El mundo ya no es
unipolar, pero tampoco multipolar. Es, más bien, bipolar, con dos
superpotencias, una de las cuales se basa en la integración de docenas de
naciones en, al menos, dos continentes. Este y otros interesantes aspectos, que
reproducimos a continuación, aparecen en la nota de Federico Pieraccini
aparecida estos días en el sitio web Strategic Culture Foundation. El muchacho
tal vez peca de optimista, si bien su análisis nos resultó estimulante. Acá va
otra de sus frases finales: El tiempo que viene será un lapso en el que Rusia,
China e Irán deberán realizar elecciones definitivas. El artículo que reproducimos a continuación es el cuarto y último de una serie, a cargo del mismo autor, aparecida en el mismo sitio web. Acá va:
Título: Trump's
Delusion: Halting Eurasian Integration and Saving 'US World Order'
Epígrafe: The
preceding three parts of this series analyzed the mechanisms that drive great
powers. The most in-depth understanding of the issues concerned the
determination of the objectives and logic that accompany the expansion of an
empire
(http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/12/19/geopolitics-globalization-and-world-order.html).
Geopolitical theories, the concrete application of foreign-policy doctrines,
and concrete actions that the United States employed to aspire to global
dominance were examined
(http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/12/23/united-states-and-race-global-hegemony.html).
Finally, the last bit of analysis focused particularly on how Iran, China and
Russia have adopted over the years a variety of cultural, economic and military
moves to repel the continual assault on their sovereignty by the West (http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/01/01/how-united-iran-russia-china-changing-world-better.html).
Finally, specific attention was given to the American drive for global hegemony
and how this has actually accelerated the end of the 'unipolar moment',
impelling the emergence of a multipolar world order.
Texto: In this
fourth and final analysis I will focus on a possible strategic shift in the
approach to foreign policy from Washington. The most likely hypothesis suggests
that Trump intends to attempt to prevent the ongoing integration between
Russia, China and Iran.
The failed
foreign-policy strategy of the neoconservatives and neoliberals has served to
dramatically reduce Washington's role and influence in the world. Important
alliances are being forged without seeking the assent of the United States, and
the world model envisioned in the early 1990s – from Bush to Kagan and all the
signatories of the PNAC founding statement of principles – is increasingly
coming undone. Donald Trump’s victory represents, in all likelihood, the last
decisive blow to a series of foreign-policy strategies that in the end
undermined the much-prized leadership of the United States. The ceasefire in
Syria, reached thanks to an agreement between Turkey and Russia, notably
excluded the United States.
The military,
media, financial and cultural assault successfully prosecuted over decades by
Washington finally seems to have met its Waterloo at the hands of the axis
represented by Iran, Russia and China. The recent media successes (RT, Press TV
and many alternative media), political resistance (Assad is still president of
Syria), diplomatic struggles (negotiations in Syria without Washington as an
intermediary) and military planning (Liberation of Aleppo from terrorists) are
a result of the efforts of Iran, Russia and China. Their success in all these
fields of operations are having direct consequences and implications for the
internal affairs of countries like the United Kingdom and the United States.
The relentless efforts
by the majority of Western political representatives for a successful model of
globalization has created a parasitic system of turbo capitalism that entails a
complete loss of sovereignty by America’s allies. Brexit and Trump have served
as an expression of ordinary people’s rejection of these economic and political
regimes under which they live.
In Syria,
Washington and its puppet allies have almost exited the scene without achieving
their strategic goal of removing Assad from power. Within the American
political system, the establishment, spanning from Clinton to Obama, was swept
away for their economic and political failures. The mainstream media, spewing
an endless stream of propaganda aimed at sustaining the political elite,
completely lost their battle to appear credible, reaching unprecedented peaks
of partisanship and immorality.
Donald Trump has
emerged with a new approach to foreign policy affairs, shaped by various
political thinkers of the realist mould, such as Kenneth Waltz and John
Mearsheimer. First on the to-do list is doing away with all the recent
neoconservative and neoliberal policies of foreign intervention (Responsibility
to Protect - R2P) and soft-power campaigns in favor of human rights. And there
will be no more UN resolutions deviously employed as cover to bomb nations back
into the stone age (Libya). Trump does not believe in the central role of the
UN in international affairs, reaffirming this repeatedly during his campaign.
The Trump
administration intends to end the policy of regime change, interference in the
internal affairs of foreign governments, Arab Springs, and color revolutions.
Such efforts, they argue, are ultimately ineffective anyway and are too costly
in terms of political credibility. In Ukraine the Americans have allied
themselves with supporters of the Nazi Stepan Bandera, and in the Middle East
they finance or indirectly support al Qaeda and al Nusra Front. These tactics,
infamously branded as 'leading from behind', never achieved their desired results.
The Middle East is in chaos, with a Moscow-Tehran axis emerging and going from
strength to strength. In Ukraine, the government in Kiev not only seems
incapable of complying with the Minsk agreements but also of prosecuting a new
military campaign with no guarantees from their European and American partners.
There is a wild
card that Trump hopes to play in the first months of his presidency. The
strategy will focus on the inherited chaotic situation in the Middle East and
Ukraine. Obama will be blamed for the previous chaos, it will be argued that
sanctions against the Russian Federation should be removed, and Moscow will be
given a free hand in the Middle East. In one fell swoop, the future president
may decide not to decide directly on the Middle East or on Ukraine, avoiding
any further involvement and instead finally making a decision in the national
interest of his country.
A sustainable
strategy may finally be attained by remaining passive towards the developments
in the Middle East, especially on the Syrian front, leaving it firmly in
Russian hands, while emphasizing at the same time the effort against Daesh in
cooperation with Moscow. Another wise choice would see Kiev falling by the
wayside, trashing Ukrainian ambitions to regain the Donbass and recover Crimea.
Finally, removing sanctions would allow the next president to strengthen the
alliance with European partners (a diplomatic necessity that Trump must make as
the new president). Over two years the EU has suffered from economic suicide in
the name of a failed policy strategy imposed by Washington. The Trump
presidency will seek to normalize relations between Moscow and Washington as
well as with European allies more willing to actively collaborate with the
Trump administration.
The Middle East
will accordingly see a decline in violence, increasing the chances of seeing an
end to the conflict in Syria. This plan for the initial phase of the Trump
presidency has been widely announced during the months leading up to his
election, both by himself or by members of his staff.
The implicit
message is to seek dialogue and cooperation with all nations. Probably what
lies behind these overtures is actually an explicit willingness to try to break
the cooperation between Russia, Iran and China. The motivations for this action
stem from the implications for the United States if a full military, cultural
and economic alliance between Beijing, Moscow and Tehran is formed. It would
almost ultimately consign the United States to irrelevance on the grand
chessboard of international relations.
More
realistically, Trump aims to shift the focus of the United States from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, where the largest US commercial interests will reside
in the future; a shift of focus from the Middle East to the South and East
China Seas. The geopolitical reasons behind this decision, and the guiding
theories behind it, were addressed particularly in the first article of this
series. In summary, Trump intends to accelerate Obama’s Asian pivot, bringing
about profound changes to US foreign policy. Smoking the peace pipe with Russia
will free up resources (to "build up our military" in naval terms) to
be focused in the Pacific. He intends to emphasize the importance of bilateral
relations between allies ("free riders" Japan and South Korea) to
focus on containing China.
The wildcard that
Trump hopes to play in breaking the alliance is called Russia. Thanks to
previous peace talks developed with Moscow, Trump hopes for a reprise of
Kissinger's strategy with China in 1979, with the addition of a promise of
non-interference in the Middle East against Iran and Syria by the United
States. In an exchange unlikely to happen, the American administration is
hoping to convince the Kremlin that no action will be taken in the Middle East
against Moscow and its allies, including Iran, in exchange for help in
containing the Republic of China.
With this in
mind, Trump’s choice of a very questionable personality to liaise between
Washington and Tel Aviv, combined with the strong rhetoric of Trump against the
Islamic Republic of Iran, and the equally harsh responses from Tehran to the
threats of the future president, seem to satisfy the roles and rhetoric of all
parties involved. No actions, only rhetoric. For Tehran and Tel Aviv it is
easier to argue that to sign an agreement. The Iranian nuclear deal will, for
this reason, continue to be a major point of tension, but also the guarantor of
unlikely military action.
The real problem
for the future administration in this strategy is offering a consistent plan of
non-interference in the Middle East. Putin is well aware, in any case, that
Washington is not able to intervene and change the fate of the balance of power
that is forming in the Middle East. Trump’s indirect offer not to take action
in the Middle East is at best a bluff that will not last long. Trump ignores
(or, being a good negotiator, pretends not to want to see) that very few cards
in his deck can be attractive to Moscow. The alliance between Moscow, Beijing
and Tehran is firm and certified by strategic exchanges in many fields, a trend
promising tremendous growth. The war in Syria has shown the results of
effective coordination between the three nations. The addition of the Islamic
Republic of Iran to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will further
strengthen security ties, without forgetting that the north-south corridor
between Russia and Iran also ensures stability in an area of ??the globe where
the danger of subversive terrorism is very high..
During the period
of sanctions, Russia and China signed the most important and immense trade
agreement in history, sealing Moscow’s turn toward the east. Such a move
involves a level of strategic planning that goes well beyond the four years of
a presidential term. If Trump hopes to achieve cooperation of some kind with
Putin to further his grand strategy, he is deluding himself. However, he must
out of necessity cooperate against terrorism in the Middle East with Russia and
moderate Washington’s allies in the region who support terrorist. He will be
forced to remove sanctions and reset the international relationship between
Washington and Moscow, freeing the EU from a counterproductive situation in
opposing the Russian Federation. He will probably then decide to ignore
permanently the matter of Ukraine and Crimea, burying one of the tactics and
strategies that was the cornerstone of the neoconservatives, namely an attempt
to prepare the Ukrainian army to face the Russian Federation militarily, then
drawing in NATO into an all-out war.
Trump knows he is
in an inferior negotiating position vis-a-vis Moscow and Beijing. He is well
aware that effecting a rupture of relations between China, Russia and Iran is
almost impossible. The only advantage, from his point of view, is having more
room to negotiate with Moscow, given the abysmal levels of relations between
Putin and Obama.
Naturally, if
Trump should really embark on such a mission of dividing the Eurasian
continent, he is likely to expect very specific guarantees about the future
attitude of Moscow towards Beijing. Putin will have very few problems in
playing him to his advantage. Moscow has everything to gain from this
situation. Trump hopes to have on his side the Russian Federation, then proceed
to convince countries like Japan, the Philippines and South Korea that
containing China is the only viable strategy for limiting China’s influence and
future domination over Asia. These actions will provoke the opposite effects to
those intended, thereby promoting further integration of Eurasia (AIIB and Silk
Road 2.0), as shown by Obama’s Asian pivot. Any attempt to impose a new Asian
pivot will end up in flames, as has been the case with the commercial
Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.
In the meantime,
with the removal of sanctions, many EU countries will finally be able to resume
their energy and technology integration with the Eurasian continent, especially
with Russia. Japan will in all likelihood be able to sign a peace treaty with
Russia without violating its obligations to Washington.
In general, the
removal of sanctions on Russia will accelerate many projects placed on hold by
tensions between Washington and Moscow. Trump’s attitude, if he decides to have
an aggressive posture towards Beijing, will force the Chinese elite to see what
lies in store for it. Washington does not intend to have joint relations with
Beijing. Trump has repeatedly reiterated the thoughts of Mearsheimer, a
prominent contemporary geopolitical theorist, who states that in less than a
decade China’s growth will likely pose a threat to the United States as a
superpower. Mearsheimer argues that within a few years, thanks to the growth of
nominal GDP and demographic increase, the Republic of China will be the first
military power in the world to dominate Asia. Trump intends to concentrate all
his efforts, in terms of foreign policy, on this factor. To succeed, he
understands that he needs to have on his side several regional players (Japan,
South Korea, Vietnam, India, the Philippines), especially the Russian
Federation, as well as oversee a sea change that will transfer the attention in
Washington from the Atlantic to the Pacific .
This period of
time will represent for Moscow, Beijing and Tehran a time to make definitive
choices, a season in which the national policy-makers of these nations will
have to understand what road to embark on. For Tehran, the cards are dealt face
up, with a predetermined role as regional power. For Moscow and Beijing the
issue is far more complicated. Much will depend on how Beijing intends to
oppose openly any hostile action of Trump. Moscow has for many years openly
questioned the world order led by Washington. Beijing understandably seems
reluctant to engage in direct confrontation. In all likelihood, Trump and his
realist foreign-policy attitude will lead the Chinese elite to understand that
Washington considers itself to be the only one entitled to grant world order.
The Chinese elites need to understand that the only sustainable path for the
future is the construction, with all actors, of a multipolar world that
includes Washington, New Delhi, Moscow, Tehran, London and Brussels.
Realistically, it is hard to think that the new administration would alter the
strategic partnership formed between China, Iran and Russia. After all, Trump
would retrace the same steps of his predecessors, simply by changing the angle
of approach and trying to further shuffle the cards of international relations.
The decision to improve the world through cooperation and mutual respect does
not exactly match the aspirations of the American deep state that seeks war,
chaos and conflicts.
The big
difference we will see with a candidate like Trump is easy. Once all diplomatic
efforts have failed against Beijing, instead of doubling down with military or
terrorist efforts, the strategy will be abandoned in silence. The strong
expressions against Beijing, the feared increase in military spending for the
Pacific (to satisfy the industrial-military apparatus), and the rhetoric against
Iran (to appease the Israel lobby), will be used to moderate the deep state’s
intentions, while Trump will try to focus on economics and security
(counter-terrorism) and much less on foreign policy.
Series Conclusion
This series has
sought to invite readers to reflect on the epochal events that are occurring.
The global hegemonic project that was supposed to be realized with a Clinton
presidency has been stopped. The inevitable military confrontation with Russia,
Iran and China has been averted thanks to the preventive actions of these
countries together with the defeat of the Democratic candidate. A huge blow has
been delivered to the establishment, with its impulse toward globalism and US
imperialism.
The emergence of
a multipolar world order has altered the way nations interact with each other
in the field of international relations. Washington is no longer the only
referent, and it is this that represents a pivotal transition from a unipolar
world dominated by Washington. The mechanisms that regulate the great powers
have varied in form and content, leading to an almost unprecedented
international situation. The future multipolar world order, historically
unstable, will in fact hold the promise of stability thanks to the actions of
opposing nations to the American superpower. United they will stabilize the
world.
The key to a
sustainable future world order is the synergy between the newly formed Beijing,
Moscow and Tehran axis as an economic, military and cultural counterweight to
the US. The union and the alliance of these three nations has created a new
super-pole, able to balance effectively the often destructive actions of
Washington. Rather than a multipolar world order, we are actually faced with a
situation of two superpowers, one of which is based on the integration between
dozens of nations on more than two continents. It is a new era that will
accompany us over the coming decades. The unipolar world is over – forever!
Astroboy ¿vos estabas al tanto de esto? Porque yo no recuerdo haber leído nada al respecto. Desconozco si es actual, pero se ve bastante grave. Disturbios en Mexico desde el 4 de enero.
ResponderEliminarhttps://www.facebook.com/RTnews/posts/10155123993949411?comment_id=10155123996869411&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R4%22%7D
la nueva administración imperial ya salio a crearle una casus belli a china, movilizando sus tropas en Corea del Sur y anunciando que no permitira que se instale en el Mar de China.
ResponderEliminarA comienzos de enero posteamos algo sobre la situación en México. La cosa parece haber calmado un poco desde entonces. Saludos a todos,
ResponderEliminarAstroboy