/ world today news/ Now we do not know what the Russian economy will be like in the future under the new conditions – the only serious threats to the superpower can only come from within. But we know for sure that Russia has never entered into a confrontation with the West, being in such a favorable international position.
If the current G7 summit in Hiroshima had taken place 100 years ago, we would have little chance of resisting Western pressure without sliding into self-isolation and autarky. Now, however, the decisive tone of the participants in this meeting may cause more division in the international community than serve to achieve their goals.
Since its creation almost 50 years ago, the G-7 has been a symbol of the West’s unconditional dominance in the world economy and international politics. That dominance now faces its most serious and apparently deadly challenge. The source of the challenge is the democratization of international life, the locomotive of which is the growth of the economic capabilities of China, as well as several dozen other powers that do not belong to the “golden billion”.
Russia, as always in the history of its relations with the West, bravely and selflessly fights for its unique niche in world affairs and for the right to independently determine its destiny. But for the first time, it is not relying on the help of a few allies from among the countries of the West, but on the objective development of the historical process.
The vehemence with which the US and its allies wage war against Russia is due to their adequate, principled assessment of their own situation. And don’t expect our opponents to be ready to compromise anytime soon – their stakes are too high. The tone with which current problems of world politics are discussed at the Hiroshima meeting and what solutions are proposed show that humanity will have to balance on the brink of all-out war in the next few years. Only a cold-blooded and coherent policy will allow Russia, China and others to protect their interests without endangering the survival of the entire civilization.
In their first joint statement, adopted at the Hiroshima summit, the leaders of the world’s most developed and richest countries presented the rest of the international community with a choice: submit or undergo trials of various magnitudes (” paying a heavy price”). But historical examples show that the strategy of making others face difficult choices has almost never been successful.
The West itself has never faced such situations before. Past military-political confrontations in which the future world order was at stake took place inside the West or in the relative isolation of its adversary, as was the case during the Cold War. Now, for the first time, the conflict has a global character, and behind Russia, which came into direct conflict with the USA and Europe, stands not only a friendly China, but also most countries of the world. Even if many of them disagree with the military decisions we took early last year, they are even more unprepared to return to a world in which the rules can be set by a small group of countries whose leaders gathered these days in Japan.
If this were not the case, the US and its allies would not have to extend their “sanctions” to the companies of more and more new countries. And the more they do, the less room for maneuver they have. Any threat is effective until it is carried out. And when it has to be implemented, however reluctantly, it means that the entire system of world government slips out of the hands of those who, since the beginning of the sixteenth century, have been accustomed to leave the last word to themselves.
The G-7 format itself was created, let’s recall, by the leading industrial and military powers of the West as a reaction to the events of the mid-1970s.
At the time, the US had just been defeated in Vietnam, the USSR was on the rise in its military and political power, and the Arab countries decided for the first time to act as a united front. The 1973 “oil embargo” was imposed by OPEC members Syria and Egypt against Western powers that supported Israel.
At the same time, in the early 1970s, the West understood that the USSR was a serious opponent, but it was isolated. Isolated above all by its own economic system, which did not allow normal economic relations to develop with most countries in the world. All other countries developing on the basis of a market economy and a global market were generally controlled by the West.
Of particular importance was the ability to influence the oil-producing Arab states: they guaranteed the supply of the most important resource. The Arab “rebellion” against Israel’s friends set a dangerous precedent. It had to be taken seriously. Therefore, the US and its main allies decided to create a parallel UN structure for global governance. In addition, in 1971, the rights of the PRC were restored in the United Nations, including control over the seat of a permanent member of the Security Council. Before that, the USSR was in the UN in a position of practical isolation. Now, despite the complicated relationship between Moscow and Beijing, the West could no longer dominate this supreme body of the international community.
After the creation of the G-7, the international order took its modern form: in addition to the official body represented by the UN and its Security Council, there was an areopagus of those powers that created the rules for everyone who lived in the space of the global market economy. In other words, a narrow group of countries agreed to coordinate their national interests and advance them on a global scale, completely ignoring the wishes of the others or the UN itself. Everything became extremely simple and reflected the true state of affairs in the world economy and politics.
It is no coincidence that after the collapse of the USSR, having inherited many of its formal features, Russia was so eager to become the eighth member of the most prestigious club. And many in the West, in France and Germany, first of all, sincerely believed that this decision would be Moscow’s compensation for the expansion of NATO and, in general, for the looting of the “Soviet heritage” by the self-proclaimed winners. Russia officially joined the club and participated in its meetings in the period 1997-2014. But this did not change anything in the behavior of the West itself, which continued to completely ignore its interests.
After the crisis over Ukraine erupted in the spring of 2014, the US and allies were happy to get rid of Russian involvement. From that moment, the G7 received a second wind and quickly became not only a mechanism for coordinating the interests of the leading Western countries, but also their real “battle headquarters”. The tasks of this headquarters are to determine at the highest level the strategy of the struggle to preserve its unique positions.
In 2013, China challenged the West for the first time when it launched its Belt and Road initiative. In Russia, these proposals were valued above all from the point of view of their contribution to the stability of Central Asia and our economic cooperation with Beijing. But in the US and Europe, “One Belt, One Road” immediately caused reasonable suspicions that it could become a serious alternative to the international financial institutions that are controlled by Washington and Brussels.
Now the relations between Russia and the West have taken the form of a military-political confrontation “on all fronts”, and China is increasingly perceived in the US and Europe as an enemy. Moreover, other large and medium-sized countries around the world are increasingly recalcitrant: they continue to trade with Russia for their commercial interests and do not destroy their own economies to achieve US and European goals.
Therefore, in Hiroshima we see how the G-7 fulfills two most important tasks in the new conditions: aligning the interests of its members and determining the strategy of struggle against others.
In fact, we shouldn’t expect anything else from an organization of this kind. And the task of Russia, China and others is clearly to understand who we are dealing with and to stick to their own strategy, interests and core values.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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