50-100 years is quite a long time; it's already happening at an accelerating rate. Washington is rapidly losing its foothold in Latin America and SEA, France is losing West Africa. The West is in an unprecedented crisis right now and will be unable to compete with the next gen foreign policies coming out of China, Russia, and the many other "enemy states".
China is in the midst of a demographic collapse, and will be struggling with internal issues for decades, they're not going to be a threat. Russia is isolated and may lose most of their energy export revenues. They're not going to be a threat to anyone but their immediate neighbours.
But globalization, that has been enabled by the American military, may be coming to an end. The US armed forces are retooling in a way less geared to policing global merchant shipping. This signals a likely return to more local trade, controlled by regional powers.
We have been lucky to live in the richest, most prosperous era of human history. But the party seems to be winding down, and most of us and our heirs, will be living more modest lives, with reduced travel, diversity of goods, diet, and wealth.
If you think the 20th century was the century of decolonization, you haven't dug very deep.
The Congo is a good example. One year after achieving independence in 1960, its sovereign leader was assassinated and replaced with neocolonial puppets. In the last 60 years, that "independent" country has been brutally exploited by foreign profiteers. A microcosm of the global south during the 20th century.
The DRC is not remotely in any way a colonial vassal.
It's laughable to suggest they could be exploited by 'Colonial Powers' when they can't even get electricity where they need it.
'Outside Force' for exploitation, sure, but it's always been thus.
'Western Influence' - sure, but mostly in the name of 'stability'.
The 'West' can really only benefit from these places when they are stable enough to start to form contracts for export, which most of these places are not. Those that are, and ruled by dictators, fine, as long as it's 'stable' and as a state they play well.
Otherwise, the 'big prize' is when these places are stable enough that they have 'consumers' who can 'consume' iPhones and KFC.
How many iPhones exported to DNC?
How many iPhones can they buy when it's total rampant murder and chaos?
How many can they buy when the are stable, have an industrial base, have banking, laws etc?
Which situation do you think Apple, Google, Amazon, Disney prefer?
The "post-Washingtion consensus" is too fragmented to have any real coordinated actions. BRICS is not some united force willing to work together. BRICS was meant for economies of similar scale to work together. China is already more than three times the size of the other 4 combined.The only thing that aligns all 5 now is generally anti-americanism which isn't much of a unifying force. China and India continue to worsen ties and Russia has become a bit of a pariah. Brazil and South Africa are too far apart from the rest for any meaningful cooperation.
Yes because they have nothing to gain from sanctioning Russia. But they also have virtually no trade with it so whether they sanctioned it or not means nothing. Russia trades mostly with Europe and China, not BRICS. And the sanctions have already clearly dug in.
Brownie points mean less than nothing. Nations do not upon brownie points, just their self interests. If Brazil sanctioned Russia it would mean nothing and Washington would see it as such.
> Brownie points mean less than nothing. Nations do not upon brownie points, just their self interests.
Except when you behave like this, you end up like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi -- lynched while their country is destroyed. "Brownie points" with the unipolar superpower is absolutely meaningful as long as they maintain that position. Which they don't anymore, circa 2020 or so.
Exactly. You need to be either neutral or favorable towards the superpower. If you are not, and you seek national interests at the expense of Washington's interests (e.g. nationalizing resources, competing with the USD), you will get wrecked.
So we agree? Most nations have stayed neutral or sided against Russia. The only nations that side with Russia are Syria, Eritrea, North Korea, and Belarus. None of them have either the economy or military to do even the small amount except for Belarus. And Lukashenko knows sending his troops to Ukraine makes him vulnerable to his citizens and Russia at the same time. His military is the only thing stopping the people or Putin from kicking him out.
