History Repeats… Why Washington and London Crave a New Cold War

USA: American global power is in direct contradiction to the democratic needs of a multipolar planet.

The United States and its “junior partner” Britain this week expressed their desire for a new Cold War with Russia and China – albeit surreptitiously, and dressed up in virtuous language.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was speaking with his British counterpart Dominic Raab ahead of a G7 summit for foreign ministers held in London this week. The two diplomats called for G7 nations and partners to band together more tightly in order to confront China and Russia. To that end, delegates from Australia, India, South Korea, and South Africa were invited to attend the summit.

We should take a moment to note how provocative and gratuitous such an appeal is, if not downright criminal. Global security is being made a plaything for Western politics.

Next month, US President Joe Biden is slated to attend leaders’ summits of G7 and the American-led NATO military alliance, in London and Brussels respectively, during which it can be expected that he will further drum up the messianic message of confrontation.

Lamentably, the Americans and British are trying to fabricate a divided world, one where they are supposedly “upholding the rules-based order” and “democracy”. This is a theme that Washington has been pushing ever since President Biden assumed office nearly four months ago. We are told that the world is facing a historic competition between “democracy and autocracy” in which the Western nations are the presumed “good guys” in opposition to the “bad guys” designated as China and Russia.

This is inane and insane. It is nothing but crude perception management and the imposition of ludicrous conceptual curbs on an intelligent view of the world and the conduct of reasonable international relations. The upshot is to polarize nations into artificial camps of allegiance which ultimately benefit Washington, aided and abetted by its ever-loyal British sidekick. It is an attempt to create a new Cold War of “us and them”.

There is precedent for the present charade. In March 1946, less than a year after the historic victory against Nazi Germany which was largely won by the Soviet Union – as the commemorative events in Russia this weekend attest – the Western powers moved deliberately to alienate their former ally during the Second World War.

British wartime leader Winston Churchill delivered his famous (more accurately, “infamous”) “Iron Curtain” speech in the United States before an approving President Harry Truman and members of Congress. That speech marked the beginning of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. There then followed five decades of a nuclear arms race and the specter of mutually assured destruction. For what? So that the United States, assisted by Britain and NATO allies, could construct a world dominated by Washington’s hegemony.

Thirty years after that Cold War was supposed to have ended in 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, we are witnessing the same fervor in the West to re-create hostile divisions and animosity towards Moscow and Beijing. However, the US and its British cipher can’t very well publicly admit to pursuing that objective, otherwise, they would be called out for being aggressive and belligerent. Hence, they must dress up their objective with language about “democracy” and “autocracy”. In order to make their case, it is then necessary to demonize Russia and China. Western mainstream media are all too willing to propagate the pejorative narratives even though those disparaging depictions don’t stand up to scrutiny. The narratives include allegations of Russian aggression against Ukraine, or China’s alleged persecution of its Uighur population.

There are many reasons why the Western agenda is objectionable. Foremost, it is false and fraught with hypocrisy. Rules-based order and democracy? Upheld by the US and Britain, the two biggest rogue states which have waged criminal wars killing millions of people? Give us a break!

Moreover, such a divisive mentality is recklessly ramping up international tensions and fueling militarism. It is not uncommon now to hear American and British military leaders contemplating the possibility of a Hot War with either Russia or China. Such reprehensible insanity stems from the geopolitical choice in Washington and London to foment adversarial relations with Moscow and Beijing.

It should be borne in mind that Russia and China have repeatedly urged Western powers to jettison Cold War mentality and to enter into cooperative dialogue. In other words, the belligerence is all one way from Washington and its British bulldog.

The real challenge for the world is not “democracy versus autocracy”. It is the unipolar dominance sought by Washington versus a vision of a multipolar world based on cooperation and mutualism which Moscow and Beijing have consistently advocated.

The fact that Washington cannot abide the emergence of a multipolar world speaks of the nefarious nature of American capitalism and its imperative need for imperialism and militarism. American global power is in direct contradiction to the democratic needs of a multipolar planet.

President Joe Biden and his envoys maintain that they do not want an escalation in tensions with Russia or China. Washington says it does not want war. On an individual level, Biden and his aides may abhor such a disaster occurring. But in every other way, their political system is wired for war. The lunacy of antagonizing Russia and China and of demarcating the world into allies and enemies is the litmus test of their duplicitous rhetoric.