Whether or not President Biden has any understanding that today’s geopolitical landscape is very different from the one which he experienced as the “end of history” was being celebrated in 1991, is an open question.
The upcoming global Democracy Summit was driven by the belief that America is still the only global power capable of dictating the terms of the world order.
But that hasn’t stopped Biden and his foreign policy advisors from rallying approximately the half of the world’s nations together for a summit which will be heralded as the historic meeting place of the freedom-loving liberal states. This means that over 100 countries are excluded from the dialogue and some of them believe that it was done because they claim the right to be able to determine their future without having it imposed by other powers. What arrogance on their part!
Taking the practice of detached delusional self-aggrandizement to new levels, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to the EU, Josep Borrell went so far as to state that “we western people, US and EU, we have been ruling the world … we were the masters of how technology was working … if we are no longer standard-setting we will not rule the 21st century.”
Sounds a bit like a white supremacy slogan, doesn’t it? Or perhaps like Divide and Rule policy according to the Roman ruler Julius Caesar and the French emperor Napoleon?
This is at the time when mounting problems like pandemics, climate change, energy and water shortage, hunger, and other problems require cooperation of the world’s nations rather than their further division.
America itself is deeply polarized and it does not serve it well, so why expand this polarization beyond its borders?
On top of this, the winds of another major war are gaining strength, and the list of respectable opinion makers who are predicting our “sleepwalking into a nuclear catastrophe” keeps growing.
How America Lost her Moral High Ground
It wasn’t long ago that there were many reasons to find pride in America as the City on a Hill which the founders envisioned.
Contrasted with the stifling authoritarian environment of the Soviet Union, the U.S. appeared in many ways to be a mecca of freedom where personal initiative was cherished, transformative large-scale infrastructure projects were built and new discoveries emanating from the frontiers of the space program were finding quick application in the civilian economy.
The insanity of the Vietnam war sadly derailed much of that positive momentum, but still the better part of the United States continued onward throughout the remaining decades of the Cold War.
At the same time, under the heavy hand of the rigid Politburo, many freedoms that Americans took for granted, were restricted for Soviet citizens. Sure, there were injustices, political turmoil, and dissent in the US as well, but at least this dissent was protected by the Constitution. The West was far from perfect, but it was generally believed that it had the upper hand.
By the time the Cold War ended, there was great cause for celebrations as the fear of nuclear terror was finally fading away. While some saw the arrival of a new era of transition from confrontation to cooperation between east and west, others proclaimed the arrival of the unipolar world order under United States hegemony. One exalted think tank fellow didn’t hesitate to say that “The truth is that America can and should seek to remain the world’s top dog.”
At the same time, the overwhelming majority of Russians were ready to embrace industrial capitalism, freedom and democracy and be fully integrated with the West as allies.
However, all these hopes and expectations have been crushed and there are plenty of proofs and documents, including those from US government sources, about America’s destructive role in this process.
Contrary to the bright promises made during the final days of the Cold War, the Russian economy was crushed, and the once proud country fell into ruin. Yet, miraculously, after a few years of devastation, Russia found herself reborn like a phoenix from the ashes.
Despite the huge disappointment with US and West in general, all Russian leaders from Gorbachev to Putin kept sending signals to Washington and Brussels about their desire for integration with the West only to be turned down while NATO kept expanding and attempting to encircle Russia from the North, West and South.
Nowadays we find ourselves in a position where WWIII driven by an all-out launching of nuclear weapons no longer sounds unthinkable.
Amidst these growing war drums, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has threatened to move US nukes eastward next to Russia’s borders.
So, it is worth asking: how did this dangerous theater of the absurd arise? Has America always exhibited such delusions, and if it was once truly a beacon of hope and temple of liberty, can it yet be brought back to its saner traditions to avert Armageddon?
The Post 9/11 Grand Illusion
By the time of 9/11 and the Project for a New American Century, a new age of color revolutions, regime change, and hybrid warfare was launched demanding that all nations of the world submit themselves to the authority of a new hegemon. The loss of life and global security is horrifying. The estimates conducted by the Lancet place the violent deaths caused by the second Iraq war at over 601,000 between 2003-2006 alone.
According to Brown University’s meticulous research, years of unilateral sanctions across Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, and other nations has resulted in millions of killed and wounded and tens of millions of refuges. Meanwhile, trillions of dollars spent never seemed to build any of the infrastructure which was destroyed during decades of “humanitarian” bombing campaigns.
So here we are on the cusp of the hypocritical Democracy Summit when we are faced with a fate worse than anything seen during the Cold War.
But there is another choice like a win-win cooperation, large-scale infrastructure and progress for any nation willing to join the Multipolar Alliance.
When it comes to world security the US– Russia – China summit is a lot more important than the hollow Democracy one which would further divide rather than unite the world.
Is it possible that there exists at this late stage anywhere within the crisis-ridden USA, a political force competent and moral enough to rally patriotic Americans towards a positive policy of war avoidance, genuine cooperation, and diplomacy… or have the nuclear dogs of war already been released?
Edward Lozansky is president of the American University in Moscow. He is the author of the book Operation Elbe, which describes joint US-Russia anti-terrorist efforts. Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review, and Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow. He is author of the Untold History of Canada book series and Clash of the Two Americas. Reprinted from the Washington Times with permission from the authors.
