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Why the West is on the wane

  • Bouthaina Shaaban Bouthaina Shaaban
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • 6 Jul 2022 15:31
  • 7 Shares
8 Min Read

NATO countries have devoted all their people’s money to operating the arms factories in their countries, instead of improving the conditions of their people.

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  • Why the West is on the wane
    Why the West is on the wane

News about the dialogues and outcomes of the Group of Seven summit that was held in Germany a few days ago, and about the results of the NATO meeting that was recently held in Spain, raise deep questions in the minds of Western citizens. Both meetings didn’t address any of the concerns or the worries of the nations the leaders are supposed to represent. Rather, they were preoccupied with issues that are irrelevant to their countries and that have negative and harmful impacts on their nations. The ideal of "personal freedom" paraded by the G7 leaders turned into a farce when they mocked "President Putin's right to expose himself to sunlight". NATO also declared "Russia the most dangerous and direct threat” to its members’ peace and security, and stipulated that China is moving counter to NATO's values and interests. They considered that enhancing Beijing and Moscow's strategic partnership contradicts the principles of Western states, though everyone is aware that the suffering inflicted on Western people is due to the inflation caused by the policies of their leaders.

When British Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked the allies to "dig deep into their pockets", one would expect that he was keen to address some aspects of the deep economic crisis afflicting Britain. Instead, however, he pulled out of the pockets of his people, already exhausted by high prices and lack of materials and services, £1bn to send arms to the "clown" regime in Ukraine in order to destroy its country and displace millions of its people. The new funding puts the military aid given by the UK to Ukraine at £3bn. The United States also announced sending another $800 million in weapons assistance to Ukraine, and the list goes on. In short; all the focus is on getting money to send weapons to Ukraine, at a time when Russia has declared that the only way to end the war in Ukraine is by “giving the corresponding orders to Ukrainian Nazi units and to Ukrainian fighters to lay down their arms, and fulfill all conditions set by Russia, then everything will be over in a day". China commented that NATO continues to create imaginary enemies, wage wars, and kill civilians. 

If we take a step back, to the beginning of this war, and think about the opinion of the most important political theorist in the world today, Professor John Mearsheimer, we become convinced beyond any doubt that the West wanted this war, and that they forced President Putin into it under duress, and that President Putin had been warning for eight years, declaring, and trying hard to avoid fighting this war, but the West put Russia under an existential threat, so it had no choice but to fight this war in defense of its existence. The context of events, the most recent of which was the G7 summit and the NATO meeting, shows that Western leaders have no concern but to pull funds out of their people's budget to pay the price of the weapons sent to Ukraine, in order to be later destroyed in Ukraine. In addition to their comments on Putin's bare chest, the G7 leaders' wrap-up of the summit promised "that Russia would pay a heavy price for its invasion of Ukraine," while reality shows that the economies of these countries are suffering with a noticeable agricultural, industrial and service decline. 

In a cold analysis, and away from the media sophistry resulting from these two meetings, which, in theory, should be of utmost importance to the peoples of the countries concerned and to the world in general, the reality is that NATO countries have devoted all their people’s money to operating the arms factories in their countries, instead of directing and exploiting wealth in a productive economy and improving the conditions of their people. The fact remains that whoever sells arms has a virtual, unsubstantiated wealth because they will have to buy goods, fertilizers, commodities, and grains from China, Russia, India, and other countries that are engaged in useful productions for their people and for the whole world. NATO further forgets that military industries consume themselves, because the wealth generated by them is virtual without any useful products, goods, or services that benefit people, while the Chinese economy is based on commodity production, and its wealth is commodities available in markets for people to trade with.

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Throughout history, Empires have fallen because the costs of managing their military forces exceeded the resources that their economy can afford. This is precisely the experience of Britain, which withdrew from its colonies because it was not able to manage them, and was unable to pay the costs of its armies deployed everywhere, as is the case with the United States today.

If we look closely at the outcomes of the G7 and the NATO meetings, we realize that the situation of these leaders in their countries is quite similar to that of their stance toward Ukraine. They cannot withdraw because they consider it a defeat, and every time the leaders of these countries make a new decision, it backfires on them. They cannot withdraw because they see it as the end of their domination of the world, and therefore they continue to impoverish their people in order to buy weapons from war-makers who finance their electoral campaigns, to send them this time to Ukraine, as they did previously to Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Far from what they claim, they are at a crossroads: either they withdraw now or continue to impoverish their peoples until they lose the economic ability to finance their Western military and political hegemony over the world. This will inevitably happen, it is a matter of time, and a heavy tax is being paid by the peoples of Western countries in particular and the world's people in general as a result of the greed of Western arms manufacturers, the arrogance of the politicians of Western countries, and the disconnection of their leaders from reality. The G7 ban on Russian gold imports turns out to be a blessing for Russia because it preserves its wealth in gold, which is real wealth and not mere fiat that has no backing, and this is one of the many examples of how these countries think and make decisions.

In parallel with these Western showoff-meetings, Russia and China have welcomed Iran and Argentina's desire to join the BRICS countries. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that China, along with other BRICS partners, will work resolutely to advance the group's expansion and bring more partners into the BRICS family. China also announced that it increased the import of Russian oil this year by 55 percent compared to the previous year. Iran has signed with Russia, and previously with China, very important agreements in the field of scientific, economic, and research cooperation, a fact that will make Iran, China, and Russia strategic allies, in addition to Iran's presence in the Shanghai Organization, and its desire to join the BRICS countries.

India, as well, has begun to rely on Russian oil, which Russia sells at preferential prices to its friends. What does this mean? This means that the industries in China and India will make a quantum leap in the coming years, and will be able to be very competitive in prices as a result of lower costs, while Western industries will not be able to compete due to the high prices of fuels, the lack of quantities exported to the West and the high costs.

The reasonable question is: Who owns the keys to the future of the West? Is it the one who bases his structure on quicksand or the one who builds on the rock of a solid stable mountain with firm foundations that are not affected by the winds and are not changed by the passage of time?? The second question is: Are there not thinkers, analysts, and strategists in the West who are able to sound the alarm to Western political elites who are leading their countries and nations to their inevitable decay? There is no doubt that they exist, but they have been excluded, silenced, or marginalized.

Isn't it ridiculous to consider John Mearsheimer, the prominent political visionary and one of the most important political thinkers of this century, as "the most hated academic in the United States"?! It is true that what sounds unbelievably funny could be truly tragic. 

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
  • Nato
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Bouthaina Shaaban

Bouthaina Shaaban

Arab Intellectual

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