Human Rights, Politics

Multilateralism, the new world order

The old order is dead. What is expected is the replacement of flawed policies by ideas beneficial to humanity. The new order is expected to emerge from negotiations between the centres of power, including the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations.

 

Javier Alexander Roa

 

Russia’s war in Ukraine, beyond containing the military expansionism of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) towards Eastern Europe and border territories, with the aim of preserving sovereignty and territorial integrity, has caused a fracturing of the liberal globalist system, promoting (more visibly) a new order through the centres of power in world geopolitics and the final birth of multilateralism.

The geoeconomic and geopolitical system built by the United States according to its interests after the Second World War and strengthened by the disintegration of the Soviet Union (USSR) in the 1990s, when it managed to transform itself into the only global power in history, is about to come to an end.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a televised speech on 18 March 2022, warned that the “New World Order” is deliberately destroying the world economy in order to drive a “Great Reset” in humanity.

This collapse of the liberal global system will begin to be evident when Russia, having achieved its goals in Ukraine, begins to take steps to counter Western sanctions, resulting in a “reformatting” of the world economy.

The US and Europe will have to accept the emergence of other centres of power led by Russia and China. Likewise, they will have to accept the reconfiguration of the new world order, where states will choose to be part of these new centres of power according to their interests.

The Liberal Global Order, which will not disappear, will be led by the US and Europe. The other states will be divided between the liberal centres of power and those led by China and Russia, whose principles (paradoxical though it may seem) will be centred on respect for the sovereignty and self-determination of peoples.

US President Joe Biden, on 21 March 2022, said (following Putin’s earlier statement) that the world is now changing: “There is going to be a new world order and you have to lead it”. To do so, the US will have to “unite the free world to do it”. Biden argues that this fragmentation of the World Order and the emergence of a New World Order will be led by the US, while Europe will remain submissive.

The dollar standard, which replaced the gold standard through the Bretton Woods agreements of 1944, made in the middle of the Second World War, where a new world economic model was established, setting the rules for commercial and financial relations between the most industrialised countries, including the establishment of a world monetary system, will not be obsolete, but it will have to fluctuate in the new economic, financial and commercial system with other currencies according to the centres of multilateral power.

International reserves, due to the insecurity shown by the liberal globalist banking system, will be safeguarded in the Central Banks of each country or in the banks of allied states with political and economic stability.

For years, Russia and China have been carrying out their economic, commercial and financial transactions in roubles and yuan, using the Russian interbank telecommunications system “SPFS”, the payment settlement system “SWAP” and the Chinese Cross-Border Interbank Payment System “CIPS”, displacing SWIFT, the Belgian corporation that provides services related to the execution of financial transactions and payments between banks all over the world.

These platforms may be expanded as other countries’ banking boardrooms join in the establishment of economic, financial and trade negotiations in roubles and yuan, and could minimise the effects of a boycott of financial transactions, such as those applied to Russia in March 2022.

The impact of the coercive economic, financial, commercial, political and cultural measures imposed by the United States and Europe on the Russian Federation by freezing its international reserves, confiscating the wealth of Russian citizens in Western countries, boycotting the production of all Russian goods, disconnecting its banks from the World Interbank System, expelling its athletes from international sporting competitions, blocking its shipping lanes and air routes, among many other sanctions, affecting Russia’s system of economic interaction with part of the world, has created uncertainty and alarm in countries with large economies such as China, India, South Africa, Brazil and Indonesia, who perceive the sanctions as a threat to their own economic systems, their international dollar reserves and their holdings outside the jurisdiction of their own states.

This negative perception of the West’s coercive measures against Russia has prompted Saudi Arabia to consider using the yuan (which has been in the International Monetary Fund’s basket of currencies since 2016) for negotiations and oil deals with the People’s Republic of China.

Similarly, India is negotiating with Russia over a trade mechanism in rupees and roubles.

The Eurasian Economic Union, comprising Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, with the participation of China, is working on a new independent international monetary and financial system, which will be anchored to a new international currency (to be defined), calculated as an index of the national currencies of member countries and commodity prices.

President Vladimir Putin, at a government meeting on 23 March, announced that he had taken a decision to require “hostile countries” to pay for gas in roubles rather than other currencies, as a countermeasure to the freezing of Russian assets by Western countries.

Alongside this new economic system, a new system of security of sovereignty will also emerge, whether collective or individual, where China and Russia will demand legal guarantees through agreements on the cessation of threats and militaristic expansionism by the United States and NATO, in order to build a peaceful coexistence between peoples. In this regard, the Pentagon reported on 22 March that the Russian special military operation in Ukraine will affect the content of the next version of the US national security strategy.

The new security order will not be imposed by the United States, but will emerge through negotiations between the centres of power, where all interests will be safeguarded and which may even lead to the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations and a lasting peace over time.

There will be no lack of threats from the West to boycott the development of this new world order, but the strong force of the multilateral order of the centres of power will displace these flawed policies and ideas beneficial to humanity will prevail.

The old order is dead, a new one is born, and it is called multilateralism.

(Translated by Rene Phelvin – Email: renephelvin@gmail.com) – Photos: Pixabay

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