WORLD GEOPOLITICS: THE COLLAPSE OF USSR: AND THE CHINESE CAPITALISM
The world of the 21st century appears very different from that of the last century. And especially this second decade of the 21st century is proving to be a harbinger of epochal changes in the global geopolitical and geoeconomic framework. This is demonstrated by the relations between the USA and the rest of the world. As demonstrated by the enormous increase in influence of its geopolitical antagonists on the international geopolitical scene. “Everything flows” asserted Heraclitus who with this expression highlighted the continuous “becoming” of the world, its incessant change. The world, far from being a “static whole” as Parmenides wanted, is instead in continuous, inexorable movement. Even the water in a river changes continuously and if you drink twice in a river in the same day, the river is the same, but not the water you drink since it flows and changes continuously. The perpetual evolution of the world also concerns the geopolitical dynamics of the planet, the balance of power between the various states of the globe. And this incessant continuous change is leading to the collapse of the balance that has been created in the last thirty years of world history. Especially today we are witnessing a sort of rebellion in the South of the world and in developing countries against America’s excessive power in the world. This is an irrefutable fact. And it’s no small feat. Above all because leading this geopolitical “riot” are the two powers that aspire to a profound change in the world balance of power: Russia and China. And above all because Moscow and Beijing show that they have all the requirements to succeed in this undertaking. Let’s try to understand the reason for these statements also by analyzing the historical and geopolitical dynamics of the two former red giants.
THE COMMUNIST ECONOMIC MODEL COMPARED WITH THE CAPITALIST ONE OF THE WEST.
A fundamental aspect that must be understood to understand the geopolitical dynamics of the Cold War period (the period following the Second World War) is that the economic model of the antagonistic countries of the West, Russia and China, was a substantially sterile economic system (let’s not say whether it is more right or wrong than the Western capitalist one). The planned economy of communist countries did not allow the creation of wealth. And the accumulation of large capitals that could have encouraged investments in key sectors of the economy. From all this it can be seen that countries with a planned economy could not compete against the West where capitalist development favored investments in the field of technological innovation which in communist countries occurred almost exclusively at a military level and by the state. The communist countries, in short, were geopolitical and geostrategic rivals of the Anglo-Saxon empire but were never able to compete with it in terms of the economy and the creation of wealth. And if they kept pace (especially the Soviet Union) in terms of armaments and military technology, they were never able to compete with the Western economy and finance which maintained, among other things, control over the prices of raw materials (the whose price is still established today in New York and Chicago) on which, moreover, Moscow depended. Furthermore, the fact of possessing the world reserve currency and reference for the purchase of raw materials in the world meant that practically all the countries in the world held dollar reserves and invested part of these in US public debt (effectively financing the United States of America). It is therefore evident that the second world (i.e. the communist countries with a planned economy) could not stand comparison with the first world which easily won the challenge with the Soviet Union and Mao’s China. Today, however, things are very different in both former red giants and in fact, having adopted the same economic model of the West, they have produced an incredible level of wealth and economic and technological development. And it is precisely this prodigious economic momentum that has allowed Moscow and Beijing to demand a change in the “rules of the game” in world geopolitics. Which reflects the demographic, economic and military weight of the new state realities whose rise today seems unstoppable. And to achieve this they ask for a renegotiation of the “geopolitical and geoeconomic architecture” of the world which obviously implies a greater weight for them on the dynamics of international relations and, consequently, a lesser weight for the West. They no longer want to trade goods in dollars, first of all. So they want to take away from the USA the possibility of infinitely refinancing a debt which is now unpayable and on which, all things considered, US economic power is based. They want to create financial centers to determine the price of raw materials, freeing the control of these dynamics from the New York and London markets.They also want to control the world’s major maritime trade routes by actively countering the role played by the Anglo-Saxon thalassocracy over the last 500 years of history. And they want to have a free hand in their commercial development even to the detriment of consolidated interests in areas that have been under the economic control of the West for centuries. It is obvious that all this represents a real Kopernican revolution in world geopolitics which Washington and London see as real smoke and mirrors. This is why the war broke out in Ukraine and this is why East and West no longer agree on any significant geopolitical dossier. And this is why, in all likelihood, the war will continue for years to come.
WORLD GEOPOLITICS AND THE COLLAPSE OF USSR: THE WORLD GEOPOLITICAL DYNAMICS AND TRANSLATIO IMPERII
The commitment and jubilation with which the West favored and welcomed the collapse of the Soviet Union turned out to be the greatest illusion that Washington and London have ever cultivated. In fact, if on the one hand the collapse of the USSR represented the victory of the Anglo-Saxon empire over the Soviet one at the end of the Cold War, on the other it also freed Russia from an unproductive and substantially sterile economic system in terms of capital production and wealth. The collapse of the USSR, despite the great social and economic disruption it caused, allowed Moscow to adopt the Western economic system and free its immense economic potential from the constraints of the socialist state. At the same time, the “revolution” of the Chinese economy underway in the 90s of the twentieth century led the People’s Republic to adopt the principles of the capitalist economy (even if under the guise of the socialist one) and to therefore create the basis for the immense economic development we have witnessed in the last thirty years (this process was actively favored by the USA eager to expand commercially in the immense Chinese market). All this has allowed the two former red giants to become what they are today. That is, two nations with simply frightening economic and geopolitical potential. And which, rightly, claim a role in the world proportionate to their economic and military weight. This is the reason why we arrived at the military clash of which Ukraine is only the most famous theater. And this is the cause of the geopolitical drama that we will experience in the coming years. Because such a dynamic cannot be resolved in just one year. And it cannot be determined by a single war. What we are experiencing is by definition a true translatio imperii. That is, a historical phase in which power emigrates from one part of the world to another. But such processes are never fast. And they are always particularly turbulent and characterized by very bloody and devastating wars. What we are experiencing today is nothing new and has already been experienced by humanity in the first half of the last century during the two world wars. In the Napoleonic era and even before many times throughout history. Today there is nothing different except war technology and the nuclear deterrent. But in fact, we are experiencing a hegemonic attempt as, historically, there have always been. Everything flows in a world of constant evolution. Nothing lasts forever on this earth. Geopolitical dynamics cannot derogate from this “cosmic” law.
WORLD GEOPOLITICS AND THE COLLAPSE OF USSR: CONCLUSIONS
In this article we wanted to highlight a very relevant historical aspect. The collapse of the USSR and the victory of the West in that particular historical juncture which went down in history with the name of the Cold War. We especially wanted to clarify that the victory of Washington and London over Moscow was an ephemeral victory since it allowed Russia to create a much stronger and more dynamic economic model and therefore much more dangerous for the West than was not the communist model of the USSR (which in fact made the Soviet Union economically uncompetitive compared to Europe and the United States of America). This is why the Soviet Union was much more functional for the Western “world power” than today’s Russia. Likewise, Beijing’s embrace of the capitalist model in the last decade of the 20th century is subverting all the geoeconomic balances that had taken shape from 1945 until the beginning of the 21st century. Also in this case, Mao’s China would have been more suited to Anglo-Saxon power than today’s. Which challenges its power and threatens its supremacy. All things considered, both the bankruptcy of the USSR (planned by the USA) and the transformation of the Chinese economic model proved to be two counterproductive factors for Anglo-Saxon hegemony over the world. And, given the data in hand, having worked for both turned out to be one of the worst geopolitical and geoeconomic mistakes that the West has ever made.