The Birth of a 'New World Order' from the Ukrainian Battlefield

By Elijah J. Magnier – Apr 4, 2022

There is a lot of speculation about the birth of a “new world order” from the womb of the battle in Ukraine between America and Russia. The Middle East, Asia and Africa are awaiting the results of this battle, its implications and what will be the outcome to form new alliances once the dust has settled. A new world will inevitably be born after long labours and punctuated by direct wars, countries’ occupations, proxy wars and illegal unilateral sanctions which have exhausted the world’s population. What will the “New World Order” look like, and will it be better or worse than the current one?

If and when the “new world order” emerges, it is expected to challenge the current order that the US led and had taken control of since 1990, when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announced Perestroika (means “reconstruction” in Russian). The US world order and unilateral hegemony were dominant until September 2015, when President Vladimir Putin decided to fight the battle for Russia’s return to the international arena through the Syrian war and the presence of Russian troops on the battlefield. Syria was not an ordinary battlefield but a territory where the US decided to create a failed state that would prevent Russia’s access to the Mediterranean through its naval base in the Syrian harbour of Tartous.

It was far from a coincidence that the US moved to consolidate its position in the Middle East before Russia’s return and created a coalition with dozens of western states to occupy Afghanistan, Iraq, and lastly, remove President Bashar al-Assad from power. The US objectives imposed Moscow’s and Washington’s troops to be dangerously present in a tiny geographic area with contradictory goals. The Russian upper hand in offering adequate support to Assad and regaining most of the Syrian “useful territory” upset the anti-Russian strategic plans of the US. European states were and still are, involved as a secondary force in the US wars of dominance and occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, with little return for the continent.

Europe has witnessed great ancient civilisations, the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman eras. The Portuguese, the Spaniards, the British, the Austro-Hungarians, and the French created their empires, conquered considerable parts of the world, and seized significant wealth. The European continent fought hundreds of wars through the ages until the First World War, known as the Great War of 1914. Britain, Russia, Italy, Romania, Canada, Japan, and the US (which entered in 1917, 6 months before its end) fought against Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. A few European states and Russia found themselves in one trench (with the US) against the other enemy alliance. Britain’s significant casualties lost 994 thousand people but came second to Russia, which lost 3 million and 300 thousand people. The Russian and European blood mixed on the continent’s soil, fighting for freedom.

In World War II, Russia also had the largest share of deaths (24 million military and civilians) and fought alongside Europe, especially Britain, against Nazi Germany. The US entered the war through the economic gate. Indeed, President Franklin Roosevelt obtained from Congress an exceptional power of the “Lend-Lease” Act rather than sell war supplies at the price it deemed appropriate to support the war effort. Five years after the war’s end, Europe repaid the sums to the last penny. It finished the previously engaged payments between 2006 and 2015.

America had been waiting for an adequate opportunity to return to the European continent to establish itself for decades. Europe represented about a third of the world’s population at that time. WWII stimulated the faltering US economy – which suffered from the Great Depression caused by the stock market crash in 1929 – by creating 17 million jobs, which helped the US economy grow from $88.6 billion in 1939 to 135 billion in 1944. War was a profitable geopolitical and business growth for the US economy, a doctrine and practice that the US adopted for many decades after WWII. However, the war results in the Soviet Union were different from those of America. Russia lost more than 10% of its population, 70% of its industrial facilities, and 50% of its buildings and real estate.

The US found itself cooperating with the Soviet Union – which Washington had no affection for – to defeat Adolf Hitler and his expansionist plans. The US shared with Europe many values, but Washington was interested in the European theatre to confront the Soviet Union’s expansion. It was necessary to create a breach between European states and the Soviet Union.

For this purpose, America created the Marshall Plan, announced in 1947, to form an American-European front and cooperation under the title of reconstruction and operation of the European economy and factories. The Marshal plan also ensured a mutual and common security pact, arming Europe with American weapons, stopping Soviet influence in Europe and achieving American national goals.

With the outbreak of the Cold War after World War II, the United States experienced tremendous economic growth. The war brought back prosperity, and in the post-war period, the United States cemented its position as the wealthiest country in the world.

America began its media and propaganda war and the armament and nuclear race in the Cold War phase. However, 1991 marked the end of the cold war and the disintegration of the Soviet economy to its lowest economic level leading to Perestroika. The US plans of dominance did not start in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, as researchers may recall. It did not emerge during the Cold War after World War II. It began on the 7^th of December 7, 1941, when Japanese forces attacked the US naval fleet in Pearl Harbor, and the US decided to send troops to land in Europe.

Perestroika gave America absolute power over the world due to the absence of other forces facing it, which fit Washington’s expansionist policy. America has considered that Russia will return one day to the international arena again due to its capabilities, history, natural resources, military strength, productivity and expertise in many fields. Russia could be an attractive alternative for those challenging the US hegemony, and Washington was aware of this threat.

Therefore, America’s goal has focused on delaying the Russian return to the international arena and the potential race over the world’s hegemony. It was believed that Russia would not fully recover its economy and military capability around 2025-2030. The West was surprised by the return of Russia earlier than predicted, with a strong economy and new armaments capabilities standing as an obstacle to the western goals of subjugating China and maintaining US unilateralism in the world.

Washington had to aim to cut Moscow’s wings first and weaken it, given the strategic depth of China. Russia became a significant international player and enjoyed enormous economic contracts with Europe, a continent where the level of energy and commercial exchange reached over $190 billion per year. Russia has been able to weave strategic relations with the countries of Asia, Africa and the Middle East and was prepared to return to the international arena that the US has always considered among its spheres of influence.

The Americans believed it was possible to corner the Kremlin when, in 2008, NATO announced its readiness to prepare Ukraine and Georgia to be part of NATO. This move is believed to be in response to President Vladimir’s Putin Munich security meeting a year before in the Munich speech in 2007 that Russia was back and that the unipolar system is no longer acceptable. “No one feels safe because no one feels that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them”, Putin said, alluding to the many wars the US fought, violating international laws.

“We believe that the eastward expansion of NATO is a mistake and a serious one at that,” Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first post-Soviet president, told reporters at a 1997 news conference with US President Bill Clinton in Helsinki, where the two signed a statement on arms control.

The US found in Putin a determined president to prevent the expansion of NATO, which aims to besiege and confront Russia with EU-US troops and American nuclear bombs spread over European soil. America has 150 nuclear bombs in Europe and Turkey, directed at Russia because Europe has no enemies and France and the UK already have nuclear bombs. Putin wants the US to stand by its verbal promise that two Secretary of Statements (James Baker and Warren Christopher) offered to two Russian Presidents (Michael Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin) not to expand NATO and keep its members to 12 and not 30 as it has reached today.

US Democrat leaders’ (mainly President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden, to name but a few) hatred of President Vladimir Putin overshadowed the US-Russian relationship. American officials did not notice that the Russian bear had developed claws with the ability and strength to respond and inflict pain on its opponents in the event of a conflict. The whole world has begun to feel the power of Russia, its capabilities and above all, its alliances in Asia and the rest of the world. Indeed, the US-Western sanctions imposed on Russia were the cause of great suffering to the US, the west and the World’s global economy, including Russia. The Russian economy was the target, but it seems the west imposed sanctions also on itself and is damaging its economy.

The US President blames – it seems he won’t get away with blaming Putin for inflation – the Russian war on Ukraine for being behind the increase in prices in the US, forcing Biden to use 60 million barrels of oil reserves to calm the panicked domestic market. This decision offers pieces of evidence of the US economic suffering, followed by the EU, due to their sanctions on Russia. Biden did not appreciate President Putin’s reaction when the Rouble regained its original value in a few weeks as it was before the sanctions.

The US itself gave the green light to begin the long journey of eliminating its unilateralism. Its gradual descent from 32 years of world leadership started when Iran bombed the US base of Ayn al-Assad, then the US left Afghanistan, attacked Iraq and asked to leave. Finally, Russia challenged NATO and the US in Ukraine. This US descent was triggered when the Americans forced Russia to choose between a war on Ukraine or allowing NATO’s bases in Ukraine and Georgia, believing that Putin would have no good options and whichever he decided, he would be the biggest loser. Indeed, Putin had the choice to see the Ukrainian forces attacking Crimea to recover it, embarrassing the Russian state, having a NATO base on the Russian borders or declaring war. The US has said overtly that its objective is to inflict the most significant damage possible to the Russian in Ukraine, not to defeat it.

However, the first results appear that Ukraine will no longer join NATO and that Georgia has received the message loud and clear to keep away from the US-led alliance. Ukraine has lost strategic territories, and NATO has lost its ability to establish its bases in any country that Russia considers within the circle of existential danger. Russia obtained from Ukraine the agreement to remain neutral and refrain from having nuclear or strategic missiles on its territory. It is only a question of time for the province of Donbas to fall into Russia’s control, including Mariupol in the south, which will offer a land route between Crimea and Russia.

The Rouble seems on its way to becoming an international currency. Europe is gradually breaking away from its Russian partner, who fought alongside it in the two world wars and became one of the most important economic partners. Europe has decided to buy American gas, which is 30% more expensive than Russian and will have to build a dedicated platform to receive and equip itself for the liquified gas. The US has won the isolation of the European continent from Russia, but it has opened the door wide for Moscow to access the rest of the world, eager to see the US hegemony weaker.

Five per cent (US) of the world population may be able to lead the twelve per cent rich European states (from 22% in 1950 to 12% of the world’s population in 2020). However, the US can no longer spread its dominance over rising Asia, representing 60% of the world’s population, particularly with China as an economic superpower that stood with Russia, not with the US. The US superpower is no longer such, and the Russian superpower doesn’t have all the elements to keep its title. The Russian-Pakistan-India-Iran-China and the rest of the BRICS countries represent robust economic cooperation difficult for the US-EU to break or challenge.

China, Africa and other Middle Eastern countries are waiting for the final results of the US-Russia battle that is taking place in Ukraine to widen their alliances without necessarily becoming anti-Western. The multipolar world is born, but the question remains: How long will America be able to maintain its control over Europe, and will the European states react to the loss of their Russian natural ally, or it is already too late for that?

Featured image: A list of countries with top 10 gold reserves in the world. File photo.

(ejmaganier.com)

Elijah J. Magnier

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Elijah J. Magnier is a journalist working as AL Rai Chief International, veteran War correspondent, Terrorism & CT: Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya & more. Middle East, London, Italy & Brussels

Elijah J. Magnier

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