Russia and China build new world order, as Joe Biden sees no forest through the trees

The Americans have rejected Moscow's reasonable demands for security guarantees and prefer to intimidate the world with Russia's imminent "invasion" of Ukraine. For the modern Western world, Russia's military maneuvers on its own territory come as a manifestation of aggressive behavior. The West slams Russia as an aggressor and while following the path of economic aggression, threatening Russia with sanctions for something that is not going to happen. It appears that a relatively short period of global domination has deprived the American elites of the ability to think soberly. They do not keep up to the times of the dynamically changing world and see no forest through the trees.

Hawks in Washington criticize US President Joe Biden for not being tough enough on Russia. They want him to start the war in Ukraine as soon as possible while being convinced that neither the US nor NATO can make any concessions to "revanchist" Russia. They see Ukraine as another Pearl Harbor, from where NATO and the USA will go on a broad offensive against the "aggressor".

The zeal, with which the US State Department and Congress are eager to "save" Ukraine raises eyebrows even inside the United States. Americans do not see any benefits of Washington's expansionist policy in Eastern Europe. A sense of justice also suggests that it was NATO that has been expanding eastward, brining its military infrastructure closer to Russia's borders, and not vice versa.

When US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken defends NATO's open door principle as the right of any country that has applied to join the alliance, he is simply throwing dust in the eyes of the world community. Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, penned an article for The American Conservative, in which he describes Blinken's statements as sanctimonious hypocrisy.

According to Article 10 of the Washington Treaty, members of the alliance can invite only the countries that are capable to support the principles of the alliance and contribute to the security of the North Atlantic region. 

There is no unanimity within the alliance regarding Ukraine's aspiration to join the ranks of NATO in the foreseeable future. According to Doug Bandow, Ukraine's incorporation in NATO will weaken rather than strengthen regional security. The unshakable support for far-fetched and non-existent principle leads directly to war in Europe.

Time cannot be stopped

At the end of January, the Russian Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the heads of the foreign ministries of OSCE states and a number of other countries, reminding them of the concept of indivisible security in accordance with the Istanbul and Astana declarations. The first reaction seems to be quite constructive. As Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Valentin Kliva noted, since the message refers to OSCE decisions, this organization is a suitable platform for discussing Russia's concerns.

The fact that Russia is addressing its request to all OSCE member states is a good sign, Thomas Greminger, former secretary general of this organization and now chief of the Geneva Center for Security Policy believes. The right to choose alliances should not come contrary to the principle of the indivisibility of security, that is, the rights of all others in this relation must be respected. According to Greminger, it is reasonable to question the modern system of European security, since the two principles under discussion were jointly agreed upon by all OSCE countries.

Unfortunately, there is still a lack of readiness to discuss all these questions, including the "most elementary" ones related to Russia's demands of security guarantees.

In the article Russia and the New World Order published by The American Conservative, American expert Anthony Constantini reminds his country of the words that President John F. Kennedy used to say:

 "Those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future." 

According to Constantini, the Russian leader has come to understand that the world is undergoing a 30-year transition from the bipolar world order of the 20th century to a new multipolar world order of the 21st century. The short-term effects of unipolarity, when America was unparalleled, are over with competition from China, Russia, and even the European Union emerging.

"The U.S. should be preparing for these rising powers. Instead, America has spent the last 30 years jamming Cold War-era institutions like NATO (created to reflect the bipolar early 1950s) into a period where they do not fit in an attempt to preserve as much 1990s unipolarity as possible. While such an impulse was understandable, in trying to hold back time the U.S has essentially become a nation of political Luddites," the author said. 

Russia's response to Washington

Western politicians and journalists have had a burning curiosity about Moscow's reaction to the refusal of the USA and NATO to accept Russia's security concerns. Throwing a tantrum about an imaginary "invasion" of Ukraine, they went on the wrong track. The answer is to be found in the results of the recent meeting in Beijing and a joint statement that Russia and China made on the new era of international relations.

The statement stresses that no state can and should ensure its security in isolation from the security of the whole world, at the expense of the security of other states. The parties are unanimous in understanding that democracy is a universal value, rather than a privilege of individual states. Attempts to impose "democratic standards" on others, draw dividing lines along ideological lines, including through the creation of narrow-format blocs and situational alliances, are devoid of any democratic values. 

Russia and China are opposed to NATO's further expansion. Putin and Xi Jinping called on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon the ideological approaches of the Cold War and condemned the creation of the triangular security partnership by the US, the UK and Australia. The parties will defend the authority of the UN and oppose attempts to replace generally accepted international law with certain rules developed in a narrow circle by individual countries or blocs of countries.

The Chinese concept of building a community with a common destiny for mankind and Russia's efforts to form a fair multipolar system of international relations was supported as well. The parties reaffirmed their focus on the parallel and coordinated formation of the Greater Eurasian Partnership and the construction of the Belt and Road for the benefit of the peoples of the entire continent. Russia and China intend to strengthen the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and increase its role in the formation of the polycentric world order based on the universally recognized principles of international law, multilateralism, equal, joint, indivisible, comprehensive and sustainable security.

Shortly after taking office as President of the United States, Joe Biden expressed his readiness to establish "stable and predictable relations" with Russia, but then something clicked in his head. Washington recognised the importance of threats that came from China, but it did not stop the Americans from decreasing the pressure of sanctions on Russia. As a result, the United States has created the growing alliance between Moscow and Beijing, which Washington will not be able to resist.