By Tebbit Scorchwillow, Foreign Affairs, Fires, and Other Things the Gods Forgot
The world is ablaze with the most tedious argument since someone decided to count angels on pinheads while Rome burned, only now it’s considerably more expensive and involves nuclear weapons. On one side, we have the Noble Realm of the West—a collection of kingdoms that spent centuries conquering the known world, extracting its wealth, and are now terribly offended that anyone would suggest this might have been indelicate[^1][^2][^7]. On the other, the Mysterious Lands of the Global South—a term so magnificently vague it could mean anywhere from Klatch to that place where your cousin went to “find himself” and came back with dysentery[^10][^16].
The argument, stripped of its diplomatic finery and academic pretensions, boils down to this: Which system is less catastrophically incompetent at making people prosperous without murdering them in the process?
The Western Proposition: “Trust Us, We’re Democratic (When Convenient)”
The West presents its case with the confidence of a man selling umbrellas in a rainstorm he started. Their argument runs thusly: Democracy and Capitalism represent the pinnacle of human achievement[^2][^5]. Free markets, they insist, create wealth through the magical process of invisible hands doing invisible work while invisible people get invisibly poorer[^64][^67].
“Look,” they cry, waving their statistics like weapons, “our system has lifted millions from poverty!” What they don’t mention is that it lifted them into poverty first, then charged them interest on the privilege[^70]. The Western democratic model, they claim, ensures freedom, equality, and justice—provided you don’t look too closely at the inequality[^64][^70], the corporate capture of politics[^67], or the curious tendency to bomb countries that dare to try alternative economic models[^44].
The Americans, bless their cotton socks, have perfected the art of organized hypocrisy[^41][^47]. They lecture the world on human rights while supporting dictators who buy the right weapons[^44]. They champion democracy while gerrymandering their own elections into meaninglessness[^45]. They preach free markets while subsidizing their corporations and bailing out their banks[^64][^70]. It’s rather like a drunk preaching temperance while holding a bottle.
The Global South Retort: “We Remember Your ‘Help,’ Thank You Very Much”
The Global South, meanwhile, presents its case with the weary patience of someone who has been robbed and is now being lectured on property rights by the thief[^21][^24][^34]. Their argument is admirably straightforward: The West built its wealth on our backs, continues to exploit us, and now has the audacity to suggest we’re doing development wrong[^22][^25][^28].
Consider the Chinese model, which has the remarkable distinction of actually working[^62][^65][^71]. In four decades, China has lifted 800 million people from poverty[^62][^71]—more than the entire population of Europe—while maintaining political stability and achieving growth rates that make Western economists weep into their lattes[^65][^68]. They’ve done this without bombing anyone lately, which puts them ahead of several Western democracies in the humanitarian stakes.
The Chinese approach—authoritarian capitalism—combines market economics with state control[^45]. It’s rather like having your cake and eating it too, except the cake feeds a billion people and doesn’t require invading countries for ingredients[^62][^68]. While Western democracies debate whether to help their poor or bail out their rich (they invariably choose the latter)[^64][^70], China simply gets on with the business of development[^71][^74].
In Africa, Chinese investment has been transformative[^63][^66][^69]. While the West lectures Africans on “good governance” and ties aid to structural adjustment programs that invariably involve privatizing everything and expecting miracles[^27], China builds roads, hospitals, and infrastructure without requiring recipients to adopt particular political systems[^66][^75][^78]. It’s almost as if they care more about results than ideology.
The BRICS Alternative: When the Dispossessed Organize
The emergence of BRICS+ represents something unprecedented: the former colonies talking back[^43][^46][^49][^52]. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, joined by Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, now control 40% of global oil production and represent nearly half the world’s population[^49]. They’re building alternative institutions—the New Development Bank, alternative payment systems, and trading arrangements that don’t require genuflecting to Washington or Brussels[^43][^49][^55].
This isn’t anti-Western, despite Western paranoia. It’s post-Western[^46][^55]. The Global South has moved beyond seeking approval from their former colonizers and is simply getting on with business. When the West offered them democracy, they got structural adjustment. When they asked for development aid, they got lectures on governance. When they sought trade partnerships, they got corporate exploitation[^25][^27][^34].
Small wonder they’ve decided to try something else.
The Multipolar Moment: When Hegemony Meets Arithmetic
The world is becoming multipolar not because anyone planned it, but because math is stubborn[^23][^26][^29][^32]. The West, which represents about 12% of global population, can no longer dictate terms to the other 88%[^13][^29]. The Global South accounts for half the world’s economy and growing[^46][^49]. No amount of lecturing about “rules-based order” can change these numbers[^56].
The Americans still possess the world’s most expensive military and the privilege of printing the global reserve currency[^29]. But military power has limitations—as evidenced by their recent adventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya—and currency privileges can be circumvented through alternative arrangements[^43][^49][^55].
The Chinese have demonstrated that authoritarian capitalism can deliver results[^42][^45][^62]. Singapore proves that benevolent authoritarianism can create prosperity[^45]. The Nordic countries show that democratic socialism works splendidly if you don’t try to impose it on others at gunpoint[^11]. Even Rwanda, following the Singapore model, has achieved remarkable development[^42].
The Ukrainian Tragedy: A Case Study in Strategic Blundering
The tragedy unfolding in Ukraine perfectly illustrates the West’s capacity for catastrophic miscalculation disguised as moral clarity. Since 2014, the Americans and their European vassals have played a game so recklessly stupid it would embarrass a gambler in a casino made of dynamite[^82][^85][^88][^94].
The story begins not in February 2022, but in 2014, when Washington decided that democracy promotion meant engineering regime change in a country on Russia’s border[^82][^85][^91]. The Maidan Revolution—which Western media portrayed as a spontaneous uprising of freedom-loving democrats—bore all the hallmarks of what used to be called a coup before rebranding became fashionable[^82][^85].
Victoria Nuland, the American State Department’s chief practitioner of diplomatic arson, was caught on tape selecting Ukraine’s next prime minister while the previous one was still in office[^82][^85]. “Yats is the guy,” she declared, referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who duly became prime minister after President Yanukovych was chased from power[^82][^85]. It’s rather like having a foreign diplomat choosing your next government while claiming to respect your sovereignty.
The Americans poured billions into Ukrainian “civil society” organizations, ran “tech camps” for activists specializing in regime change techniques, and established relationships with neo-fascist groups that played prominent roles in overthrowing the elected government[^85][^91]. They then acted shocked—shocked!—when Russia responded as any great power would when faced with a hostile takeover of a neighboring country[^81][^84].
NATO expansion had been provoking Russia for decades[^81][^84][^87]. Despite assurances given during German reunification that the alliance wouldn’t move “one inch eastward,” NATO systematically absorbed every former Warsaw Pact country and Soviet republic it could reach[^84][^93]. The alliance now sits on Russia’s doorstep, having expanded from 16 members in 1991 to 32 today[^84].
The Russians warned repeatedly that Ukrainian membership in NATO was a red line[^81][^87]. They were dismissed as paranoid authoritarians clinging to outdated spheres of influence. Yet when the Americans discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, they nearly started World War III rather than tolerate a strategic rival on their border[^90]. Apparently, spheres of influence are obsolete only when they’re not American.
The Minsk Deception: Peace Through Lying
The Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015 represented the West’s approach to conflict resolution: make promises you have no intention of keeping while helping one side prepare for the next round of fighting[^83][^86][^89][^92][^95]. These accords were supposedly designed to grant autonomy to the Donbas region while maintaining Ukraine’s territorial integrity[^83][^89][^95].
In reality, the agreements were flawed by design[^89][^95]. They required Ukraine to hold elections in territories controlled by Russian-backed forces before regaining control of its borders—rather like asking someone to count votes while thugs hold guns to the ballot boxes[^89][^95]. The sequencing ensured that any elections would be conducted under coercive conditions, making them meaningless[^95].
Western leaders knew the Minsk Agreements were unworkable. Angela Merkel later admitted that the accords were simply designed to give Ukraine time to build up its military[^86]. It was a strategic deception—promising peace while preparing for war[^86][^92]. The Americans and Europeans used the breathing space to pour $3 billion in weapons and training into Ukraine, establish CIA bases along the Russian border, and conduct joint military exercises[^88][^94].
The Russians, predictably, concluded that the West was negotiating in bad faith while building up Ukraine as a military threat[^86][^92]. They were correct. When diplomacy becomes a cover for military preparation, war becomes inevitable[^86][^92][^95].
The Hypocrisy Audit: Both Sides Fail the Test
The West’s criticism of authoritarian governance rings rather hollow when delivered by countries that support Saudi Arabia’s beheading budget, enable Israel’s occupation policies, and maintain friendships with various African dictators who happen to be useful[^44][^47]. The same nations that lecture others on democracy have their own democratic systems captured by corporate interests and increasingly dysfunctional[^64][^67][^70].
But the Global South isn’t immune to criticism either. Russia’s actions in Ukraine, regardless of provocation, demonstrate the same imperial mindset that characterizes Western interventions[^47]. China’s treatment of minorities raises legitimate concerns about human rights[^45]. Many BRICS countries have their own democratic deficits and authoritarian tendencies[^45][^55].
The difference is that the Global South isn’t trying to export its model through bombs and regime change. It’s simply offering alternatives[^46][^55][^58]. When China builds infrastructure in Africa, it doesn’t require recipients to adopt particular political systems[^66][^75][^78]. When Russia sells weapons, it doesn’t demand democratic reforms. The hypocrisy is less obvious because the imperialism is more honest.
The Decolonization Delusion: Missing the Point Entirely
Much ink has been spilled about “decolonizing” development aid and international relations[^21][^27][^30]. This is rather like trying to decolonize slavery—missing the point that the entire system was designed for exploitation[^27]. The problem isn’t that development aid is too colonial; it’s that development aid, like democracy promotion and humanitarian intervention, is a convenient fiction for continued control[^25][^27].
True decolonization would involve the Global South telling the West to keep its aid, its lectures, and its military interventions, and getting on with development using their own models and resources[^30][^34]. This is precisely what’s happening with BRICS+ and Chinese-led initiatives[^43][^49][^66].
The Verdict: Who’s Wrong, Who’s Right, and Who’s Lying
After examining the evidence with the cold impartiality of a mortician, several conclusions emerge:
The West is catastrophically wrong about its own virtue but accidentally right about some things. Democracy, when it actually functions, is preferable to authoritarianism. Markets, when properly regulated, can generate prosperity. The rule of law matters. But Western hypocrisy has destroyed the credibility of these ideas[^41][^44][^47][^56]. The Ukrainian crisis perfectly illustrates this: the West’s attempt to promote democracy through regime change and military buildup produced the opposite of its stated goals[^82][^85][^88].
The Global South is right about Western exploitation and the need for alternatives, but naive if it believes its own systems are immune to corruption and authoritarianism[^34][^45]. The Chinese model works for China, but may not translate elsewhere. BRICS represents legitimate aspirations but faces significant internal contradictions[^55][^58]. Russia’s response to Western provocation in Ukraine, while understandable strategically, employed the same imperial logic it claims to oppose[^84][^90].
Both sides are lying when they claim moral superiority. The West exports democracy while engineering coups and supporting dictators[^82][^85][^44]. The Global South claims sovereignty while some members invade neighbors or oppress minorities[^47][^45]. China preaches non-interference while building influence through economic leverage[^28][^47].
The truth, as usual, is messier than the propaganda. The world is moving toward multipolarity not because it’s ideal, but because hegemony is no longer sustainable[^23][^29][^32][^35]. The Global South is building alternatives not because they’re perfect, but because the existing system serves Western interests while delivering lectures about governance[^25][^34][^55]. The Ukrainian tragedy demonstrates what happens when great powers play geopolitical games without considering the consequences for the people caught in between[^82][^88][^92].
The ultimate winner is arithmetic. The West cannot indefinitely control a world order that serves 12% of humanity while the other 88% grows stronger, richer, and more organized[^29][^49]. The question isn’t whether the Western-led order will end—it’s whether the transition will be peaceful or catastrophic.
Given humanity’s track record, and the West’s talent for turning diplomatic problems into military catastrophes, betting on catastrophe remains the sensible choice.
References
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