund its massive budget and trade deficits, which are financed—that’s right—by selling treasures to other nations. That day is fast approaching, as seen in Saudi Arabia announcing this year that it will begin accepting payment for oil in Chinese yuan.
The growth of BRICS, its economic clout, its explicit de-dollarization agenda, and the centrality of oil-exporting nations in its members will prove like the water shifting in the bottom of a rowboat. It will decisively reverse the primacy of the U.S. and the West in global economic affairs. The damage isn’t all landed, yet, and won’t be for many years, but the direction is clear and irreversible. There’s a new economic sheriff in town.
Most important in bursting the bubble of U.S. leadership in international affairs is its tragic, morally suicidal complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Biden administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to enable Israel to murder tens of thousands of innocent, defenseless Palestinian civilians, most of them women and children.
It has provided—and dramatically increased—economic subsidies. It has rush-shipped tens of thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition to Israel, even bypassing Congress to do so. It has provided military cover in the form of two aircraft carrier battle groups to prevent other nations from intervening to stop the slaughter. It has exercised its veto power at the U.N. Security Council to prevent a cease-fire, even for humanitarian reasons. The U.S. is all in on the massacre of tens of thousands of defenseless Palestinian civilians.
As a result of the U.S.’ help, Israel is able to bomb, with impunity, working hospitals, refugee camps, schools, churches, mosques, relief agencies, anything where civilians shelter to try to escape the apocalyptic destruction. And it is doing this, knowing that civilians are the main casualties, thus making it not just “killing” innocent, defenseless women and children, but murdering them. And this is still just the beginning of the depraved degeneracy.
The World Food Program says that as many as 750,000 civilians are now being intentionally starved. This, by a supposedly civilized nation. And, with no hospitals, no medicines, no water, and no sewerage, it is only a matter of time before epidemic diseases emerge and spread and kill hundreds of thousands. It is undisguised mass murder for the undeniable purpose of ethnic cleansing, which has always been Israel’s agenda, since even before it was founded. It is genocide, pure and simple, and all in public view of the world’s 8 billion people.
In Gaza, the U.S. returns to its roots, albeit vicariously. It, too, was founded in genocide, in its case, of the 50+ million native Americans who once populated the North American continent. It too, used vastly disproportionate force, the mechanized tools of an industrial-age civilization systematically exterminating a stone-age one. It, too, bolstered its commitment to ethnic cleansing with its self-flattering myths of racial superiority and its carefully cultivated conceits of cultural supremacy.
The difference is that then, all the world was not watching the daily depravity. And it had not formed its present-day revulsion and international prohibitions against such state-sponsored barbarism. Now it is, and has. The damage to the U.S.’ reputation is palpable, undeniable, stunning, and irreversible.
I’m not a Bible thumper in any way. But, I was raised in a Christian household and remember some of my verses. One of the most wise, in no way connected to theology, is from Mark: “No man can be defiled by anything that comes to him from without. A man can only be defiled by that which comes out of himself, from within.” Isn’t it so? The U.S. has defiled itself, humiliated itself, as no other nation could possibly do. It has destroyed goodwill that has taken centuries to acquire and that will never be recovered.
If Ukraine exemplifies yet another iconic U.S. military failure, and BRICS the changing of the guard in the economic realm, the sadistic savagery in Gaza repudiates the moral right of the U.S. to lead… anything. No nation will ever again be intimidated by its hypocritical tut-tutting about human rights or its sanctimonious finger wagging about the responsibility to protect. It is, more than anything else, the world’s leading purveyor of death and all the nations of the world can see it.
The combination of these three events signal the 2023 bursting of the bubble of U.S. global leadership. The year will be remembered as the pivot point, the turning away from the post-Cold War unipolar era, and the ushering in of the post-unipolar, post-Western-centric multipolar world. Five hundred years of Western domination of the world order are ending. There will be no going back.
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Ten Surprisingly Good Things That Happened in 2022
While some are only partial gains, they are all steps towards a more just, peaceful and sustainable world.
Dec 21, 2022
With wars raging in Ukraine, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere, Roe v. Wade overturned and our resources being wasted on militarism instead of addressing the climate crisis, it can be hard to remember the hard-won progress being made. As we end a difficult year, let's pause to remind ourselves of some of the positive changes that happened in 2022 that should inspire us to do more in the year to come. While some are only partial gains, they are all steps towards a more just, peaceful and sustainable world.
1. The growth of Latin America's "Pink Tide." Continuing the wave of progressive wins in 2021, Latin America saw two new critical electoral victories: Gustavo Petro in Colombia and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil. When President Biden's June Summit of the Americas excluded Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, several Latin American leaders declined to attend, while others used the opportunity to push the United States to respect the sovereignty of the countries in the region. (Stay tuned for CODEPINK's spring forum "In Search of a New U.S. Policy for a New Latin America.")
2. The U.S. labor movement caught fire. In 2022 we witnessed the brilliant organizing of Chris Smalls and the Amazon workers, Starbucks reached nearly 7,000 unionized workers and close to 300 unionized stores. Requests to the National Labor Relations Board to hold union elections were up 58% in the first eight months of 2022. Labor is back and fighting the good fight.
3. Despite assaults on our elections, people fought back and gained some notable wins.
Voters delivered victories for progressives in districts across the country, including in Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, Hawaii, California, Pennsylvania and Vermont, and Democrats kept control of the Senate. Young people showed up at the polls in record numbers--one out of eight voters in the midterms was under the age of 30. Abortion rights won in states where it was on the ballot (California, Michigan and Vermont) and in the "red" state of Kentucky, voters rejected a proposed amendment to the Kentucky constitution that would declare there is no constitutional right to an abortion. Another plus: Every election denier running to oversee state elections lost.
4. Peace comes to Ethiopia. After a devastating two-year civil war that left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced and facing starvation, the federal government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) signed a peace treaty on November 2, 2022. The surprise deal came out of peace talks convened by the African Union. So far, the fighting has ceased, and both parties vowed that they are determined to make the peace deal last.
5. Mainstream media finally did right by Julian Assange, as his international support grew.
The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and Der Spiegel-the media outlets that published WikiLeaks' revelations 12 years ago--finally called on President Biden to free Assange. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (Assange is an Australian citizen) also finally said he has personally urged the U.S. government to end its pursuit of Assange. More enthusiastic has been his support in Latin America, with calls for his release coming from President Gustavo Petro in Colombia, Mexico's President Lopez Obrador, Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, and Brazil's President-elect Lula da Silva.
6. Indigenous and Global South voices were finally heard at the largest climate summit, COP27.
Thanks to the relentless work of Indigenous peoples and organizers from the Global South, marginalized communities not only got into COP27 this year but their voices were finally heard and a historic loss and damage fund was established to help vulnerable countries cope with the destructive impacts of climate change. The development marks an important achievement for civil society and collective action in the Global South that has been nearly three decades in the making. Now we have to push the wealthier countries to come through with the funds, and to finally get serious about our own transition to clean energy before it is too late to avoid global catastrophe.
7. Some 200 countries (minus the U.S. and the Vatican) commit to stemming the loss of nature worldwide. Another critical environmental gathering, the COP15 Biodiversity Summit in Canada, reached a watershed agreement pledging to protect nearly one-third of Earth's land and oceans as a refuge for the planet's remaining wild plants and animals by 2030-dubbed "30 by 30." This agreement is critical to stemming the massive loss of diversity--about a million species are at risk of disappearing forever. But it will take constant grassroots pressure, and significant resources from the wealthier countries, to put this 30 by 30 goal into practice.
8. The passage of the Respect for Marriage Act. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015 but the court's June decision overturning a right to abortion at the federal level raised concerns that federal protections for same-sex marriage might be in jeopardy. The Respect for Marriage Act was passed to address this by guaranteeing federal recognition of any marriage between two individuals if the union was valid in the state where it was performed. It won't force states to issue same-sex marriage licenses should nationwide marriage equality be overturned by the Supreme Court but it will extend equality under the law to all same-sex couples, no matter which state they got married in. It also protects interracial marriages.
9. The World Cup put the spotlight on Palestine. The World Cup was a spectacular event that created a sense of global solidarity and joy, with Argentina's win lifting up all of Latin America. But the fans, especially from Muslim and Arab countries, put the spotlight on another place in the world: Palestine. Palestinian flags and chants popped up everywhere-on the field, in the bleachers, on the streets, while videos showing Israeli journalists being ostracized went viral. At least for the month of these games, the call to "Free Palestine" went global.
10. A multi-polar world is here. China's enormously ambitious Belt and Road Initiative now encompasses over 80 countries. And with the U.S. abusing its economic power by imposing extraterritorial sanctions against countries all over the globe, the push for alternatives to the dollar has exploded. Over a dozen countries have asked to join BRICS (the alliance of the powerful economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), whose countries account for 40 percent of the global population and 25 percent of the world's GDP. BRICS members are already transacting their bilateral trade in local currencies. And new or strengthened non-aligned movements have emerged in Latin America and Africa. A multi-polar world is already a reality for much of the world, and this is actually better for people everywhere-even for Americans-than one where the U.S. keeps using war, militarism and coercive financial sanctions to try to prolong its post-Cold War unipolar moment into our new century.
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