In this exclusive interview, Joti Brar tackles some of the most pressing debates facing the global Left today.______________________________________________S...
There’s also another aspect to this which is that the breakdown in trade with the West forced Russia to start developing economic ties with the Global South. Developing countries are now directly benefiting from Russian resources and technology. Russia helping Niger build a nuclear reactor is a great example of this dynamic. So, while the West being weakened forced to pour their remaining resources into a futile war, the rest of the world is enjoying an improved economic situation as a result.
That’s why I think future historians will view the Ukraine debacle as a lethal miscalculation for the Atlantic powers and the beginning of the end. They ran the same playbook that they’ve done a million times but historical conditions had changed so much that it wasn’t just ineffective, it actively accelerated the rise of multipolarity. Ditto with Isn’treal’s genocide.
I think so as well, the war in Ukraine was the catalyst for the rapid western decline that we’re now seeing. In my opinion, the kinetic war is far less consequential than the geopolitical realignment that it triggered. Russia getting cut off from SWIFT necessitated establishing ways to do trade without using western financial system because Russia is just too big of a commodity exporter to ignore. Meanwhile, freezing of Russian assets made everyone realize that it could happen to them too. These were two critical events that created immediate pressure on the global majority to start decoupling from the western economic system. The economic decoupling necessarily translated into geopolitical shifts as well with the strengthening of BRICS, and a new economic bloc forming outside western control. That created the foundation for the Global South to resist the trade war that Trump started with the world because a lot of the underlying mechanics of trading outside the west were already in place.
There’s also another aspect to this which is that the breakdown in trade with the West forced Russia to start developing economic ties with the Global South. Developing countries are now directly benefiting from Russian resources and technology. Russia helping Niger build a nuclear reactor is a great example of this dynamic. So, while the West being weakened forced to pour their remaining resources into a futile war, the rest of the world is enjoying an improved economic situation as a result.
That’s why I think future historians will view the Ukraine debacle as a lethal miscalculation for the Atlantic powers and the beginning of the end. They ran the same playbook that they’ve done a million times but historical conditions had changed so much that it wasn’t just ineffective, it actively accelerated the rise of multipolarity. Ditto with Isn’treal’s genocide.
I think so as well, the war in Ukraine was the catalyst for the rapid western decline that we’re now seeing. In my opinion, the kinetic war is far less consequential than the geopolitical realignment that it triggered. Russia getting cut off from SWIFT necessitated establishing ways to do trade without using western financial system because Russia is just too big of a commodity exporter to ignore. Meanwhile, freezing of Russian assets made everyone realize that it could happen to them too. These were two critical events that created immediate pressure on the global majority to start decoupling from the western economic system. The economic decoupling necessarily translated into geopolitical shifts as well with the strengthening of BRICS, and a new economic bloc forming outside western control. That created the foundation for the Global South to resist the trade war that Trump started with the world because a lot of the underlying mechanics of trading outside the west were already in place.