Antonio Navalón
It has already begun. The fall of the Berlin Wall, what Francis Fukuyama once called the end of history, was the end of one stage and the beginning of another – as was foreseeable and as experience on the behavior of the human condition constantly repeats. Communism – which was booming during the Cold War – not only vanished because of the laws and behavior of the capitalist market, but the moment the people on the eastern side of the Wall saw before them the possibility of having so many goods and capital, ambition ended up overcoming the reality in which they lived.
In short, and without going too deep, Marx sought to eliminate social classes and create a world where we would all be equal, giving human beings complete autonomy over their destiny. That is why communism had such a boom in Russian society that came from a period of aristocracies in which the division of classes and the supremacy of some over others was very evident. However, the fall of the Berlin Wall was not only the physical collapse of a border that divided friends and relatives but also – unconsciously – the triumph of capitalist ideology over communist ideology. But it was also proof that, while politically, it had failed as an experiment in human behavior, it could succeed.
It is impossible to understand China without understanding the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is impossible to understand what is happening in the world without knowing that power corrupts and extreme power corrupts completely. At this point in history, a question arises, what comes next? The answer is ambiguous, although what is an undeniable fact is that the Third Economic World War has already begun. There are many reasons for saying and sustaining this, although probably the most critical lies in those small details that – even if they seem unconnected – are part of the spider’s web from which historical behavior emerges.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has more context and preamble than meets the eye. Ukraine occupies an exceptional place in the heart of Europe, not only because it is the world’s cereal and grain capital but because of its geopolitical position as a site dividing the Eastern and Western worlds. Ukraine is also the memory of the famines caused by Stalin and his change of model. It is the memory of the Nazi mass murders in the territory and of the Ukrainian companies that helped to kill pure Russians in the company of the Nazis. An area that lacked a history of its own and which, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, acquired what it had never had before – except for a very short time – its own place in history.
In that fall of the Wall and those circumstances, it is necessary to understand what happened to the then Colonel Vladimir Putin and how this character evolved from the capital Kyiv and Kharkiv to the meeting held on September 25, 2001, in the German Parliament, where Putin – democratic president of Russia, so to speak – decided to put an end to the masquerade of security identification between NATO and the Russian Federation. From then on, anything could happen…and everything happened. People who, for a good time, were Russians are now suffering the consequences of it. That is why the occupation of Crimea, the birth of pro-Russian Ukraine, and everything that has been happening in the region in recent years – including what happened in Maidan Square and the fall of the communist government installed in Ukraine – were part not of the chronicle of a death foretold, but one of the possible outlets in the explosions of both freedom and emotions that Ukrainians have been carrying for a long time.
The United States found a great binder. First, because of the Trump-led investigation that was done into the private business dealings of President Biden’s son and subsequently ended in the first impeachment against Donald Trump. Second, as interests converged, provocations were increasing, and a growing link was being created between the mechanisms of Russian territorial dominance and the challenges of the Western world. The third point was found when, in February last year, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was perpetrated with the same objective that Putin has always sought in every action, which was to dampen or give less relevance to the siege that NATO and some countries of the former Soviet Union were installing on Russia. What was the result of this? Invasion, death, desolation, and proof, on the one hand, of the weakness and old age of the Russian army is a horrible sign for Putin. On the other hand, the worst is that the economic sanctions have done nothing more than demonstrate that the dollar is living its last days as the world’s hegemonic currency.
The scenario surrounding the crisis in Ukraine has allowed alternative currencies to the dollar, such as the yuan or the Russian ruble, to take a step forward in the global context. An example is that last February and March, the Chinese yuan overtook the dollar and became the most traded currency in Russia. And that is just the beginning.
Today Russia has recovered, as far as possible and only to some extent, the balance and the formal economic situation. And even though it has received the total weight of economic sanctions imposed by Washington and NATO countries, it has also set a series of measures that have allowed the birth of the new economy. A new dynamic guided, for example, by the presence of the Russian ruble in Dubai, the Chinese yuan with an ever-increasing presence and power in the world, the partnership being forged between Russia and China, and all the potential of the Asia-Pacific area and the BRICS bloc.
Today there is a new political, social, and economic map. The Bretton Woods agreements and the institutions that emanated from them are becoming less and less decisive and influential in global dynamics. On the one hand, there is the United States, a nation undergoing a severe domestic crisis magnified by the increasingly notable weakness of the dollar. On the other side, there is a country composed of more than 1.4 billion people governed absolutely by the Communist Party and by the success of autocracy as a social order in the face of the weakness and decrepitude of the democratic system. India is in the middle, watching and profiting from each of these players. A nation that patiently awaits and waits for the moment when the countries that make up the BRICS can be decisive and defining elements of the new political, social, and economic era. In essence, this new era means nothing more than the end of the hegemonic period of the United States of America and the dollar.
Economic World War III does not have to break out. It has already broken out. Moreover, it is a war accompanied by nuclear weapons that have expired and eaten away by the danger of corruption and speculation. The 2008 crisis ended unpunished; nobody paid for the irresponsibility that caused one of the greatest economic debacles of our era, and that, among many other things, broke the American social equilibrium. Ten million Americans paid the price for that irresponsibility when they were evicted from their homes. Owning one’s own home was an element that differentiated the American system from others. Well, in 2008, it was shown that this system was not perfect, but, above all, that it was breakable.
No one paid for what happened. However, the responsibility fell on the government of Barack Obama and Timothy Geithner, who was in charge of mitigating the consequences of the 2008 crisis. However, that was only the first event in a series of events that brought us to where we are today. It is true that had it not been for the September 11, 2001 attack on the Twin Towers, none of this would have happened. However, the attack did happen, followed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the effects that continue to accompany what happened on that bright day in September.
Who will win the war? I want to recall that in the Second World War, the chessboard was dominated by two military and autocratic powers to which, and as the war progressed, different nations aligned with each of the sides joined in. At that time, there were four major players. On the one hand, there was the United States, led by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and a nation that had survived and overcame the economic crisis it suffered in 1929 and all the problems caused by the implementation of the New Deal. On the other hand, and on the same side as the Americans, was the English empire, which was so significant that it was impossible to keep it together. On the third side, Hitler’s Germany and its imperialist desires caused so much damage. And finally, there was Stalin’s Soviet Union and its hidden ambitions – at first – to spread communism beyond its borders. And so, with so many personal interests and agendas involved, what caused World War II was not only to bring about the Nazi defeat but also the end of the British Empire’s global hegemony and the preamble to the Cold War.
Today, as in World War II, we face a geopolitical chessboard with a multiplicity of players, all with their own agendas and personal interests. Today, as then, the tension is only escalating. However, today, the economic war we are already waging is only a symptom of what may come next.
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