### - well, an interesting, almost entirely objective + in-depth
alternative analysis of our changing world as seen from the pov of someone
trained in looking at/analysing world history (which perforce gets my
interest straight away heh)

although this defo wont be thangs cup of tea; he much preferring a far
more partial/personal (read: totally biased) pov involving petty bigoted
flag-waving shit and loads of people getting killed coz it's all: "worth
it"?? (duh) that is unless he's just had summat really good to smoke hah
(and yes am defo taking the piss here thang, but the article itself might
actually be correct! so grab a cup of coffee & read on...) ;)

-Peter Frankopan is professor of global history at Oxford University and
author of The Earth Transformed: An Untold History

‘This is not about Ukraine at all, but the world order,’ said Sergei
Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, a month after the invasion. ‘The
unipolar world is irretrievably receding into the past … A multi-polar
world is being born.’ The US is no longer the world’s policeman, in other
words – a message that resonates in countries that have long been
suspicious of American power. The West’s core coalition may remain solid,
but it has failed to win over many of the countries that refused to pick
sides. Moscow’s diplomatic mission to build ties and hone a narrative over
the past decade has paid dividends.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-putin-winning-the-world-order-is-changing-in-his-favour/

Look at Africa. In March last year, 25 African states out of 54 abstained
or didn’t vote in a UN motion condemning the invasion, despite huge
pressure from western powers. Their refusal to side clearly with Ukraine
was testament to Russia’s ongoing diplomatic efforts in the developing
world.

A year ago, Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s foreign minister, urged Russia
to withdraw. After Lavrov’s visit a few weeks ago, Pandor was asked if she
had repeated this sentiment to her Russian counterpart. It had been
‘appropriate’ last year, she said, but to repeat it now ‘would make me
appear quite simplistic and infantile’. Pandor then lauded the ‘growing
economic bilateral relationship’ between Pretoria and Moscow, and the two
countries marked the war’s anniversary with joint military exercises.

Then there are the North African countries, which have helped Russia
offset the economic effect of western sanctions. Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria
and Egypt have all, in the past year, imported Russian diesel and other
refined oils, as well as chemicals.

Vladimir Putin is quite deliberately cultivating this alliance of nations
who feel victims of western imperialism, and putting Russia at its head.
The West wants to see Russia ‘as a colony’, he said in September. ‘They
don’t want equal cooperation, they want to rob us.’

This message goes down equally well in large parts of Asia, where more
than a third of countries declined to condemn Russia in the initial UN
vote, as well as in Central and South America, where waves of anti-western
and anti-capitalist sentiment continue to swell.

As India’s former ambassador to Russia, Venkatesh Varma, put it last week:
‘We have not accepted the western framing of the conflict. In fact there
are very few takers for it in the Global South.’ He doesn’t speak for
India’s government. But still India, along with China and South Africa,
abstained from another UN resolution last week demanding Russia withdraw
from Ukraine. Of 193 members, 141 voted in favour and 32 abstained. Seven
voted against, with Russia joined by Belarus, Eritrea, Mali, North Korea,
Nicaragua and Syria.

The idea that it’s America and its allies who are the sources of global
disruption and instability holds sway. The setbacks in Afghanistan and the
idea that the Ukrainian war happened because of Nato’s expansion have
fuelled a narrative, and even sympathy, for the idea that Putin is simply
standing up to the West (which explains why North Korea has shipped
artillery shells and Iran has provided kamikaze drones).

Putin is a master of whipping up anti-American sentiment. In his address
to the Federal Assembly last week, he referenced western military
interventions in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria. These showed the West
acting ‘shamelessly and duplicitously… They will never be able to wash off
this shame’.

Look at how Ukraine has been supported, he added, while others have been
abandoned. More than $150 billion has been spent helping and arming Kyiv,
he said, while the world’s poorest countries have only received $60
billion in aid. ‘What about all this talk of fighting poverty, sustainable
development and protection of the environment?’ he asked.

Putin’s Russia even audaciously claims the high ground on racial
discrimination. In a speech six months ago, Putin stated: ‘The Russophobia
articulated today across the entire world is nothing but racism.’ Russia
thus neatly taps into western guilt at its colonial past, while pitching
itself as the leading voice for what Lavrov calls ‘the international
majority’. ‘Over the long centuries of colonialism, diktat and hegemony,’
Putin said last week, the West ‘got used to being allowed everything, got
used to spitting on the whole world.’

At the same time, the Russian President appeals to the world’s social
conservatism. That’s why last week he pointed to the Anglican Communion’s
contortions over gay marriage and a ‘gender-neutral’ God, calling it ‘a
spiritual catastrophe’. Such talk goes down well among the planet’s more
devout populations, which tend to regard LGBTQ debates as evidence of
western depravity and decadence. There’s a reason why RT, the Kremlin’s
news channel, spent years stirring up the culture wars.

Moscow thus presents itself as a bastion of stability in a world gone mad,
even as it seeks to destabilise the world and make it even madder. Its
cultural propaganda is backed up by realpolitik and trade, with oil, gas,
metals and crops used as diplomatic enticements to play Russia’s game.
Arms were another inducement, although poor battlefield performance in the
past year has diminished its reputation as a weapons superpower.

Then there is China, which half-heartedly called last week for peace
talks, and this week is hosting Putin’s ally the Belarusian President
Alexander Lukashenko. The relationship between Russia and China will
always be complicated, yet the invasion of Ukraine and the West’s response
have created enormous opportunities for Sino-Russian cooperation. China
has been buying record amounts of cheap Russian oil and gas, for instance,
while exporting far more machinery and semiconductors to Russia.

What unites them is a shared emphasis on the importance of stability and
spreading the idea that it is the West which is disruptive, unpredictable
and volatile.

‘We need to work together to maintain peace and stability in the world,’
said Xi Jinping in his most recent speech at the Boao Forum, ‘and oppose
the wanton use of unilateral sanctions.’ Just as Lavrov’s comments about
empowering other nations are aimed at countries across Asia, Africa and
Latin America – all of which have been recipients of Chinese diplomatic
cultivation in the past decade – so too are these Chinese calls for
‘international solidarity’.

It suits Beijing to echo Russia’s narrative about uneven playing fields,
victimisation and pressure – not least since China has watched the war
unfold in order to draw lessons that can shape its approach to Taiwan.

On his visit to Moscow last week, senior diplomat Wang Yi spoke of ‘new
frontiers’ in the relationship between China and Russia and called for
joint resistance to pressure from the ‘international community’ – an
apparent rebuke to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s threat of
‘consequences’ if China supplies military support to Russia.

The fallout from the pandemic has in some ways played into Russia and
China’s hands. As a report by the Carnegie Foundation said, without the
resources available in the West, in economically vulnerable countries the
crisis has ‘reversed decades of progress on poverty, healthcare and
education’.

Western countries bought up stocks of vaccines – far greater than needed –
and then refused to release patent waivers for medicines, vaccines and
diagnostics, pushing up prices and resulting in higher mortality levels.
By contrast, energetic vaccine diplomacy by Russia and China boosted their
standing, especially in Africa and Latin America. Despite the inefficacy
of China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines, health officials in South
Africa stopped giving the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine, believing
it didn’t work. Last year, a survey of ASEAN countries in south-east Asia
found the EU had a positive perception score of 2.6 per cent when it came
to vaccine support – compared with almost 60 per cent for China.

As for the war, is Russia really losing? The Ukrainians have fought
astonishingly well, but have suffered huge losses. Western leaders speak
of giving Kyiv the tools to ‘finish the job’, but what the coming weeks,
months and even years have to offer looks bleak, as the setbacks in
Bakhmut suggest.