Exciting Post-New World Order

In 1992, U.S. President George Bush gave a speech in which he hailed the New World Order after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Imperialists in Washington DC were ecstatic and claimed they were presiding over an empire far stronger than the Roman empire – meaning that the American primacy would last for a thousand years. Alas, just three decades later, rebellious leaders representing half the world’s population gathered at the BRICS summit in Russia and released a profound manifesto of 134 paragraphs outlining a bold vision of multilateralism, peace and development.

The United States of America seemed quite indomitable in the 1990s, after transforming into the sole superpower of the world. There were no economic or geopolitical rivals, and the US seemed poised to maintain the advantage. First, it set out to destroy Russia in the 1990s by appointing traitors as oligarchs and government officials. Next, it laid the groundwork for domination of the Middle East and Europe through sanctions on Iraq and NATO expansion respectively. As for China, it was still very poor and not even a part of the WTO. In terms of technology, the US had the internet and computers; and the dot-com boom of the 1990s was minting an unlimited number of millionaires. The US empire was its zenith.

Astonishingly, the world became upside down within fifteen years. The US economy, along with its vassal Europe, collapsed in the great financial crisis of 2008, revealing a Ponzi scheme. Soon, the US lost one title after another to China – the biggest manufacturing country, the biggest trading nation, the biggest automobile market, the biggest middle-class population etc. By 2015, China was the #1 economy in PPP GDP. Then, Russia surpassed Germany and BRICS became larger than G7, both in purchasing power parity terms. While the Euro zone was stagnant for a decade, India’s GDP kept roaring. The IMF reports indicated that 70% of global growth came from Asia. The profound shift in economic prowess was unmistakable.

More importantly, China rejected America’s neoliberalism and succeeded beyond the wildest imagination of Western economists. Look at the GDP-per-capita growth from 1993 to 2023:

As for the military, which is a key pillar of any empire, the US has fallen behind in stunning ways. Its dream of vastly superior armaments crumbled as the trillion-dollar projects like the F-35 fighter jets and naval aircraft carriers resulted in deeply flawed products. Moreover, China and Russia quickly developed hypersonic missiles, while the US has kept failing. In the lower-end of the spectrum, the de-industrialization of the US economy meant that Russia could produce more basic ammunition than the US and Europe combined. Nobody is afraid of the mighty American war machine anymore. Iran is challenging Israel and the US in the Middle East; and Russia has single handedly defeated the cackle of imperialists and their stooges from NATO.

In technology, which underpins the prosperity and sovereignty of modern nations, China has not only caught up with the US, but has become the leading powerhouse in many sectors such as EV, batteries, solar power and next-gen nuclear reactors. Every American tech company now has a Chinese counterpart – including semiconductors, the most crucial sector in the 21st century. China is now only one breakthrough away – in making the most advanced lithography machines – to make the US empire irrelevant. Sadly, rather than competing, the US is increasingly resorting to protectionism.

In the publication of impactful scientific papers in fields such as physical sciences, math and computer science, China completely dominates the Leiden ranking. Plus, nearly 90% of engineers and scientists by 2030 will come from Asia.

The decline of America is revealed in domestic politics. Congress has an 18% approval rating; and 79% of Americans say that the country is moving in the wrong direction. A majority of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck, while the country also has 20 million millionaires, revealing a huge inequality. The top 10% have virtually all the wealth and power. People do not even have confidence in the elections, and a civil war in the future is not hard to imagine.

However, the dollar – the one remaining shaky pillar that is holding up the US empire -- is also weakening every day due to de-dollarisation, which is one of the key objectives of BRICS. Interestingly, US elites shot themselves in the foot by weaponising the dollar. For example, the shock-and-awe sanctions that were supposed to cripple the Russian economy only backfired – now 97% of Russia’s trade happens without the US dollar. In China, more than half the cross-border payments are now being done using the Chinese yuan (RMB). And the theft of Russian foreign exchange reserves is what really fired up the interest in BRICS in 2022 when Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia and Argentina applied to become full members. (The election of clownish Milei made Argentina withdraw its membership; and Saudi Arabia is under intense pressure from the US to not become active in BRICS. But the petrodollar days are numbered, regardless of American threats).

In the SWIFT system, the dollar is #1, but only has a share of 49% of global payments. When that number drops to, say, 33%, Americans will feel the pinch in terms of higher inflation. The US federal government already spends 20-25% of its revenue on just the interest payments on its debt. Soon, the US will be forced to cut spending and even shut down some of its military bases.

Once countries start to freely trade among themselves using local currencies or a BRICS currency, the dollar’s role in trade, investment and foreign exchange reserves will quickly shrink.

The chart above shows the dominance of BRICS countries in the global economy. The group of 10 members have a global market share of 36% of PPP GDP, 45% of population, 44% of oil production, and 20% of goods exports. Now, nearly 40 more countries want to join the club; and this includes strategic nations such as Indonesia, Turkiye and Venezuela. The future looks bright.

First, it’s important to note that BRICS is not “anti-West” but a “non-West” group, which presents useful options for developing nations. So, rather than being submissive to Western-led tools – SWIFT, dollar, IMF, stock exchanges in New York and London etc. – the Global South will have the freedom of choice in trade, commerce, loans, investments, infrastructure, technology, development, security and so on.

The answer lies in the democratic nature of BRICS, which has no hegemony like how the US acts like the boss in the UN, IMF, G7 etc. The group rotates the presidency every year and reaches agreements based on win-win diplomacy. The focus is multilateralism and not unipolarity.

The democratic nature extends to finance and currencies. Rather than one dominant currency of any country, BRICS embraces a multicurrency system that allows trade in local currencies without any middleman. This feature also eliminates sanctions and bullying – key features of the US dollar. In the future, BRICS may have its own currency, as hinted by Putin showing a mock-up bill. There are also plans to introduce a BRICS pay card, which will work seamlessly in all nations, thereby making tourism a lot easier. In the future, cross-border e-commerce among BRICS members will also be made simple and efficient.

The goal of BRICS is common prosperity – to borrow a Chinese term. When the US talks about multiculturalism and diversity, the hidden agenda is about divisiveness, uncontrolled migration of refugees, destruction of traditional cultures, and wokeism. However, BRICS truly embraces diversity by bringing together different civilisations as equal partners who seek cooperation and development.

There are myriads of concrete ideas for BRICS to prosper together. One of them is physical connectivity through new trade routes. A well-known example is China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in which China’s investments in dozens of countries are now worth $4 trillion. Not surprisingly, 140 or so countries are members of the BRI. Russia is also getting in on such projects, which include the INSTC (Russia-Iran-India route), which is quite an ingenious way of combining multiple modes of transportation. Developing nations are sorely in need of roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, railways, seaports, airports etc. There are also basic needs such as electricity and clean water, which are not as abundant as one might think. Plus, Global South countries also need “soft infrastructure” such as schools and hospitals.

BRICS is also about peace and diplomacy, unlike the US’ Empire of Chaos. When India’s Modi and China’s Xi Jinping met in Kazan and held a bilateral meeting for the first time in five years, it was a resounding affirmation of BRICS philosophy. Similarly, Beijing helped Iran and Saudi Arabia achieve rapprochement after decades of animosity that was fueled by the US as a divide-and-rule strategy to rule the Middle East. The Chinese government also brought all Palestinian factions together and helped them reconcile. Of course, for two decades, the Shanghai Cooperation organisation (SCO) has provided an exemplary model on how different nations can resolve border issues, cooperate on counter-terrorism, and improve people-to-people exchanges. BRICS has adopted many of the values from SCO.

Nobody believes the American propaganda about freedom and democracy. Why would America want to spread freedom, which would only make other countries more prosperous? No, the US empire gets to stay #1 by depriving other countries the freedom to choose their own financial systems, develop their own economies, create their own technologies, spread their own messages, and trade with whoever they want. Instead, the US employs sanctions, wars, color revolutions, coups and divide-and-rule playbooks to keep others down.

The US itself is an oligarchy – as proven by objective studies – and thus is the last country in the world to spread democracy. The deep state in the US wages wars on its own people, spreads disinformation, and silences people and ideas. Politicians in the US are puppets of corporations, and thus do not represent the people. So, how is the US going to spread democracy?

The developing nations had suffered from Western colonialism for centuries and are now recovering. What the Global South needs is a few more decades of peace without conflicts and wars. And that’s what BRICS represents – a revised and exciting new world order of diplomacy, solidarity, collaboration and development.

The Kazan summit was a historic event and it has set in motion a peaceful revolution that will herald a multipolar world of peace and prosperity. We should all be cheering for this transformation of geopolitics – and this includes the average American and European, who will also benefit immensely from this new paradigm that BRICS represents.