2020 looks set to be a historic year and it’s not over yet. The coronavirus pandemic in combination with the international geopolitical developments put what we have known the West to be up until now, in a phase of apparent weakness and gradual decline.
If 1990 was the year that marked the end of the Cold War, 30 years later we would be talking about the gradual end of Western domination. The United States, the main pillar of the Western world, is shaken by internal political polarization that is getting worse by the day, with unforeseen consequences. The US can no longer inspire people with its ideals internally, let alone externally. The end of the Soviet Union came with the symbolic fall of the statues of communism in the countries of Eastern Europe and in the USSR itself. In the United States and Europe, the statues of a guilty past, colonialism and exploitation are being torn down, constituting a sign of defiance and a new ideology that is gradually being born on the occasion of the movement for the lives of the black people, BLM, which was finally united with the LGBTQ, Antifa etc.
The ideological confusion and internal weakness of the West is also reflected in the increasingly violent reaction of immigrants and especially the Islamic element, which seems to be largely radicalized and unable to fully integrate into open western societies. A look only at the events of the last few weeks, at the dead count and the violent riots, in England, Germany, Sweden, etc., but also in the past, is indicative of the gradual reduction of internal social cohesion.
The economic consequences of Covid19, with unemployment, the economic downturn and the health crisis, will intensify more and more, and as the people say, “where there is poverty there is grief.” For the United States alone, the world’s largest economy, recession is estimated at 17% of the GDP in the first half, with a record unemployment rate of 16% due to the virus. At the same time, the public debt reaches a record high of close to $ 26 trillion, it will exceed 120% of GDP and public debt at the end of 2020!! — while it is not ruled out that the financial crisis will indeed turn into a financial (stock market bubble), even though three trillion dollars have been provided by from the central banks, the FED, the IMF, G’20 etc.
At the geopolitical level, the US is pursuing continued hegemony without respect to the rights of the Allies which will lead further to the relaxation and eventually rupture of transatlantic ties. At the same time, you cannot be an enemy of Russia, China and impose political and electoral policies on your allies in the EU and NATO at a time when you are being unraveled internally.
Developments in Libya, the Middle East (with the forthcoming annexation of occupied Palestinian territories by Israel) but also the US relationship with China (5G, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Asia, equipment, tariffs, etc.) and China with Europe show that the international system is entering a phase of destabilization and a fragmentation of the international order. Simultaneously, a multipolar world is emerging de facto as well as the need to build a new collective security architecture, which the great powers and especially the West will have to accept, in order to avoid international relations entering into anarchy with unforeseen consequences for the whole planet.