By Independent News Roundup
1. How do you assess the current state of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, considering the military exhaustion, political fatigue in the West, and the repositioning of actors such as Hungary, Poland, or Turkey? Are we facing a prolonged war of attrition, or do you foresee a turning point that could redefine the European security architecture?
The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine is still in its attritional phase, which Trump envisages intensifying as a result of mid-October’s energy sanctions that he expects will eventually harm the Kremlin’s finances. Trump also won’t coerce Zelensky into any concessions for satisfying Putin’s demands for peace. Instead, the US is now selling arms to NATO at full price for indirect transfer to Ukraine, thus profiting from the conflict. The longer that it rages, the stronger the US’ hold over the EU becomes.
Although the conflict has inflicted economic and financial damage on the bloc, there’s enough elite support to keep it going. Some members of the public aren’t pleased, but they lack the power to change things. There haven’t been populist street revolutions like some predicted, and any rowdy protests that descend into riots would likely be dispersed by the security forces before they have a chance to storm parliament. Their armed forces and NATO wouldn’t accept a “revolutionary government” anyhow.
There are two realistic scenarios for ending the conflict: 1) Russia achieves a major breakthrough along the front that coerces Ukraine into complying with its demands for peace, potentially up to its maximum ones (e.g. demilitarization and denazification, the latter of which entails legal and political changes); or 2) Russia compromises on some of its maximum goals upon obtaining full control over at least the rest of Donbass. There’s no clear timeframe for when either might materialize but one of them likely will.
2. To what extent does the involvement of the United States and the European Union relate to a global containment strategy against Russia, or to divergent interests within the Atlantic bloc? Do you believe that transatlantic cohesion will hold, or are we beginning to see signs of a geopolitical fracture between Washington and Brussels?
Some have argued that the US “baited” Russia into intervening in Ukraine in order to create the pretext for waging what’s since become a war of attrition that also served to restore the US’ hitherto declining hegemony over the EU. With few exceptions like Hungary and now Slovakia, the EU has marched in lockstep with the US on this conflict even at the expense of its economic, financial, and energy interests. This was due to its elite being of like-mind on the perceived need to contain Russia.
This perception is popular among the liberal-globalists who lead the EU and many of its countries, while other more nationalist ones in Central & Eastern Europe hate Russia for historical reasons. While some strain has since developed between members of the EU as well as between the EU and the US, it’s thus far proven manageable. As proof of this, the EU subordinated itself to the US through summer’s lopsided trade deal and NATO is now buying arms from the US at full price before donating them to Ukraine.
These developments suggest that transatlantic cohesion will hold contrary to some’s predictions unless something unexpected happens of course. Any significant escalation in the conflict (e.g. a major Russian breakthrough, a nuclear-related incident, and/or direct NATO-Russian hostilities initiated by one of the bloc’s members) could offset this scenario, however, by dividing everyone into two camps: those who want to compromise for peace and those who want to escalate at the risk of World War III.
3. How do you assess the future of US policy with regard to: 1) the political and humanitarian conflict in Venezuela; 2) diplomatic tensions with Colombia; and 3) the commercial and migratory relationship with Mexico?
Reports circulated in September that the US’ draft National Security Strategy, which hasn’t yet been officially unveiled at the time of writing, prioritized the Western Hemisphere over Afro-Eurasia. There might be some truth to this due to the escalation of US military involvement there since then. The US’ military buildup in the Caribbean, now known as “Operation Southern Spear”, builds upon strikes against suspected narco-terrorists and could expand them to mainland Venezuela and/or Colombia.
Trump is clearly relying on the use of force, limited for now, for coercing unclear concessions from regional countries on this pretext. While this could be leveraged to combat illegal immigration and drug trafficking, which are often interconnected, it might also be aimed at pursuing regime change against socialist countries like Venezuela and even Cuba as well as benefits for US energy companies. Success on any of these fronts would restore the US’ hitherto declining hegemony in the hemisphere.
The goal is to build “Fortress America”, which is the plan for ensuring that the US can survive and even thrive if it’s ever cut off from the Eastern Hemisphere or withdraws from it by maximally exploiting the Western one’s resources, markets, and labor. It’s a modern version of the Monroe Doctrine that also aims to combine three related civilizations – North American, Ibero-American, and Caribbean —into a US-led composite one that could then become a mega-pole in the emerging multipolar world order.
4. How do you see the evolution of the trade and technology war between the United States and China, and what concrete implications does it have for Latin America and Africa in terms of infrastructure, investment, digital sovereignty, and political autonomy? Are we witnessing a revival of the old center–periphery scheme, or the emergence of a new multipolar model offering real room for maneuver to the countries of the Global South?
The Sino-US systemic rivalry over the contours of the emerging Multipolar World Order is very tech-centric given the ongoing “Fourth Industrial Revolution”/“Great Reset” (4IR/GR), which predates COVID but was greatly accelerated by it. The Global South has to choose, both on a country-by-country and person-by-person basis, between the American and Chinese tech ecosystems. Political, economic, and strategic considerations, especially at the state level, will determine their choice.
Granting tech contracts and opening one’s market to their products will ingratiate countries more with one or the other. Balancing is possible but one of them, most likely the US in many cases, will probably pressure them to focus only on their tech ecosystem. Economic considerations will play a huge role in this, while the strategic ones relate to how they believe the Big Data that’ll be obtained from their populations will be used, whether for marketing (China’s expertise) or meddling (the US’ expertise).
Big Data, AI, and the Internet of Things define the 4IR/GR, and without indigenous tech capabilities, most countries will be compelled to cede these elements of their “tech sovereignty” to others, namely China and/or the US. A truly sovereign technological industry and the bolstered socio-economic and political security that this results in is therefore almost impossible for most to ever achieve. The US envisages dominating Ibero-America’s and the Caribbean’s tech sphere as part of its “Fortress America” strategy.
5. In light of the UN’s inaction or limitations regarding conflicts such as Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, or the massive migratory crises, do you think we are facing a structural erosion of the multilateral system, or a reconfiguration of its power balances? What kind of international architecture could emerge from this apparent collapse of the post-1945 order?
In practical terms, the UN’s primary role is to function as a tiered forum among the five victors of World War II in the Security Council (whose permanent number of seats might one day expand to be more representative of geopolitical changes since the UN’s inception), the rest of the world, and between these two tiers. The UNSC deadlock of recent decades is the natural outcome of its two de facto blocs’ (the West’s and what can now be called the Sino-Russo Entente’s) increasingly divergent interests.
This led to that elite global body losing its reputation as a credible enforcement mechanism for maintaining compliance with international law, the interpretation of which varies depending on each bloc’s interests in any given context, and “coalitions of the willing” and even unilateral action following. Examples respectively include the US’ War in Iraq and Russia’s special operation in Ukraine. Even if there were more permanent UNSC members, this will only reinforce the aforesaid dynamic, not change it.
The future of Global Governance is therefore expected to be more regional in the sense of regional leaders, especially civilization-states (those that left lasting socio-political legacies on their neighbors over the centuries), establishing spheres of influence. The regional core will then seek to manage affairs within its sphere, which will be successful if its members’ participation is supported by their populations (i.e. popular and not coerced) and complex economic interdependence binds them closely together.
The interview was originally published in Spanish at Si Que Se Puede under the title “Geopolítica sin ilusiones: Andrew Korybko y las nuevas coordenadas del poder global”.
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