Malta’s Diplomatic shame and its consequences – (II) Geopolitical repercussions

By Romegas

The start of the conflict in Ukraine is only a side-show to a wider tectonic war, in which the hegemony of Western capital and dominance is being challenged and a new multi-polar world is being forged.

The pace of the breakup of the Western dominance based on the Bretton Woods system has been breathtaking in its rapidity. Geopolitical tectonic shifts are currently underway and so far, any sober and objective analysis of the situation indicates that the West is losing this confrontation and losing badly.

On the battlefield, Russia is systematically demilitarising not only the Ukranian Proxy – but NATO itself – with reports increasingly percolating into the mainstream media that NATO’s cupboard is practically bare – that it is practically incapable of sending sufficient weapons or ammunition to Ukraine to sustain the fight. While the conflict may drag on for a while, by the end of the coming summer it will become practically impossible to hide the fact that Russia will be the victor just as it was already evident in February 1943, that Nazi Germany would be crushed by the Soviet Union even though there remained a further two years of bitter fighting.

Far from collapsing economically under Western-imposed sanctions, Russia is getting stronger and those sanctions are in effect crippling those who imposed them, particularly members of the EU. Thanks to these sanctions the EU is now actually being deindustrialized – anyone who follows news reports from Germany, Europe’s industrial core will lose count of the daily reports of bad news of companies closing, exports plummeting, and inflation and unemployment spiraling. Strikes, once a rarity in the German political scene are now an ongoing concern – and things will turn much worse in the coming months.

In France things are not better, in fact, things are so bad – that we now have members of different government agencies fighting it out in the streets.

When you have thought you have seen it all – French Gendarme fighting against French Fire-fighters in Paris

The EU faces collapse and dissolution.

Further harebrained schemes such as the stupid attempt to place a price ceiling on oil have only resulted in OPEC showing the West a giant middle finger by doing what our incompetent politicians assumed they wouldn’t – that is cutting production drastically and thereby propelling prices close to a hundred dollars a barrel.

Macron and Von Der Leyen were humiliated in China, with the latter particularly so. The French president had decided to drag her along even though she was not invited. The Chinese like the Russians prefer to deal directly with member states and showed exactly what they thought of the EU Commission and its pretensions to world power. Indeed the Chinese practically ignored her and refused to extend any diplomatic courtesies. So much so that  French politician, Florian Filippo, reported on Twitter that poor Ursula was forced to fly commercial and go through regular passenger screening.

Meanwhile in the EU member states are at each other’s throats – Poland is seeking war reparations from Germany, and thirteen member states including Malta (again why?) have turned on Hungary because it refuses to sexualize its children – there is disagreement practically on everything that’s on the political menu and things can only get worse as the new economic realities continue to bite deeper. Indeed the EU faces an existential crisis and it painted itself in a very dark corner. Incapable of even defending its core economic interests (Nord Stream anyone?) it is demonstrating that despite all the pretensions it remains nothing other than America’s vassal. It is far from inconceivable that from here onwards, the irreconcilable interests of its member states will only end with its eventual dissolution.

While the humiliation in China was on display for the Global South to savor,  an agreement of titanic significance was at the same time being signed in China between Iran and Saudi Arabia – what were two mortal enemies have not only now agreed on reconciliation and not least to bring the war in Yemen to a close, and also for Saudi Arabia to reconcile with Syria but they are now also both applicants to join BRICS and the Shangai Cooperation Organisation – as are a host of other countries from Algeria to Argentina. Saudi Arabia’s shift from the West’’s orbit to the East is of great ramification to the US and Europe in particular. Not only does this mean that the US is slowly but surely being ejected from the Middle East but Saudi Arabian oil is what props up the Petro-dollar.

De Zeit reports that this shift is not due solely just some kind of whim or the search for purely economic benefits even though China is now of course Saudi Arabia’s biggest Customer – but it is the result of deliberate strategic thinking which concluded that the West is an unreliable partner and that its security and stability is best met by orienting itself to Eurasia.  

The de-dollarisation is likewise happening at a dramatic pace – it is quite breathtaking, not only are countries increasingly trading with their own currencies, with the latest of a long list to do so being Brazil and China but we also have many Western banks creaking, and on the verge of going under – not only because they sit upon gargantuan mounds of bad debt and junk funds but just as importantly because third party countries and their wealthy elite have started withdrawing their billions from Western banks because nobody wants to see his capital confiscated on a whim.

Indeed the de-dollarisation is happening at such a pace and the outcome so inevitable that now even US states are contemplating a gold based alternative.

The US of course, as stated not immune from the consequences – its society too is deeply and irreconcilably divided. We now have the unprecedented fact of a former president being arraigned – and as their economy deteriorates and it will, because its primacy is only due to the fact of the dollar being until now the world’s reserve currency – things can deteriorate so badly that not even a civil war can be ruled out.

I could literally go on not all day but all week reporting on these developments, and still, I wouldn’t keep up.

All this means, as historically happens every century or so – an old world is dying and a new one is being born – a hegemon is being brought to size and an alternative multipolar world will be taking its place. In this Multipolar world, Russia and its close ally China along with India and Brazil (who together represent significantly more than half of the world’s population, resources and capital) and adding  Saudi Arabia’s, Iraq’s and Iran’s gargantuan resources to the equation it is clear how this will play out.

So what exactly do we think we are achieving by spiting them? It’s not as if we could afford it. Do you think that Russia or China will forget about our aggressive attitude? Particularly when they had never done anything harmful to us? Do you think politicians of a previous generation who were so careful in adopting neutrality and building bridges with everyone would have acted the way this government is acting?

So why is our government behaving so irresponsibly? Is it because it wants to or is it being forced to?

That’s what I will address in the next article.