Finian Cunningham, Washington’s Hegemonic Ambitions Defy Multipolar Reality, Risking Catastrophic Conflict

Finian Cunningham

The rapidly shifting international distribution of power creates problems that can only be resolved with real diplomacy. The great powers must recognize competing national interests, followed by efforts to reach compromises and find common solutions.

Over the past week the Biden administration has intensively reached out to Europe to revitalize the transatlantic alliance. In the following on-topic interview, Professor Glenn Diesen explains how the United States is opposed to the emerging reality of a multipolar world because of its winner-takes-all ideology. In doing so, Washington is predisposed to antagonize and militarize relations, primarily with Russia and China. The confrontational policy is aimed at driving a wedge between Europe on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other. The problem for Washington is that such a confrontational policy is unfeasible in a multipolar world. European allies are pressured to align with the U.S., but geoeconomic realities inevitably mean there is a practical limit to the American strategy. Using rhetoric about “values” and “human rights” is just a ploy to gain a false moral authority over rivals. The West’s unilateral use of sanctions is the corollary. But such a strategy is only further forging multipolar reality which is leading to weakness and self-isolation for the United States – and the European Union if the latter chooses to go down that futile route. Professor Diesen contends that without compromise and mutual respect among world powers, the ultimate risk could be catastrophic war. And he says the onus is on the United States and Europe to recognize competing national interests beyond their own, followed by efforts to reach compromises and find common solutions.

Glenn Diesen is a professor at University of South-Eastern Norway. He is also editor of ‘Russia in Global Affairs’ and is a contributing expert at the Valdai Discussion Club. His research focus is the geoeconomics of Greater Eurasia and the crisis of liberalism. He specializes in Russia’s approach to European and Eurasian integration, as well as West-China dynamics. He is the author of several books: ‘The Decay of Western Civilisation and Resurgence of Russia: Between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft’ (2018); ‘Russia’s Geoeconomic Strategy for a Greater Eurasia’ (2017); and ‘EU and NATO relations with Russia: After the collapse of the Soviet Union’ (2015).

His latest two books are ‘Russian Conservatism’ (January 2021, see this link); and ‘Great Power Politics in the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ (March 2021, see this link).

 

Interview

Question: The Biden administration is making strenuous efforts at rallying Europe and NATO to take a more adversarial position toward Russia and China: what are Washington’s geopolitical objectives?

Glenn Diesen: Biden’s “America is back” and Trump’s “Make America Great Again” both aim to reverse the relative decline of the United States in the international system. While Trump believed that providing collective goods to its allies as the cost of a hegemon was making the U.S. lose its competitiveness, Biden believes the U.S. must rally its allies against rising adversaries. The geopolitical objectives remain constant: preserving a dominant position for the U.S. in the international system.

The main challenge to U.S. leadership position is geoeconomic as its rivals are developing alternative technologies, strategic industries, transportation corridors and financial instruments. However, the U.S. has not been successful in converting the security dependence of allies into geoeconomic loyalty. This is evident as the European Union uses Chinese technologies and capital, and Germany is working with Russia to construct the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. There are strong incentives for the U.S. to militarize a geoeconomic rivalry as it strengthens solidarity and loyalty among allies. NATO is therefore a good instrument even though Russian tanks are not heading towards Warsaw and Chinese troops are not about to invade Paris.

Question: Will Washington succeed in pushing what appears to be a new Cold War drive?

Glenn Diesen: Washington is certainly worsening relations with both Moscow and Beijing, although it is not clear that they will get the Europeans to follow their lead. The Europeans share many of America’s concerns, although they do not wish to retreat under U.S. protection in a new U.S.-China bipolar system. The EU has defined its interest as pursuing “strategic autonomy” to develop “European sovereignty”. U.S. efforts to rally the Europeans against Russia and China rely on rhetoric over security challenges or human rights issues, although it is meant to translate into reducing economic connectivity with the two Eurasian giants. However, the interests of the Europeans and the U.S. diverge over China, and the Europeans are also growing more concerned over pushing Russia towards China.

Question: You’ve mentioned before how the United States’ goals are: a) to prevent Europe from partnering with Russia for energy trade; and b) to prevent Europe partnering with China for new technology, trade and investment. Is such a divisive U.S. aim possible to achieve in a multipolar, integrated global economy?

Glenn Diesen: U.S. policies aim to prevent the emergence of a multipolar order. In my opinion, this is a misguided objective as Washington must adjust to the changing international distribution of power. I have argued that the U.S. is confronted with a dilemma – it can either facilitate and shape a multipolar system where the U.S. is the “first among equals”, or it can aim to contain rising powers to extend its hegemonic position although then a multipolar system will emerge in direct opposition to the U.S. By containing the rise of both Russia and China, the U.S. encourages Moscow and Beijing to define their partnership often in opposition to the U.S.

The global economy is subsequently fragmenting. The geoeconomic dominance of the U.S. has rested on its leading technologies that buttress its strategic industries, control over the maritime corridors of the world, and control over the main development banks and the world’s trade/reserve currency. Russia and China have therefore developed a strategic partnership to develop their own technological ecosystems, new Eurasian transportation corridors by land and sea, and new financial instruments such as banks, payment systems and de-dollarizing their trade. The U.S. will therefore discover that the effort to isolate China and Russia will result in the U.S. isolating itself.

Question: You’ve also mentioned that the United States may be trying a re-run of the Nixon-era policy from the 1970s of forcing a division between China and Russia. Is such a U.S. objective possible today?

Glenn Diesen: It seems highly unlikely. Nixon was able to split the Soviet Union and China by reaching out to the weaker part, China, based on mutual misgivings towards the power of the Soviet Union. The U.S. therefore accommodated the weaker adversary to balance the stronger adversary.

Today, the stronger adversary is China and the U.S. would therefore have to reach out to Russia. Beijing has no reason to turn against Moscow as Russia does not pose a threat to the Chinese, and Russia’s partnership is vital for China’s geoeconomic rise.

Much can be gained from reaching out to Moscow, although it will be very difficult, and Russia will not turn against China. The U.S. leading role in Europe is reliant on excluding Russia from the continent, and the anti-Russian sentiments in the U.S. make it impossible to find common ground. Also, it is hard to overstate the resentment in Moscow over relentless NATO expansionism towards its borders.

Future historians will likely recognize the historical blunder of not accommodating Russia in Europe. After the Cold War, Russia’s principal foreign policy objective was to be included in a Greater Europe. The remaining hopes for incremental integration with Europe ended in 2014, when the West supported the coup in Ukraine. Russia is now pursuing the Greater Eurasia Initiative and its leading partner toward that end is China.

Reaching out to Moscow will enable Russia to diversify its economic relations and avoid excessive reliance on China, although Russia will not join any partnership aimed against China.

Question: The Biden administration’s overtures for a stronger transatlantic alliance and a more unified NATO appear to be lapped up by various European leaders. For example at the NATO summit of foreign ministers in Brussels on March 23-24, the French top diplomat Jean-Yves Le Drian gushed about a renewed alliance under Biden, declaring that NATO had “rediscovered” itself. Why are European politicians seemingly so ready to appease Washington even when it is at the cost of undermining their own relations with Russia and China?

Glenn Diesen: The Europeans only developed unity after the Second World War under U.S. leadership. Europe has thus only existed as a cohesive sub-region within the larger transatlantic region. During the Cold War this partnership was directed towards balancing the Soviet Union, and after the Cold War the trans-Atlantic partnership enabled collective hegemony. The Europeans have prospered under U.S. leadership and been able to develop regional European autonomy.

The multipolar system challenges the foundation for the internal cohesion of both Europe and the trans-Atlantic region. On one hand, the Europeans want to align their policies with the U.S. to preserve solidarity within Europe and the West. On the other hand, the Europeans desire “strategic autonomy” as they recognize that U.S. and EU interests diverge in a multipolar world. Confronting Russia and China weakens the economic competitiveness of Europe and increases its dependence on the U.S.

Question: Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking during a visit to China this week, remarked that the European Union had unilaterally destroyed relations with Russia due to recent actions, presumably imposing sanctions. Would you agree that the EU has taken unprecedented harmful steps against Russia?

Glenn Diesen: Yes. The sanctions do not provide a solution, rather they undermine the possibility for a partnership to find common solutions. Sanctions are designed to force Russia to make unilateral concessions as opposed to finding mutually acceptable solutions through compromise.

It must be recognized that every conflict has two sides, yet Brussels tends to treat all conflicts as transgressions by Russia that must be punished and corrected by the EU. I often make the argument that Russia is largely a status-quo power in Europe that reacts to Western revisionism. Russia intervened in Crimea in response to the West’s support for the coup, and Russia intervened in Syria in response to Western efforts to topple the government. The problem behind these conflicts is that Russian security interests were never included, and the sanctions are a mere extension of this hegemonic mentality.

The sanctions are condemning Europe to reduced relevance in the multipolar world. A divided Europe creates systemic pressures for the EU to retreat under U.S. protection, and Russia must similarly diversify its economy away from Europe and instead align itself closer with China.

Question: Do you see any prospect of the European Union waking up to the realization that the bloc needs to repair relations with Russia, and China for that matter? Presumably that would require the EU asserting geopolitical independence from the United States, and the question is: has Europe’s political class got the will or even the imagination for this?

Glenn Diesen: How can relations be repaired? The source of all problems with Russia was the failure to reach a mutually acceptable post-Cold War settlement. Efforts to create a Europe-without-Russia inevitably became a Europe-against-Russia. Initially, Russian apprehensions could be ignored as Russia was weak and did not have anywhere else to go. This is no longer the case. The EU can either treat the underlying problem of excluding the largest state in Europe from Europe, or it can aim to treat the symptoms that include Russia’s pivot to the east – primarily China.

Both France and Germany have become more vocal about the folly of continuing to push Russia towards China. France has been more ambitious in terms of rethinking relations with Russia to resolve the underlying problems, while Germany has been more focused on treating the symptoms by maintaining economic connectivity with Russia.

What can the EU do? Suspending NATO expansion towards Russian borders or ending anti-Russian sanctions would undermine both EU and NATO solidarity as it is opposed by the U.S. and certain Central and Eastern European countries. The EU and the West were not designed for a multipolar world and so risk its internal cohesion no matter what is done.

The EU is not demonstrating any intentions of altering its subject-object relationship with Russia, and seeking solutions through mutual compromise. When the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell went to Moscow last month, the effort to improve relations with Russia was therefore limited to lecturing Russia about its domestic affairs and transgressions in international affairs, which, it was inferred, Russia should correct in order to earn the EU’s forgiveness and improve relations.

Question: Finally, are you concerned that deteriorating international tensions could lead to war?

Glenn Diesen: Yes, we should all be concerned. Tensions keep escalating and there are increasing conflicts that could spark a major war. A war could break out over Syria, Ukraine, the Black Sea, the Arctic, the South China Sea and other regions.

What makes all of these conflicts dangerous is that they are informed by a winner-takes-all logic. Wishful thinking or active push towards a collapse of Russia, China, the EU or the U.S. is also an indication of the winner-takes-all mentality. Under these conditions, the large powers are more prepared to accept greater risks at a time when the international system is transforming. The rhetoric of upholding liberal democratic values also has clear zero-sum undertones as it implies that Russia and China must accept the moral authority of the West and commit to unilateral concessions.

The rapidly shifting international distribution of power creates problems that can only be resolved with real diplomacy. The great powers must recognize competing national interests, followed by efforts to reach compromises and find common solutions.

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8 thoughts on “Finian Cunningham, Washington’s Hegemonic Ambitions Defy Multipolar Reality, Risking Catastrophic Conflict”

  1. Here’s Fulford’s weekly appraisal. As usual, a grain of salt and the baby and water and all that stuff. The pic at the end gives me a bit of pause, though. I have no doubt Hillary uses several doubles, but the photo presented is not the best as an example. If you look closely, Hillary is down a slope from Willy.

    The parts in regard to the possible empty buildings in DC are more than intriguing.

    April 5, 2021
    Khazarian Mafia Running Biden Psy-ops Out of Switzerland
    By Benjamin Fulford

    The grotesque psychological warfare operation against the American people known as the “Biden presidency” is run out of an underground base in Switzerland, MI6, NSA, FSB, CIA, and other sources agree. The base straddles the borders of Lichenstein, Austria, and Switzerland, allowing entry from any of those three countries, according to a CIA source. However, despite the overwhelmingly dark story of pandemic doom and “foreign enemies,” in the corporate media, the fact the ruling class has been forced to retreat to Switzerland is actually a sign they are losing the war for the planet.

    We are getting word that not only the White House is unoccupied, but also Congress, Senate, Supreme Court, Federal Reserve Board, Treasury Department, etc. in Washington DC as well. We are also now hearing from the NSA that state government buildings too are unoccupied. We urge our readers who live in DC and near state government buildings to become citizen reporters and try to confirm if this is true. Certainly, live camera feeds indicate this is the case but, in this day of digital trickery, human eyes are the most reliable source.

    In any case, the group that controls the Biden psy-ops is definitely the Rockefeller clan and their Swiss handlers, the sources concur. Last Friday MI6 sent the following message:

    “We had confirmation today of the CIA involvement in the counter-coup of the coup that installed Mr. Trump. It appears Hillary Rodham Clinton [Rockefeller] is running the show in the background.”

    The NSA for their part says the current Hillary is the sixth one being used. We all remember how during the 2016 presidential campaign Hillary was stuffed into a black van and ABC news subsequently reported her death. However, she appeared 20 pounds lighter and much younger several hours later. Also, the picture below clearly shows the current “Hillary” is much shorter than the original.

    Nonetheless, whatever Hillary avatar, body double, or clone they are using; the group known as the Rockefellers are clearly running the Biden horror show.

    Their plans were outlined in a March 2020 article in the Rockefeller flagship magazine Foreign Relations that was supposedly written by Joe “green screen” Biden.

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/03/28/stoltenberg-comes-clean-on-china-opportunity-for-nato/

    What this shows is the group now in charge of U.S. corporate media and the fiat money computers inside the U.S. are planning to take us back in time to the 1980s and the cold war with its easy to identify enemies. Lets’ face it “commies” are easier to rally against than amorphous “terrorists” who keep changing their brand name.

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg described this new cold war against China and Russia as “a unique opportunity.” While he tried to peddle this as an opportunity for Europe and North America “to open a new chapter in the relationship,” it is obvious he is talking about a huge fiat money bribe to the military-industrial complex. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/03/28/stoltenberg-comes-clean-on-china-opportunity-for-nato/

    Russian FSB sources, for their part, say a very serious attempt to start World War III was now underway in Ukraine. On Monday, April 5th, Japan time, they sent us this message:

    “A couple of hours ago a C-17 military transport aircraft (95-0107) with a certain military cargo arrived directly from the USA (with refueling in Seville, Spain) to Lviv Airport in Western Ukraine.”

    Attachment

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  2. Suspicious of this article. Short-sighted at best, NWO at worst. Biden is working for Beijing not against Beijing. Of course Beijing is owned by the New World Order, who print our money without audit and use it to bribe and blackmail our politicians and nations worldwide. They own the China leadership too, and probably Putin. The arms industry is not run by America or China or Russia, it is run by the NWO. Would actually like to see Biden promote American interests, economic and otherwise, but not geopolitically, which is a real drain on our economy and priorities. He is not interested in promoting American interests actually and will never be because he is a pawn for the globalists. The arms industry is just for globalist profit and control and international tensions will always be fanned by global NWO divide-and-conquer operators who own all the parties involved. Essentially, Biden and America have nothing to do with it.

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  3. Will, I left you and Toni and others some info about the WWII issue you were discussing.
    https://jameshfetzer.org/2021/03/stephen-lendman-charade-of-a-biden-presser/?unapproved=60695&moderation-hash=9bb34ed8867a776891fe52a07181d4da#comment-60695

    As to the current Death Kabuki theater, this is just a small part of our history:
    *Between 1898 and 1934 the Marines invaded: Cuba 4 times; Nicaragua 5 times; Honduras 7 times; the Dominican Republic 4 times; Haiti twice; Guatemala once; Panama twice; Mexico 3 times; and Colombia 4 times. All done for the corporations to get natural resources and farm land for them.
     *Eisenhower murdered over one million innocent Germans in open field prison camps, AFTER the war’s end.
     *President Truman dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki murdering over 100,000 innocent people.
     *Johnson, Nixon, and J. Edgar Hoover were at Clint Murcheson’s ranch finalizing JFK’s murder the night before.
     *George Bush allowed 9/11 to occur then murdered a million Iraqi innocents.
     *Obama dropped over 26 thousand bombs in 2016 on innocents plus allowed the drone murder of wedding parties.
     *Dropping more bombs in Yemen in one week than the annual total for any prior year, or loosening the standards for “acceptable” civilian casualties.
    *President Trump increased Drone strikes by 400%; illegally attacked Syria

    This nation has NEVER been about the “people”

    In 1980, I covered The Long Walk For Survival put on by AIM and participating NA tribes. This one min, 28 second clip by the late John Trudell from my documentary pretty much nails things for today, from 40 years ago:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ8F7JFWDV4

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    1. EJ Doyle, yes, America has been used as an hegemony enforcer, a military running dog by the New World Order to commit horrendous atrocities too numerous to even list, all for control and exploitation of humanity by those who own America — and most other countries as well. Disarmament would be great, if it were universal. Yet it would seem we need at least a decent military to protect ourselves from China. Ultimately, international people’s unity will be necessary to create a non-imperialist non-belligerent society with less murder and exploitation. How to overcome the stranglehold on the people’s will towards peace and harmonious coexistence, this stranglehold exercised by the Satanic New World Order? That’s the question. We can only hope massive education through the Internet and word of mouth will one day help create a society that does not succumb to the “War Racket” for false and selfish motives only to produce mutually destructive results for everyone but the war racketeers. “The way of the world is not the way of God” — but can we make it so?

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      1. Intellectualizing murder, rape, theft, etc. is just that Joseph. Mind games. Kissenger was quite clear on what the military was and is used for:
        – – – – – – – – – – – – –
        “Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.” – Henry Kissinger
        – – – – – – – – – – – – –
        Students of history, not the winner’s version, understand prior to the advent of the organized church state there is no physical or funereal evidence of standing armies. No heroes graves, no short swords, no war campaign frescoes.

        “Something” happened, some influence at a pathological level, when killing others to prove my god is better then your god became in fashion. Many guess but since so much of historical facts, evidence, etc. has been kept from the public, it is only conjecture. And of course this information has been used as a weapon from the secret societies and cults. That “need to know” nonsense.

        In one of my little books, “Demons and Redemption” I address the fact that a form of control has been used for a very long time. Religions have Devils, Corporations have bad breath, Governments have commies/terrorists, Universities have ignorance. They all offer “redemption” for a price of course.

        Add to that the Problem/Reaction/Solution trick and the controllers have their way as in the recent “pandemic” hoax. Goal: break down society, put them in fear. So… Problem: un provable but well sold virus. Reaction: Save us. Solution: the original plan, masks, social distancing, etc.

        Since the 1800s the citizens of the United States have experienced a systematic, collusive effort to influence humanity to surrender their individual freedom to a new order. It is desired they embrace the tenets of the political state, as they surrendered spiritual autonomy for the religious church state.

        It is desired that people see the state as “the march of God through history,” and that the state is also God, and therefore it is a citizens duty is to serve God by serving the state. Nothing is more evident then the god/patriot connection…Billion dollar war planes flying over sporting events as people pledge their allegiance to a flag.

        You offer we need a “a decent military to protect ourselves from China” yet that is the “Demons and Redemption” mind control narrative that sells a mythical possibility. To insure weapons contracts Iran, Russia, North Korea, China, etc. have all been our “enemies” for decades, yet we are the ones going around murdering by the millions. Sort of out of some dystopian novel or movie isn’t it??

        Just pointing out about the Skull&Bones (The Order) as part of but not the top dog of the take over. How do they do it? Since they were in on the start of our nation they have insinuated themselves into a wide variety of power positions.

        President of the United States; cabinet members; ambassadors; heads of industry; professors of—political economics, law, mathematics, English literature, history, and philosophy; chancellors and presidents of major universities, as well as members of state boards of education; presidents of banks, and much, much, more.

        By establishing the American Historical Association, order member Andrew P. White was able to influence the constitution and direction of the AHA. This generated an “official” history source, ensuring that the existence of The Order doesn’t even get whispered about in history books, let alone in school text books.

        The American Psychological Association and the American Economics Association also trace back to The Order, scripting what are legitimate behavior and beliefs and what are not, in just about every aspect of American life they can reach.

        HISTORY
        What people believe has occurred in our past (the winners write the history books)
        RELIGION
        Controlling and legitimizing peoples spiritual beliefs
        ECONOMY
        The creation of wealth for use by The Order
        PSYCHOLOGY
        Controlling how people think about things
        PHILANTHROPY
        Creating a false “do-gooder” image
        POLITICS
        The direction of the State
        MONEY
        Means of holding wealth and exchanging goods
        MEDIA
        What people know and learn about current world events.
        LAW
        The authority to enforce the will of the State (a world law
        and a world court is needed for a world state)
        CONTINUITY
        The power to appoint who follows in their footsteps

        I don’t believe in god and any of the nonsense about it. I believe in facts and embrace Tesla’s idea about..
        – – – – – – – – – – – – –
        “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
        – – – – – – – – – – – – –
        It has proven true in my life endeavors and teaching from tribal cultures to using quantum physics to win at a casino :-))

      2. It has proven true in my life endeavors and teaching from tribal cultures to using quantum physics to win at a casino :-))

        Care to share that secret?…I could use a few bucks….:-)))

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