The United States’ hegemonic dominance in the world is heading
to the exits. The decline in US unipolar power has been underway for several
years, in line with the emergence of a multipolar world. This week, Russia and
China showed important to resolve to face down American bully tactics over
North Korea. The confrontation suggests a turning point in the transition from
American world dominance to a multipolar one.
US President Donald Trump reiterated the possibility of a
military attack on North Korea while in Poland this week. This was also while
Washington was hectoring China and Russia to join in a tougher response to
North Korea over its ballistic missile launch days before – the former two
nations themselves having recently been sanctioned anew by the US. Talk about
American audacity and double think.
However, the crass arrogance shown by the US seems to have hit a
new limit of tolerance in Moscow and Beijing. Both are beginning to demonstrate
a loss of patience with the bumptious, insufferable Americans.
Reacting to North Korea’s breakthrough ballistic missile launch,
Washington deployed its typical conceit, casually threatening to carry out a
«retaliatory» military strike. Trump said he was considering «severe» options
over Pyongyang’s «very, very dangerous behavior».
But Russia and China’s stance this time to the Americans had
significantly stiffened. Both explicitly warned the US against taking military
action against North Korea.
Moreover, Russia and China said that they would oppose
Washington imposing further sanctions on the government of Kim Jong-un. The
latter has already been subjected to six rounds of US-led sanctions.
In short, the American bully is finding that it is no longer
able to dictate its unilateral way.
Addressing an emergency session of the United Nations Security
Council, the Russian and Chinese ambassadors rejected the shrill American call
for «global action to a global threat». Russian envoy Vladimir Safronkov stood
firmly with his Chinese counterpart, saying that threatened American military
action was simply not an option and that a different policy was needed from the
failed American one of slapping ever-more sanctions on North Korea.
One can imagine the exasperation felt within Washington of being
bluntly told «no» to its invariable, self-anointed belligerence.
The alternative route being proposed by Russia and China was the
«radical» one – radical from the American point of view – of diplomacy. It has
perhaps taken the Russians and Chinese overdue time to reach this point. But
what is remarkably apparent now is that they are asserting themselves against
the US with increased confidence. And what they are asserting in this case is
an eminently reasonable solution to the Korean crisis. They are calling for a
freeze on Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program in conjunction with the US
freezing its constant military exercises on the peninsula, as well as
withdrawing its anti-missile THAAD system. The next step is to then hold
multilateral negotiations for a comprehensive peaceful settlement, without
preconditions.
Such an eminently reasonable approach is anathema to the
Americans. Because it negates their unilateral arrogance and self-righteousness
to dictate terms.
This is a significant development, one that portends a new
determination by Russia and China to confront the American bully head-on. For
too long, Washington has gotten away with outrageous aggression, lawlessness,
hypocrisy and absurd hubris, not just over Korea but on countless other
international issues. On the world stage it behaves like a schoolyard bully, or
perhaps more accurately that should be a street thug. Going around beating up
other people, usually the weak, as it likes. Then when Washington feels
particularly affronted about some perceived slight, it invokes international
law and righteousness.
This week, what we saw over the North Korea missile launch and
the typical American over-reaction was Russia and China saying to Washington:
your days of self-licensing aggression and abusing international law are over;
your American unipolar hegemony is redundant.
Welcome to the multipolar world forged largely by Russia and
China where all nations must abide by international norms and law, principally
the paramount pursuit of diplomacy.
Oh the shock to American arrogance to receive such a rude
awakening.
The lawlessness of American «exceptionalism» is a theme that
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been constantly hammering over the past
decade. But it seems now that Russia and China are strong enough politically,
economically and militarily to begin asserting and acting on the conviction
that the days of American arrogance and lawlessness are indeed over. It is no
coincidence that the firm Russian-Chinese opposition to American aggression
over North Korea came at the same time that Putin was hosting his counterpart
President Xi Jinping in Moscow, where both leaders hailed an even deeper
Sino-Russian strategic alliance.
Moscow and Beijing censured North Korea over its 11th missile
launch so far this year. They said it violated UN sanctions imposed on
Pyongyang since it first exploded a nuclear warhead in 2006. Still, they sought
to put a proper perspective on the event, rather than reflexively demonizing
North Korea as the Americans never cease to do.
The intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launched this week
by North Korea was not armed with a warhead but Pyongyang said it now has the
capability to do so and to strike anywhere on the globe. The trajectory of the
ICBM indicates that North Korea could now hit the US state of Alaska. That
heralds a major breakthrough in North Korea’s military capability. Earlier this
year, President Trump claimed that North Korea would never be allowed to reach
that point. Well, it just did this week.
Nevertheless, Russia and China realize that the Korean crisis is
a complex issue, not the simplistic narrative put out by Washington about a
«rogue regime» threatening world peace. Moscow and Beijing are well aware that
Washington is very much part of the problem, with its relentless military
exercises and provocative threats to North Korea’s sovereignty.
Russia and China understand that the only reasonable solution is
not reckless escalation, but a negotiated engagement by all sides, including
North Korea, South Korea, the US, Japan, China and Russia. Past multilateral
negotiations have come unstuck largely because of Washington’s high-handed
imperious attitude. Winding down conflict on the Korean Peninsula necessitates
the winding down of military forces by all sides, and a primary responsibility
for that lies with the US, the external protagonist in the region.
As the Russia-China strategic alliance grows ever stronger
heralding a «post-West» world order, as Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov
put it, one which was dominated by American capitalism, the US petrodollar and
its military machine, it seems unmistakable that both Russia and China have
reached a practical limit of tolerance to Washington’s lawless arrogance.
In recent weeks, Washington has slapped more sanctions on both
Russia and China, conducted provocative military incursions into their
territorial domains, and continued to disparage them with media distortions.
Washington possesses thousands of ICBMs, test-fires them all the time, and
installs missile systems around Russian and Chinese territory. Washington has
waged or covertly sponsored criminal wars across the Middle East over the past
two decades, resulting in millions of innocent deaths and spawning of terror
groups.
North Korea has attacked no-one, has an arsenal of perhaps 10
nuclear weapons and conducts its missile tests far from any of its neighbor’s
territory.
Yet the lawless, mass-murdering Americans – the only nation to
have actually dropped nuclear weapons on civilian populations – have the
audacity to declare North Korea a threat to world peace and insist on the
«right» to preemptively attack Pyongyang. And if Russia and China do not
acquiesce to this American demand then Washington threatens to increase more
sanctions on them.
The American bully is patently beyond itself from its own
megalomanic despotism. But the big, crucial difference now is that Russia and
China are moving to finally put this bully in its place. The multipolar world
has arrived. And the only «radical» thing that Russia and China are insisting
on is that the US behaves like everyone else and abides by international law.
That basic requirement is an indication of how lawless the Americans are.
Addressing bussed-in supporters in Poland’s Warsaw Square this
week, Trump declared with bravado that «the West [that is, the US] will never
back down».
Well, we’ll see about that. As noted, the multipolar world has
arrived and America is being compelled to back down by an ascendant Russia and
China who also happen to have world opinion on their side.
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2017 Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to
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