The Time of the Global Majority*

*Editor’s note: On March 4, 2022, Russia enacted a law that criminalizes public opposition to, or independent news reporting about, the war in Ukraine. The law makes it a crime to call the war a “war” rather than a “special military operation” on social media or in a news article or broadcast. The law is understood to penalize any language that “discredits” Russia’s use of its military in Ukraine, calls for sanctions or protests Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It punishes anyone found to spread “false information” about the invasion with up to 15 years in prison.

Vice Rector of Russian Foreign Ministry Diplomatic Academy Oleg Karpovich on the West’s failed attempt to “Ukrainize” the G20 agenda.

Last week, the summit of the ministers of foreign affairs of the countries of the G20 took place in Rio de Janeiro. As compared to the World Economic Forum or, say, the Munich Security Conference, this most important event was mostly ignored or at best poorly covered by the Western media, which is not surprising. In contrast to their own private meetings, where they, year after year, repeat the same arguments about the “rule-based order,” American and European leaders wield no dominant influence at meetings within the G20 framework.

They’re no longer capable of imposing their will upon the global majority. Moreover, more often than not, when interacting with the Global South and the Global East, apart from separate satellite states like Japan and South Korea, the West is faced with the realization of the archaic nature of its approaches to global problems. So, quite logically, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his “junior partners” like Annalena Baerbock** preferred to cut down on the amount of trademark propaganda statements in Rio de Janeiro, since they wouldn’t find any support or attention from their non-Western counterparts.

The global economic agenda remains the main theme in the foundation of the G20 format, for the stabilization of which this group was created in faraway 2008. For a long while, Washington claimed to hold the status of a key moderator of the corresponding processes and a guarantor of the unshakable nature of the main principles of globalization. However, the events of the last two years have transformed this paradigm.

The U.S., as it turned out, is ready to crash the entire system of global trade and financial institutions through the disproportionate use of the sanctions stick for achieving its narrow geopolitical goals. The events in Ukraine and the euphoria [arising] from the dreams of delivering a strategic defeat to Russia led the American-European coalition, through its own actions, undermined trust in the global economy’s regulation levers that were created by the prominent Western politicians of the past. The idea of globalization itself in its previous form has been discredited and turned into a farce. For a long time, we have been able to read the lack of understanding of the absurd and destructive Anglo-Saxon line on the faces of the politicians and diplomats of the majority of non-Western countries of the G20 — the natural consequence of which is the inevitable self-isolation of the West and its transformation into a global province.

As our minister, Sergei Lavrov, who crowned his incredibly successful tour of the countries of the region with his visit to Brazil, rightly mentioned, the attempts to “Ukrainize” the G20’s agenda are inevitably failing. The Euro-Atlantic camp, which once hoped to take over this format and which looked at its colleagues from the countries of the South and East from the position of colonial superiority, suddenly found itself in a subordinate role. The partners of Russia among the G20, although still following the diplomatic code of conduct, are refusing to play the games offered to them by Washington and, first of all, are demanding their Western counterparts stop the hybrid war, which is destroying the entire global system, as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, the West, having plunged itself fully into its Ukrainian adventure, for now either can’t or doesn’t want to read these signals. Time-serving politicians, living in election campaign mode and having driven their electorate to a Russophobic hysteria, have now become dependent on the lobbyists of the military-industrial complex (about which cynical and straightforward characters like Victoria Nuland are openly talking). The elites of these countries have lost their ability to think strategically and to perceive the shifting reality with clear heads. It seems that only the further deepening of the integration within BRICS and other similar organizations, consolidating new power centers in international affairs, can sober up the apologists of the unipolar utopia who got caught up in their “end of history” idea.

**Editor’s Note: Annalena Baerbock is a German politician of the Alliance 90/the Greens Party.