Justin Podur — Why It’s So Hard for Most Countries to be Economically Independent from the West

The structures of the global economy present challenges to any country or political party that wants to try to break out of U.S. hegemony. Even for countries as big and with as much potential as Brazil or Egypt, countries that have experienced waves of relative independence, the inertia of these economic structures helps send them back into old patterns of extraction and debt. In this moment of right-wing resurgence it is hard to imagine political movements arising with plans to push off the weight of the economic past. But that weight cannot be ignored.

Colonialism and path dependence. I would say that this is one of a number of factors. Whether they can be reduced to a single factor or even a few factors remains to be seen. However, this seems to be one of the key factors.

The post focuses on Brazil.

Naked Capitalism
Why It’s So Hard for Most Countries to be Economically Independent from the West

Justin Podur | Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, Canada

RT — Serbia's president tells RT a 'Pandora's box' was opened when EU recognized Kosovo, not by attempt to mend ties

"How can we open a Pandora’s Box?! Who opened this Pandora’s Box in 2008 having accepted, acknowledged and recognized the unilaterally proclaimed independence of Kosovo?!" Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze.

This has been as influential in influencing the world order as the expansion of NATO toward the borders of Russia and the coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine, a coup that was immediately ratified by the West. But Kosovo was arguably the beginning of the break down of the post-WWII (neo)liberal world order. 

The world has been witnessing the only beginning stages of the turmoil involved in the unfolding of a new world order that reduces the influence of the West to its proportional size, replacing the outsized role it has played for half a millennium. The drums of war are beating louder.

RT
Serbia's president tells RT a 'Pandora's box' was opened when EU recognized Kosovo, not by attempt to mend ties

Ramanan — Pankaj Mishra – The Mask That It Wears

"It" is the so-called liberal world order that anything but.

The Case for Concerted Action
Pankaj Mishra – The Mask That It Wears
V. Ramanan

Paul Grenier — Russia, America, and the Courage to Converse

Despite its claims to “open-ness,” liberalism in its late modern Western form becomes self-contained to the point of closure. Allied with such power constructs as the “liberal world order,” globalization (a word that came into common usage only after the fall of the Soviet Union) tends towards the homogenization of political space and the radical constriction of pluralism.

Notice a trend toward closure? It's affected conventional economics in addition to politics. Plurism, the hallmark of liberalism, is over — dead and buried.

The American Conservative
Russia, America, and the Courage to Converse

Paul Grenier, founder of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy

RT — Europe must defend ‘liberal world order,’ limit Chinese & Russian influence – German minister

Europe should do more as a guardian of "liberal world order" because the US is starting to take a "skeptical" view of that role, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said, adding that China and Russia must be limited in their influence.

"If the United States is starting to take a skeptical view of its role as the guardian of global order – and we've already seen hints of this in recent years – then I would see this as a call to action directed at Europe, including Germany," Schaeuble said in a speech at the American Academy in Berlin, a think tank that promotes US-German ties.

He went on to state that China and Russia should not be allowed to step up to the plate when it comes to "filling the gaps left by the US."

“I doubt whether the United States truly believes that the world order would be equally sound if China or Russia were to fill the gaps left by the US, and if China and Russia were simply given a free hand to dominate the spheres of influence that they have defined for themselves,” Schaeuble said during the Tuesday speech.

“That would be the end of our liberal world order. This order is still the best of all possible worlds [and] it does not matter if you look at it from ethical, political or economic [points of view]. And we want this order to keep moving forward, or at least not see it weakened," he continued.

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously slammed Washington in 2015 for "attempts to create a unipolar world," implying that the US is attempting to dominate world affairs.

Are Western leaders gearing up for war to preserve the Western hegemony that has dominated the world beginning in 16th century? Or is the Wolfgang Schaüble talking out of the wrong hole again?

WTF gives the West the right to determine the world order? Is that liberal?

Another of the paradoxes of liberalism with paternalism masquerding as liberalism.

RT
Europe must defend ‘liberal world order,’ limit Chinese & Russian influence – German minister

Leslie H. Gelb — Countering the Neocon Comeback

Uh-oh.

Democracy — A Journal of Ideas
Countering the Neocon Comeback
Leslie H. Gelb | President Emeritus and Board Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations