Evolving Man Project

New World Order 

If you watch the mainstream media in the United States, the average citizen would be blissfully unaware of the sea change in geopolitics happening thanks to the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia. The global south has refused to condemn Russian actions against the nation of Ukraine. I deep dove into Europe’s latest war in parts I and II of Reflections on the Empire. 

I don’t agree with Putin or the Russian’s government action of invading Ukraine, but I don’t agree with the sanctions launched against Russia by the West. I stand in solidarity with the everyday people of both Ukraine and Russia. Unfortunately, they are the latest pawns in the Western elite’s global chess game, enriching themselves through war and proxy wars. All thanks to the consistently bankable Military Industrial Complex!  

The seismic change in the global political sphere is that nations like China, India, South Africa, and Brazil have refused to take sides or align entirely with the West’s latest attempt to revamp the Cold War 2.0. Many countries in the Global South continue to do business with Russia. China, the world’s most populous and perhaps second most powerful nation on earth, has long been an ally of Russia. In 2008, Fareed Zakira’s book, The Post-American World, he brilliantly outlined the rise of the Rest and a new multipolar world. A reality the West can no longer ignore. To quote an unnamed African official:

” The West gives us lectures, but China gives us roads.” 

The United States has been the dominant global power since World War II. The war in Ukraine has jumpstarted this shift in global governance. We have seen the global south refuse to follow the narrative of the West, “Russia bad, and the West good.” The conflict in Ukraine is far more complicated than what you see on MSNBC, FOX News, or CNN. The shift in the geopolitical situation means that the West is no longer in charge. 

The United States and the West are empires in decline. The West continues its dangerous trend of sliding further and further toward becoming right-wing authoritative states. As inflation rises, poverty increases, homelessness becomes the norm for countless people, and infrastructure continues to decay, this all fuels ascent of right-wing populism and the rise of political strongmen. These demagogues speak of a time that never truly existed. They blame the societal decay and the vast wealth gap on social others and foreigners. It’s the gays or illegals, or those damn commies to blame for all of all your personal problems. And they’re the reason why things have gone to shit in your country. Hell, it’s a segment of citizens in the United States who want this nation to be a Christian-Fascist state. The sad thing is that these right-wingers are winning. We true leftists in the U.S. and Europe face an uphill battle to restore a tiny bit of sanity and a social safety net in our home countries. As long as folks in the West are more concerned with rich people slapping each other at fancy award shows versus the shift in global political power, then the slide towards fascism will be pretty damn easy. And those of us who see the writing on the wall will be labeled conspiracy theorists.

In this power shift, the West will have to do something it hasn’t done in over 500 years. Share the global stage versus calling all the shots on that same stage. I can’t predict the future. Climate Change, pollution, continued income inequality, nuclear war, and famine will undoubtedly impact various regions across the planet. Human civilization could still come to an end thanks to these human-created problems. It’s a bleak future for us all.

On the flip side, the future could be brighter. Will the rise of China and the rest of the Global South usher in a new form of corporate imperialism? Or will this re-imagined world move beyond unchecked gangster capitalism to a world where all people are provided for, and we live more in balance with the natural world? Will this new world rise up from the ashes of the waning empires of the United States and the former European colonial powers? For many U.S. citizens, a world where the United States is no longer the sole superpower is indeed a brave new world. We are witnessing in real-time the rise of a new world order. That world order will be black, brown, and yellow nations sharing equal political power with the white countries of the planet.