Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a two-world system. If you didn’t like the deal that US was offering you, you could go the USSR. If you didn’t like the deal Russia was offering you could go to the US.
While the US probably offered a better deal, especially in later years, you could have a pretty decent life as a client state to the Soviets. Cuba under Castro had a higher standard of living in practically every way than it did pre-Castro, when it was an American client state.
Equally, you could play the two off against each other, looking for the best deal. This made it harder for them to screw you over.
As the USSR weakened, the deals became worse. The USSR of the 80s could not offer what the USSR of 50s could. Still, the ability to tell the superpower of your choice, who feared and hated the other superpower, that they had to treat you at least slightly right had benefits.
I certainly don’t want to romanticize the cold-war period. There were ugly coups, torture regimes and wars. There was famine. But while we have less of that today, we don’t have less of it because of the end of the cold war. Indeed, we have more failed states than we did during the cold war, because it is in no one’s particular interest to pick them up.
So one of the events that I have been tracking since the early 2000’s (as has Stirling) is when a viable second bloc would emerge.
To be viable, a bloc must be able to:
- Provide relatively high technology;
- Provide development: power, roads, railways, etc;
- Provide the consumer goods people want;
- Provide credit;
- Feed countries which need food;
- Provide energy (which still means oil and other hydrocarbons, though that’s changing);
- Provide some sort of credible military aid or umbrella.
Yesterday I wrote about Russia creating its own bank payments system to compete with the West’s SWIFT. This is important, because since the fall of the USSR, the West (or more accurately, America) has increasingly used this to punish those nations it does not like. Piss off Washington and they will shut down your ability engage with global credit markets, and even the ability of your citizens to use credit cards. Pretty soon you can’t buy what you want, even if you have the money, or you pay a huge premium.
So the creation of a Russian SWIFT, while woefully inadequate by itself, was a first step towards meeting one of the needs of a new bloc with rivals the West.
The linchpin nation in any new bloc would be China. China can credibly provide development, credit and consumer goods (they make much of them anyway.) But China will also need countries which can supply oil and raw materials: Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Argentina, and so on. Much of South America would rather sell food and raw materials to China (or Russia, or whoever) than to the US, because they remember, well, not being treated very well by America during and after the Cold War.
Russia’s military technology, while not as good as America’s, is good enough for most purposes, and China, as is usually the case, has vast amounts of shipbuilding capacity for those who want a navy. America’s space program is charging forward (mostly privately) but Russia still has plenty of lift capacity for satellites, and China is working hard on its space program.
The BRICS have created their own development bank, as well, so combined with an expansion of the new SWIFT, credit which can be used to buy almost anything you want, or need, will be available.
This, my friends, is the configuration in which the unipolar moment (which has lasted two and a half decades so far) ends.
It was always going to end, for all things do, the question was how soon. American actions have accelerated what should have taken a couple decades more, significantly, by marginalizing too many countries. Marginalizing or destroying the occasional country was acceptable, but the number marginalized is just too high, and they have too many resources. Combined with a great manufacturing nation, they have essentially everything they need: they don’t need the West.
And they may be wondering why they are paying intellectual property taxes (that’s what they are) and interest fees to the West, when the West clearly isn’t acting in their interest. Why have America and Britain gain all this, when they can reap the money themselves.
Oh, there are still some areas where the West is clearly ahead, from turbines to aerospace. But they tighten by the year, and they aren’t anything necessary any more. Virtually everything you want, save a few luxury items, you can get without America or Europe being involved.
The question now, then, is the timing and the exact events. But the broad outline is visible and will accelerate, because it is in too many countries self-interest.
The Great Game, the Great Game never ends.
