On Tuesday of last week the Russian president Vladimir Putin addressed the 10th Moscow Conference on International Security. The meeting was attended by a large number of delegates from what are commonly referred to as Third World countries. The western nations showed no interest in the conference and coverage in the western media was correspondingly light. The Washington Post gave it some coverage but the tone of that coverage was generally dismissive. That was a great pity, because the conference was addressed by both Putin and also the Defence Secretary Sergei Sergei who actually gave a longer speech than that of Putin.In this article I will address only the remarked made by Putin.
Putin gave an outline of the multipolar world order that he saw as taking shape. The changes that are occurring are not to the liking of the western globalist elites. This was the first time that Putin had used such terminology. He accused the globalists of using chaos to promote their version of globalism which included deliberately promoting chaos around the world as it furthered their desires of controlling how the world was run and by whom.
He attacked the western elites for pursuing a containment policy that amounted to a subversion of individual sovereignty. In doing so they promoted neo-colonial methods that in effect promoted neo-liberal totalitarianism. Liberalism today, Putin argued, bore no resemblance to its original meaning. Modern neo-liberals suppressed all ideas with which they disagreed., This amounted in effect to “neo-liberal totalitarianism.”
The worst offender in this regard is the United States. They grossly interfered in the domestic affairs of sovereign states by organising provocations, coups and civil wars. The goal of all this effort was to hold onto its domination of weaker nations. It had done this for centuries and everything in their present behaviour points to a desire to maintain their position. Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, far from being an aberrant action by a defiant congresswoman was in fact part of this old policy. It was a means of distracting their population from their own failures. Seeking to blame China and Russia for their own failures in foreign policy was yet another symptom of their own failure.
Putin even cited the recent alliance of Australia, Japan and the United States as a form of a destabilising situation and creating conflict. That alliance was a classic example of troublemaking. It amounted to an attempt to replicate the NATO alliance in a different part of the world. It is interesting that this model followed so classily upon the attempt to secure India as part of an anti-China alliance, an attempt that seems to have failed, as evidenced by India’s strong and continuing ties with Russia and its membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
The success of the BRI and the imminent expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is evidence that global changes are going in a different direction to the old western dominated model. That model has been frankly exploitative, working to the benefit of the rich few at the expense of the vast majority of nations. Putin accused the western elites of using chaos to promote globalisation by creating wars and imposing alien methods upon others. Russia and China have been at the forefront of opposition to this old system of western domination and that’s is precisely the main reason why they have been targeted by the West.
The process of creating a new multipolar world order is actively opposed by the West, who see quite clearly that such changes as are sought by the developing nations would spell the end of their domination. They unsurprisingly oppose the removal of their historical domination. They wish rather to maintain their grip on the old neo-colonial order.
Putin drew specific attention to the war in Ukraine where he declared had clearly defined goals, which was to secure the security of Russia and its citizens and to defend the residents of Donbass from genocide. That latter element is totally missing from Western accounts of the fighting in the Donbass, where more than 15,000 of its citizens have been killed and more than one million forced into exile.
The real situation in the Donbass is only part of a wider picture of misrepresentation by the Ukrainians and their western apologists for what is actually going on. The Ukrainians are currently attacking a major nuclear plant at Zaporizhzia yet absurdly claiming it is the fault of the Russians. Their behaviour is literally unbelievable and poses a massive risk of nuclear annihilation.
Putin described what was happening in Ukraine as testifying to United States attempts to prolong the conflict. He drew a parallel with United States actions in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He accused the United States as grossly interfering in the domestic affairs of foreign states. “They organise provocations, stage coups and civil wars. Using threats to blackmail and pressure, they attempt to to bend their will and live according to rules that are alien to them”.
The West’s goals in these exercises are to “hold on to its domination, using this model that enables it to feed off the entire world as it has done for centuries and such a model can only be sustained by force”.
In my view Putin has never been so explicitly critical of western practices as he was in this speech. He has clearly reached a crossroads in his thinking and decided that he is sick of the games the West continued to play, or attempts to play with the lives of billions of citizens in the world’s developing nations.
In this he has the clear backing of China that has its own record of experience with colonial domination to remind it that the West is in fact a predatory beast that will shut the life out of a country in pursuit of its own self-interest, The two nations, Russia and China, have now joined forces in what amounts to a fundamental realignment of the world.
That so may nations have joined the BRI and are clamouring to join other alternative systems such as the SCO speaks volumes as to how they are sick and tired of the long history of colonial exploitation and are demanding a different way of doing things where their interests are paramount. For the first time in centuries they are staking a claim to be part of a new system and Russia and China are leading the way in that new system.
The West clearly does not like what is happening. One may rest assured that they will fight tooth and nail to defend their old privileges. It may now be too late. They have only themselves to blame.
James O’Neill, an Australian-based former Barrister at Law, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
