In the contemporary global geopolitical panorama there is a truly singular aspect that has perhaps never been experienced in the history of humanity. We are faced with a world that has developed enormous economic synergies and which has seen, in the last thirty years, unprecedented economic development. This is because since the 90s of the twentieth century the collapse of the USSR on the one hand and the adoption of the capitalist economy by Beijing on the other have opened enormous markets and seen the vast majority of the world’s countries enter into trade global business. This phenomenon also known as globalization (or globalisation) has certainly made the world economically interconnected as it has never been in the history of humanity. And it has undoubtedly increased the wealth levels of most of the world’s nations. But the problem is that the dynamics of this process of global economic interaction has not developed as its proponents had predicted. And instead of consolidating the domination of the Anglo-Saxon empire over the world, it favored the development of other centers of wealth and, consequently, of power. China in particular has benefited enormously from this process of interconnection of world markets. And it became, thanks to it, what it is today. The largest industrial and economic power (based on GDP PPP) on the planet. Beijing is today the economic center of the world. And it has become the largest trading partner of most countries in the world, including the USA and the EU which are formally its geopolitical rivals. Whose economy has grown in recent decades in the wake of the Chinese economic explosion and which, to date, depends heavily on trade with China. Therefore, world geopolitics today appears to be characterized by a profound contradiction. A contradiction that is revealed in the clash between economic interests and the maintenance of the Anglo-Saxon world power system. In the sense that the former are incompatible, in our opinion, with the geopolitical status quo that took shape in the world after 1945 (after Hitler’s hegemonic attempt) and after 1991 (bankruptcy and dissolution of the USSR). And this does not seem to us to be a small phenomenon since, in our opinion, the Western political leadership appears to be faced with painful choices not only for the West but also for the rest of the world.
WORLD GEOPOLITICS AT A CROSSROADS: WAR OR MODUS VIVENDI.
As we mentioned before, the objective of the proponents of globalization was certainly not to encourage the birth of other centers of wealth and power in the world compared to the Western one. The aim was obviously to dramatically increase the wealth and power of the West over the world. Instead, this process, as we were saying, favored the birth of centers of power antagonistic to the Anglo-Saxon one. And now these centers of power (and by such we mean not only China but also Russia and India) have begun to ask for “a place in the sun” in world geopolitics.The question, thus posed, presents the West with a painful choice: accept the recognition of these new powers and share world power with them or go to total conflict, even war, to prevent them from altering the geopolitical status quo under Anglo-Saxon leadership. In the first case, a new Bretton Woods would be necessary which redefines “the geopolitical and geoeconomic architecture of the world” and therefore resets the system of global economic power based on the weight of the “newcomers” (with all the consequences that this would entail such as the loss of the role of the dollar as a global reserve currency and the loss of control of commodity prices by Western financial markets). In the second case there would be a world war with unpredictable developments and outcomes. And with disastrous economic consequences for the entire world. Because, obviously, this would mean the end of globalization and world trade as it has taken shape in the last thirty years. And the end of all the wealth it produces. The issue is therefore not of little importance and the future of the world and world trade will depend on it. Since the Western establishment today seems to opt for this second path. It should be clarified that the war will lead not only to enormous military spending but also to the loss of the Chinese market (after the loss of the Russian one as a result of the war in Ukraine) for European and US companies. Considering the economic saturation of Western markets, in such conditions for many years, it is obvious that this will lead to a generalized impoverishment of the societies of European countries and the United States of America. The same will happen in emerging countries and in the rest of the world. These developments will certainly have enormous repercussions on the entire world and will not be painless.
WORLD GEOPOLITICS BETWEEN BALANCE AND HEGEMONY.
Conceptually, we could say that today world geopolitics is called upon to make a choice between a world in equilibrium (in which the various geopolitical realities cooperate for global and peaceful development by virtue of equal principles of well-being and wealth) and a world in which a despotic and tyrannical hegemony reigns whose aim is the preservation of the economic and geopolitical power acquired in the last five hundred years of world history. The future of the world will depend on the decisions regarding this choice. Although, in truth, we believe that the path undertaken since February 24, 2022 (the date of the start of hostilities in Ukraine) says a lot about the decisions already taken by the lords of the world. But it is not a given that the decisions made are in fact irrevocable. Especially if accidents along the way were to make it clear that developments in the field are not fully in line with the wishes of the establishments. Or in the event that the costs of the course undertaken exceed their expectations.