Two former US diplomats have acknowledged that the vast majority of the global population does not support the West’s new cold war on Russia.
In a Newsweek op-ed titled “Nearly 90 Percent of the World Isn’t Following Us on Ukraine,” ex diplomats Michael Gfoeller and David H. Rundell wrote:
While the United States and its closest allies in Europe and Asia have imposed tough economic sanctions on Moscow, 87 percent of the world’s population has declined to follow us. Economic sanctions have united our adversaries in shared resistance. Less predictably, the outbreak of Cold War II, has also led countries that were once partners or non-aligned to become increasingly multi-aligned.
They acknowledged that new multilateral institutions like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS are growing, and offer new opportunities for countries in the Global South.
The diplomats also commented on the weakening of the Washington-controlled financial system and growing de-dollarization:
The dollar’s reserve currency status remains a pillar of the global economic order, but trust in that order has been damaged. Economic sanctions have weaponized parts of the international banking and insurance sectors including the SWIFT fund transfer system. Assets have been seized and commodity contracts canceled. Calls for de-dollarization have become louder. When Russia demanded energy payments in rubles, yuan or UAE Dirhams, China and India complied.
Many Asian economies are now being hit by both rising oil prices and the depreciation of their own currency against the dollar. As a result, they are expanding their use of bilateral currency swaps which allow them to trade among themselves in their own currencies. Eighty years ago the British pound lost its preeminent position among the world’s currencies. This is precisely what America’s adversaries are trying to do to the dollar and if the Saudis ever stop pricing oil in dollars, they may very well succeed.
Comment: The Saudi’s have already agreed to take Rubles rather than dollars.
Multipolarista has previously reported on the decline in US dollar hegemony.
The article by these two former US diplomats provides further support for the analysis Multipolarista published in March, detailing how “Many Global South countries blame US/NATO for Ukraine war, not Russia.”
The Wall Street Journal likewise acknowledged these inconvenient facts in a report in April titled “Anti-Russia Alliance Is Missing a Big Bloc: The Developing World.”
The mainstream corporate newspaper wrote, “Western leaders seeking to build a global coalition to isolate Russia over its war on Ukraine are facing pushback from the world’s largest developing nations, including the democracies of India, Brazil and South Africa.”
This reality has led some Western pundits to publish condescending, borderline racist editorials attacking the Global South.
“No event this century has done as much as the Ukraine war to expose the difference in outlook between the west and … the ‘rest,’” commented conservative Financial Times columnist Janan Ganesh in June.
He lamented that “Russia retains a net positive reputation in Egypt, Vietnam, India and other countries,” and that “Pro-Russia protests have flared up in west and central Africa.”
