Preamble.
Great global changes are happening before our eyes as the previously unquestioned dominance of the West is suddenly questioned not only by Russia but also the impotence of western politics. There are articles aplenty concerning the fall of Washington’s supremacy, yet little has been said regarding how a multipolar world will look in the future. This piece is going to look a few years ahead in order that we can at least speculate as to how our world will be once the dust from a western collapse has settled. To understand this fully, we will first have to look at two matters.
Multipolar.
For all the talk we hear of multipolarity, we first have to understand what this means. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as:
‘characterized by more than two centers of power or interest’
Put simply, it means that governance does not come from one center or source; different places answer to different authorities and therefore as we go from place to place, laws, cultures, peoples and mentalities will change. With that, no one nation has authority over all others, nor does it have a monopoly over the decisions that are made globally.
World.
We all know what the world is, but as we move into the future, affairs are going to change. With more than one superpower, loyalties and allegiances are going to change as will the very planet itself. With drought, wars, disease and countless other factors in play, for all the transitions in government, equal shifts may occur with the climate, natural disasters and demographics. The world itself may well govern the multipolarity of the future, the poles of power having to adjust to the world around us.
Adapting to Adjustments.
A multipolar world must be looked at from every angle, yet with this being the first time in a millennium that the rest of the planet is not governed from one hemisphere, not only are newly-found independences to be enjoyed, but the loss of dominance has also to be considered. Former lords will no longer be lauded and yesterday’s servants are no longer subservient. The adjustment to new roles and status will have dramatic effects upon both the governments involved as well as the fortunes of those under them.
The Waning West.
For the last five hundred years, the western world through advances in science and technology were able to sail across the globe, yet for all the philanthropic possibilities that offered, this was when the capitalist ideology suddenly took a global turn. With new lands and their resources to exploit, the fortunes of the burgeoning colonial powers suddenly went off the scale, this in turn leading to the Industrial Revolution. With that, distant holdings became empires, the resources of developing countries becoming the wealth that would allow overseas overseers to rule them for two centuries. Two world wars saw the European colonists finally lose their grip on their empires in the 1960s, yet since then, a continued occupation of various corners of the globe accompanied by an acquiescence from the former colonial capitals of Europe have seen Washington come to rule nearly everywhere it has seen fit. Those nations which irked the US were ruthlessly destroyed and plundered, yet as mentioned in this article, the western push against Russia which has eventually turned bellicose may very well be the event which foists multipolarity onto the globe irregardless of the aspirations of the Capitol.
Oriental Overview.
For all the history of dominance in the West, the last thirty years have seen the East go from strength to strength. Whilst not yet having the latest in technology in a very few areas, in spite of every weapon thrown at it from Washington and Brussels, the relentless pace of eastern growth has been awe-inspiring. For all the reports regarding industry and money, where the East has really excelled is at home. With record numbers of graduates leaving university and rapid growth in healthcare, the right sing star in the East has put its own peoples and countries at the forefront of its efforts. This is just as applicable to Russia as it is to China, a decade of malfeasance against them not succeeding in impeding the inevitable. Whilst the West has only cemented its dominance by projecting itself far from its own shores, the East has launched projects such as the BRI (Belt Road Initiative), meaning that independent Asian (amongst many others) states can all do well locally, yet still reap the benefits of bring part of the global community.
Balance.
As the global balance of power is reset, certain new realities are going to become apparent, even more so as events such as climate change alter the decades ahead. The West, for all its wealth and might is certainly going to struggle in feeding itself whilst many of the luxury goods it consumes are the fruit of faraway resources. Wealth and weapons have paved its path for the last centuries, yet in the face of having to treat the rest of the world as equals, quite literally biting the hand that feeds it will lead both economies and their people into oblivion. A new appraisal of the global community will be necessary, the omnipotence that has gone before having gone forever. For this to happen however, the changes that are before us will have to be engineered by politicians who need to change their outlook even more. As the effects of no longer being the center of global affairs begin to be felt in the West, it will eventually be the people who elect leaders whose ideology more favors the West’s place as an equal amongst others.
Tanks a Lot.
One only has to look at Liz Truss attempting to scare the Bear whilst riding round on a tank to see that western politicians are still on their high horses. It is this kind of attitude that has led the world to the present juncture, yet if the western world is to have any hope of surviving the situation of its own creation, rather than sitting at the head of any negotiations, it will have to learn that the table is round. In a new world where no party has preference over another, the current idea of primus inter pares will have to be dispensed with. No one nation will head the others, therefore no one nation can expect to sit at the head of the table as it has done previously. Today we see European nations refusing to pay Russia in rubles, yet for all the upheaval caused by the creation of the euro, they prefer to settle accounts in dollars. Some formerly dominant nations in Europe cannot expect that others be subservient to them at the same time as being pawns on someone else’s chessboard. Moreover, the former colonial powers of Europe which currently form part of Washington’s empire think that the rest of the world owes them, yet if they are to survive, they are going to find that if they continue to owe others, they are going to feel the ravages of both hinger and cold in very short order.
Military Minimization.
After centuries of state-run piracy, the new world ahead of is will see former superpowers having to choose between cutting military spending or facing starvation. Goebbels talked of guns or butter, but in the aftermath of the West using nazis against Russia and Russians, the new multipolar world simply will not offer the earnings and profitability necessary to throw money at the MIC as has been done before. Moreover, with the world not being subservient as it has been in the past, there will be far fewer nations willing to have somebody else’s standing army on their lands. The oil companies will no longer have armies and with that, their governments will have to look at rather more pressing needs. From the public perspective, the rampant consumerism that has helped support capitalism to date will also have to be reined in. Paying ridiculous sums for houses and cars, changing your wardrobe twice a year as well as lifestyle choices will no longer be possible in a world where everyone has to stand on their own two feet rather than still reaping the benefits of aggressive foreign policies on the part of their governments.
Feeding the Future.
With our planet in a state of constant change, many of the agricultural heartlands of the West are beginning to suffer the effects of rising temperatures. With that, both a shortage of water as well as crop failures are becoming more commonplace. With Russia above all other nations feeding the world and the US suffering plunging levels in some of its reservoirs, the crucial role of the East will only gain importance as we go forward. A new multipolar world will only retain a western pole if it is able to feed itself, both water and fertilizers being necessary to do so. The White House this week affirmed this by exempting Russian fertilizers from the multitude of sanctions it has placed, but with Moscow pushing for payments in rubles, this new world will see a vast increase in the use of currencies other than the dollar in the global marketplace. For all the might that the West may have, an army marches on its stomach, and should foodstuffs become harder to obtain, if the West is to survive, it will have to stop biting the hand that feeds it.
Stock Market Stories.
The entire US economy has for decades been driven by a very few individuals and enterprises driving the money out of the pockets of the many, a huge disparity of wealth being the result. One only has to look at the ballooning problem of poverty stateside to understand that this issue is only going to handicap the country as a whole, above all in the tighter times ahead. Not only will this affect the economy, but demographics and politics will also be influenced by impoverished million bearing the brunt of the consequences of a rapacious élite. At the same time as Russia and China have ensured that their priorities are to ensure wellbeing at home whilst the West has attempted to balkanize much of the world, the possibility of multiple states will in America breaking away cannot be discounted out of hand. With richer states not wanting to support poorer ones, the poor not wanting to be enslaved to the rich along with the multitude of racial and cultural differences across the country, the current status quo cannot continue. With the splintering of America, its credibility and influence over vassals will also be reduced, Washington’s empire slowly suffering the same fractal disintegration as the British Empire in the post-war era.
Summary.
The imperial politics of the last five hundred years have brought us to today, yet those centuries giving the wealth of the world to a very select few. The current model cannot continue as is, a new multipolar strategy being the only avenue available. With this change, half a millennium of habit will also have to be adjusted, those providing the fuel and food we all need being treated as partners and not as slaves. The hatred we see against the West today can only gradually be rolled back through western domestic politics and not corporate greed, yet until the western establishment realizes that it it unus and not primus inter pares, the empire mentality will survive, its constant attacks against those it has chosen to oppose continuing. The current conflict in Ukraine may well be the point where the globe again turns around an even axis, food, wealth and wellbeing distributed more evenly across the planet; as such, the era is ending where one half of the world has helped itself whilst the other has helped itself to anything it could pillage…
The van says… 
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