ABBEY MAKOE
The schism between the West and the global South, led by China and Russia, continues to grow wider as multilateralism, the glue that keeps global peace and stability intact, takes a battering.
Just in the aftermath of the US wrath against South Africa for hosting “Mosi II” – the joint naval exercises with Russia and China in February, it was announced this week that now, Russia and China are embarking on a three-nation joint military drill alongside Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been a pariah in the eyes of the West, with the US-led sanctions against Tehran predictably adopted by the European Union (EU). The Iran nuclear deal remains a sticky point since former US President Donald Trump unceremoniously tore the agreement apart, claiming the Obama administration before him had short-changed the US. The matter remains unresolved, and only Russia and China are the two countries that continue to support Iran in the matter.
The US has historically used the threat – perceived or real – that is posed by Iran’s pursuit of nuclear capability as the reason for no-limits support of apartheid Israel’s military, economy and political system in the volatile region.
Recently, SA was caught in America’s crosshairs when a Republican representative from Michigan, John James, tabled a Bill in Congress intended to review bilateral relations with SA. The Bill, if passed, will become a law that compels the US to punish SA for activities regarded as antagonistic towards Washington’s foreign policy objectives.
The Bill reads in part that “it is opposing the Republic of South Africa’s hosting of military exercises with the Republic of China and the Russian Federation, and calling on the Biden administration to conduct a thorough review of the United States-South Africa relationship”.
The recent joint naval exercises that SA hosted in KwaZulu-Natal with BRICS allies Russia and China were deemed “undesirable” by the US government. The SA government described the joint drills as a means of increasing coordination between the three countries. The Western media branded the drills as “controversial” because of it taking place from February 17 to 27 – they coincided with the first anniversary of the Ukraine war on February 24.
The White House also threw in their pennies’ worth, with spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre stating that Washington “has concerns about any country exercising with Russia” whilst Moscow continues with its so-called special military operation in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, SA had previously hosted similar joint exercises with the US, Germany and the UK without any qualms. In fact, at this very juncture, the US is participating in similar exercises in West Africa with allies of their choice without any threat or protestation from any country in the world. Such is Washington’s growing penchant for gung-ho diplomacy – “my way or the high way” seems to be their unwritten mantra.
As if that was not enough, the 2022 US “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act” further threatens strong actions that include economic sanctions and international isolation against any African state deemed to be too cosy with Moscow. The Act was particularly punted in the wake of the outbreak of the Ukraine war. In light of this Act, the sovereignty of African states matters very little or not at all.
According to the Act, none of the AU member-states should possess any longer the liberty to choose allies freely in the practice of bilateral or multilateral diplomatic relations. The US-led Western onslaught against Russia has failed to intimidate or coerce the global south into line with their geopolitical mission to isolate the Kremlin.
Hence the threats of legislation that blatantly undermines the UN multilateral system of international relations and cooperation continue to be fathomed by hawks in the US Congress. America’s imposition of unilateral sanctions against its geopolitical opponents is inherently emboldened by the EU’s Monkey-See, Monkey-Do diplomatic dealings with the rest of Africa and other parts of the world that are on the US’s list of rogue states.
The dramatic metamorphosis of Nato from a defensive organisation into an offensive military bloc hell-bent on expansion eastward to the borders with Russia is also the reflection of Washington’s stranglehold on both the bloc and the EU itself. This unmitigated US control over Europe is markedly made possible by the massive financial aid Washington pours into the coffers of the EU and Nato alike.
It thus requires no rocket science to reach the following conclusion: The entrenchment of the US hegemony rests on the back of a disjointed Europe that remains hugely under the influence and command of the traditional pro-US states in the west of the continent against their weaker counterparts from the former Soviet Union eastern European states that languish in poverty.
The latter-day dramatic rise of China as a nuclear and economic superpower coupled with the nuclear power that is Russia are the focal point of the West’s drive to dismantle and finally establish their much-vaunted “rules-based world order”. This means the US-led Western free-market and democracy-based rules.
However, even the notion of “democracy” is limited to the desires and designs of the West. For example, when the fiercely anti-Israel militant group Hamas won the democratic elections in Palestine, the US and - typically with the EU in tow – decried the voters’ choice and withdrew their subscription to the sacrosanct “will of people” principle, accusing Hamas of being unworthy to cooperate with.
Hamas remains on the books of the US and the EU as a terrorist organisation. The wanton oppression of the people of Palestine and the illegal occupation of their land by an illegitimate Israeli force is of neither importance nor consequence at all. Under the Western-led “rules-based world order”, the oppression of the peoples of Palestine is fast approaching a century with no let-off in sight and no notable international uproar amid a flurry of treacherous back-door and morally-bankrupt diplomatic shenanigans.
But back to the triumvirate of Russia, China and Iran, that is explicitly a vexatious conundrum across the conniving global north. This week, within days of growing speculation that Chinese President Xi Jinping could visit Moscow within a matter of days, the Chinese foreign ministry announced that together with Russia and Iran, the three nations would hold a joint five-day maritime exercise.
The three-nation war games in the Gulf of Oman have been dubbed “Security Bond-2023”. They are scheduled to take place from March 15 to 19. The Chinese Defence Ministry stated: “This exercise will help deepen the practical cooperation between the navies of the participating countries and further demonstrate the willingness and ability to jointly maintain maritime security.” The statement added: “It will inject positive energy into regional peace and stability.”
China’s guided missile-destroyer Nanning will take part, the Ministry said before adding: “The Security Bond-2023 will build on the drills held by China, Russia and Iran in 2019 and 2022.”
The joint exercise will take place in the strategically located Gulf of Oman, which forms the only entrance to the Persian Gulf from the Indian Ocean. It is bounded by Iran on the north, Oman on the south, and the United Arab Emirates on the west.
In 2019, the “Security Bond” took place in areas including the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, with Iran saying the objective was to counter terrorism and piracy. Last year, in 2022, the exercises took place in the Indian Ocean and involved the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite branch of Iran’s military.
In the wake of the announcement of the “Security Bond-2023” this week, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu described the cooperation, particularly between Moscow and Beijing, as follows: “It has reached a whole new level.” The partnership between the two nuclear powers, Shoigu said, “serves as one of the main deterrents to the aggressive activities of the United States and its henchmen in the Asia-Pacific region”.
In my book, the most disturbing trend in global relations is when Western nations bully any country that does not tow their line. For far too long, the US has taken advantage of the dollar as the global currency to behave dictatorially instead of pursuing multilateralism. The art of diplomacy is based on the fundamental ethos of engagement and negotiations.
Where countries fail to reach an agreement, they can always “agree to disagree”. In that way, there would be no need for World War I or World War II. Typically, humankind seems to have learnt little or nothing from history. Ukraine shows us that history could repeat itself with World War III. And that would be a nuclear war, where no one, and nothing, will survive - not even an ant. That’s geopolitics in a nutshell – strange, hence interesting.