International Organization

The Order is running into more problems related to the international organizations that have been set up to manage and enforce the US-backed system. The UN Security Council is a case in point: who has the right to decide which countries can be permanent members? If Russia is one, then why not Japan? If China, then why not India? If Britain and France, then why not Germany and Brazil?

So far it appears that most current permanent members of the Security Council have not been eager to make way for new members. This is odd, since both Russia and China keep referring to the UN as the basis for world political order. The possible breakout is that a British official has recently stated that the Security Council could be expanded to include several more countries. Russia has indicated support for giving India a permanent Security Council seat.

North Korea has already strongly protested against the idea of placing Japan on the Council. Yet, as the relative power among nations shifts, with some growing in relative economic and military status, the pressure to admit new members and perhaps remove old members will only intensify. Eventually the new major powers will have to be accommodated, or the UN will lose whatever effectiveness it still possesses.

Although the US continues to try to manage the organizations, competing organizations are being formed and appear likely to gain ground in the turf battle. Even now, the US is complaining about Africa getting in debt to China, while overlooking the history of that continent’s indebtedness to Western financial interests. Other countries are lining up to join the SCO, BRICS, Asia Development Bank, and the “New Silk Roads” from China.

The US seems slow to come up with an effective solution, so the US influence over international organizations continues to ebb away. Part of the problem was recognized way back in 1776, when Adam Smith published his “Wealth of Nations” tome. Smith claimed that empires did not advance the wealth of nations from the “national interest” standpoint, so much as advancing the wealth of “special interests” in the nation. This question would seem to be an appropriate one for think-tanks to study in depth, if they are seriously concerned with the “national interest” and the plus and minus of foreign adventures. Was Smith correct or not?

Social

The WWIII scenario is not only being fought with dollars and gold, weapon systems, cybersecurity, and biological warfare, but also with social policy. Information is now appearing to suggest that human groupings do better in the long run if they practice restraint in sexual behaviours, and sociological work indicates that the “Wokeism” policy of the West is not especially attractive to the majority of humans living in the East and South. Thus the vaunted “soft power” of the West is being rapidly eroded in much of the world.

The contest for the hearts and minds of billions of people across the globe has in the past been a slam-dunk for the West and Hollywood. Now, however, with Hollywood putting out films and shows promoting Wokeism, there are grounds for concern as to the effect this will have on US hegemony. Once again, think tanks and foreign policy journals are slow to investigate and report on this factor.

Oligopoly

Instead, these organizations in the West spend time claiming that the US is promoting democracy in foreign lands, blissfully ignorant that folks in these foreign lands are mostly bemused by this since they are aware that professors at famous US universities have evidence that the US is really an oligopoly.

This is an important point, since China has recently awakened to the issue of whether the Party controls the oligopolists, or the oligopolists control the Party. As a result, China cracked down on the extremely rich and made it clear that the Communist Party was on top. The worry was that the very rich in China would find kinship with the very rich in the West, and by degree become part of a “Plutocrat Party” thereby undercutting the authority of the Communist Party.

It is noteworthy that last month the World Economic Forum (WEF) met in Davos, Switzerland and no folks from China (or Russia and Iran) were on the attendance list. There were attendees from Hong Kong, but they were listed under “H” as in “Hong Kong, SAR, China” – thus appearing to try to straddle the fence.

The attendance by politicians seemed to be down, with only the German leader out of the G7 countries on the list. The Vatican did not appear either, although it may have been under some heading other than “V” – a high level representative was thought to have attended the previous meeting.

Perhaps the press surrounding the controversial WEF program has made public figures hesitant to be too closely associated with the Great Reset. In Russia, the oligopolists created during the Yeltsin era have either agreed to support the current regime, or have left Russia for more hospitable locales, often Britain, Israel, or the US. Thus people from around the world who have no desire to be part of the Great Reset promoted by the WEF have every reason to distance themselves from the major supporters of the WEF – the US and Europe.

Cia’s World Factbook

The taxpayers of the US shell out billion and billions of dollars each year to support an institution known as the Central Intelligence Agency. A portion of this money goes to support the research, writing, and publication of a document called The World Factbook. The latest edition is dated January 26, 2023, and can be found on the internet with an easy search. The book contains a wealth of information about each and every country in the world. One such factual listing is a page ranking the countries by Gross National Product (GNP).

According to the CIA, the country with the largest GNP is China, followed, in order, by the US, India, Japan, Germany, and Russia. The Russian economy (Number 6) is close in size to that of Germany and not too far behind that of Japan. However, many writers, analysts, editors, bureaucrats, and politicians in the US do not seem to be familiar with the CIA effort. There are still many cases where the US GNP is still referred to as Number One, and the Russian GNP, for some reason, as being the size of Spain, Number 16.

People held under the sway of this delusion might easily believe that Russia was a weak and small country economically speaking, that would crumble under the weight of comprehensive sanctions. Perhaps the Ukraine misadventure could have been avoided if the CIA book had had been more widely known and consulted. In any event, Russia will likely soon surpass Germany due to the latter’s energy problems leading to uncompetitive industries.

Conclusion

The proposal by Russia for negotiating a new security architecture for Europe was rejected by the US. That was extremely unfortunate for everyone, as it could have prevented the subsequent war in Ukraine. Then, following the Russian SMO, Ukraine and Russia sat down to negotiate in Turkey and came to some sort of agreement. Presumably along the lines of the Minsk Accords. Unfortunately again, this agreement was scuttled when the British Prime Minister flew to Ukraine and had a talk with the officials there.

This action indicated that Ukraine was not actually in charge of its own destiny, but rather, the war was being controlled by the NATO powers. The powers in the West clearly thought that they would come out on top in the war and that this would somehow preserve the US hegemony. Unfortunately yet again, the West guessed wrong and made what will likely be viewed in hindsight as a catastrophic decision.

Russia cannot be defeated in a conventional war in Eurasia, and presumably the military experts and intelligence folks in the West should have been aware of this fact. Furthermore, the sanctions against Russia were counterproductive. Russia was already highly self-sufficient and the sanctions greatly sped up import substitution. The dream of a regime change in Russia was likewise a case of hope over reality.

Additionally, by refusing diplomacy, the US turned a problem in Eastern Europe into a de facto WWIII. Now the negotiations over a new security architecture will have to cover the entire globe. This will be a much more difficult undertaking and a problematical outcome for the West. The West is not in a military, nor economic, nor social position to be very successful in negotiations with the East and South. Even having negotiations is problematical, since the East and South view the West as being “not agreement capable.” Thus it will dawn sooner or later on the Western leaders that they bit off more than they could chew.

(Concluded)

Courtesy The Saker

https://thesaker.is/the-not-ultimatum-revisited/