Brics and Nato represent a divided world order according to the author
TWO events of monumental global importance took place far away from each other this week, signifying the rapidly growing reconfiguration of the international world order.
In St Petersburg, Russia, President Vladimir Putin addressed the BRICS Parliamentary Forum attended by the leaders of the member-states of the strategic bloc.
And in Washington US President Joe Biden delivered a fiery address to the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), cherishing confrontation with Russia as the bloc continue to expand eastward to the door-step of Moscow.
But it is BRICS that interests me more.
Among the quiet resolutions adopted in St Petersburg, President Putin announced that BRICS was looking into the future establishment of a BRICS Parliament.
This, in my view, would be as significant as the European Parliament, where MP’s from the member-states are periodically voted in and out of the parliament.
Russia sees limited direct contact between legislators as negating “the right of every state to defend its interests”, President Putin said. He also condemned “the imposition of unilateral decisions and pressures reminiscent of colonialism”.
He elaborated: “This is an attempt to dismiss international law, to replace it with a new monopoly on decision-making. And this is a destructive monopoly,” he said, referring to the Western-led unipolar international world order that stands accused as a major source of debilitating inequality and ignition for global conflict.
President Putin further described the BRICS Parliamentary Forum as a catalyst in a world undergoing rapid reconfiguration.
He said: “It emphasises the character of the fundamental global changes that take place on the planet right now.”
“The West,” President Putin argued, “writes rules for every situation to benefit those who consider themselves exceptional, in the best traditions of colonialism.”
He added: “The West resorts to force and blackmail to maintain its dominant position in the world.”
President Putin warned that as BRICS growth and impact continues to gain traction, the bloc’s efforts “face resistance from the Golden Billion”, he said.
President Putin was addressing a packed session of the 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum. Leaders from the bloc’s member-states were all in attendance – from Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Ethiopia.
President Putin elaborated: “Taking into account each other’s interests and relying on democracy are the principles of interaction among BRICS countries.”
He also said that he hoped that BRICS would do everything in its power “to reduce global tensions”.
There is no doubt in international relations and geopolitics that the BRICS phenomenon is a game-changer of note. BRICS poses an existential threat to the domineering US-led Western hegemony like no other entity in recent memory.
The establishment of the BRICS Bank - also known as the New Development Bank - is seen as a direct competition to the decades-long dominance of the US-led Western lenders, namely, the IMF and the World Bank.
Additionally, the BRICS bloc has ceased to trade in the US dollar when transacting within the family of nations. There is also talk of the establishment of a new BRICS currency as well as a new international payment system to circumvent the Western-led SWIFT.
President Putin emphasised during the session in St Petersburg: “We pay great attention to the share of national currencies in settlements.”
Although there are currently only ten members of the BRICS bloc, the waiting list for membership is long and growing. At the last count, there were at least forty states awaiting admission into BRICS. The decision in this regard will be taken at the next BRICS heads of state summit in Russia in October.
According to President Putin: “BRICS reflects the interests of states from the Global South and Global East, and the number of supporters of the union is constantly growing”.
As the Global South and Global East sat under the umbrella of BRICS in St Petersburg, thrashing out a future that would insulate them from the Western harm – real or perceived – the US and NATO were ramping up war talk in Washington, exhibiting an unstoppable desire for global dominance.
Their target is Russia, a nuclear power that the West still regards as a mainstay of the remnant of the loathed and feared Soviet Union.
Also standing in the way of total dominance of the international world order by the West is China, the world’s second most populous nation with a population of 1.4 billion.
China, also a nuclear power, has “no-limit” bilateral relations with Russia. China’s economy is the world’s second-largest after the USA’s, and constant outperformance of Western businesses by their Chinese counterparts has resulted in acrimonious trade wars. In recent past, the EU imposed tariffs on Chinese Electric Vehicles entering Europe.
The EU attributed the relative affordability of Chinese EVs to the alleged gross subsidization of the state, which they found “unfair”.
During the NATO summit in Washington this week, the US took the opportunity to ramp up strategic tensions in Europe to levels never seen since the end of the Cold War at the tail-end of the 1980s.
The Biden administration announced plans to deploy an array of long-range missiles in Germany, where the country’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz has become what his critics say is an “American lap-dog”.
The US long-range missiles will include The Tomahawk, the US premier 1980s-designed land attack cruise missile. Also included is the Standard Missile 6, the US Navy’s principle long-range air and missile defense projectile.
Additionally, the US will also deploy mystery “developmental hypersonic weapons” in Germany.
But the US is determined never to pursue the country’s national interest and foreign policy objectives all by itself. Washington’s regular lexicon invoking phrases such as “allies”, “the international community”, “together with our friends”, etc., are all aimed at creating a global mind-set of a collective in spite of the deep-seated sectarian interests of the US.
The massive funding of NATO, EU member-states, the WTO, the IMF and World Bank, among others, ensures the continuous influence and domination of the US in virtually every aspect of international life.
The latest US-led “patriotic front” was a display by NATO in Washington of a united force behind the summit’s declaration on “Ukraine Compact”, a “sleep-easy-at-night” ticket for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine whose country has been turned into an epicentre of the West’s proxy war against Russia.
Throughout this week’s NATO Summit, and in its immediate aftermath, talk of a peaceful negotiation to end the war in Ukraine was evident through its absence. It was a sad reflection of the Western-led gung-ho diplomacy at the centre of the so-called “rules-based world order”.
The appetite for continued global dominance is a force behind the West’s military and diplomatic determination to maintain the global status quo. It masks their unilateralism that has replaced a multipolar world order based on the founding ethos of the UN Charter.
It is a reflection of the growing international divide along ideological lines. In pursuit of their selfish goals aimed at maintaining an uneven world order, the West has rendered the UN General Assembly and the Security Council all but impotent.
No wonder the UN Secretary-General has previously echoed calls by the Majority World to reform the archaic UN system.
The looming collision of the BRICS bloc and the US-led NATO will be expedited as long as the West’s urge for world dominance supersedes the need for dialogue and recognition of peaceful coexistence.
Democracy is alright for Western nations.
However, the West has no right to impose their ideological world view on the rest of the international community.
Sovereignty of nations is sacrosanct. The concept of national interest varies from one state to the other.
Diversity of thought, philosophy of life and foreign policy dictates should serve as an acceptable hallmark of a world that is naturally different in both outlook and practice.
To force one’s ways of living, patterns of political thought and their brand of governance system is simply a tool of authoritarians and a sure recipe for global upheavals.
The US and the Global North should recognise that it is impossible to wish away the Global South, and the Global East as President Putin puts it.
World peace requires unconditional appreciation by the powerful states that their weaker counterparts have equal rights to exist.
This, in my view, is a fact that NATO keeps on missing.
Hence, the surge to expand eastwards - regardless of the concerns of Russia, or any one’s else.
Indeed, NATO is no longer a defensive bloc that it started out as. Instead, it has become an offensive, dangerous bloc that is a threat to world peace. How regrettable.
*Abbey Makoe is Founder and Editor-in-Chief: Global South Media Network.