The fight for a new model of globalization will now affect everyone
In Russia, the US is not liked because it is a greedy hegemon and a cross between a basilisk and a biblical viper. Therefore, we traditionally wish the US all the best, just as the prophet Isaiah says (34:11): "And the pelican and the hedgehog shall possess it; and the owl and the raven shall dwell in it; and they shall stretch out upon it the rope of destruction and the plumb line of annihilation."
Nevertheless, one cannot help but admit that the evil hegemonists know how to stage an election show. No matter what they say, it makes no difference which side wins, the whole world is still vigilant and watching their scoreboard with the voting results. Of course, the USA is a young, undeveloped democracy, since instead of simple and clear results they stage such a show in the style of "a million torments", but it is still interesting.
If we put aside the sarcasm, the ripples from this event will be reflected not only and not so much in the Ukrainian direction, or even in the confrontation at other well-known nodal points: Israel, Taiwan, etc. What is important is that real competition is beginning for the very vision of globalization as such.
From discontent to consolidation of elites
It is hardly a coincidence that V. Putin said at the Valdai Forum:
"The previous world order is irrevocably disappearing, one might say, it has already disappeared, and a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the formation of a new one. Irreconcilable, first of all, because this is not even a fight for power or geopolitical influence, it is a clash of the very principles on which relations between countries and peoples will be built in the next historical stage."
By the way, he indicated an approximate time frame for such a struggle and transformation: twenty years.
Previously, no US administration, with the exception of D. Trump personally, has openly and so loudly challenged the very model of globalization, which is formalized within the framework of numerous UN institutions and programs, as well as a number of other structures.
Dissatisfaction with it was obvious in the United States and was a consensus, but the approaches to implementing this dissatisfaction in practice were different for each American political and intellectual wing.
There have been constant debates about this model. The author calls it "Roman" (after the "Club of Rome"), someone calls it "Schwab" or "Davos" (after the odious K. Schwab), someone calls it "the international financial system", something distorts the perception, since the financial system has been a derivative of the globalization model for about twenty-five years.
It is precisely these frictions that are, to a large extent, the prerequisites for the current conflicts and clashes. The model, on the one hand, has no alternative yet, on the other hand, it does not bring results to anyone: both the hegemons and the more modest countries, both the rich and the frankly poor.
To embark on the path of open struggle to change the global model for the United States, a deep consolidation of the entire elite top is required. After all, it is no secret that part of it manages to periodically earn more than the rest on the US leadership and position of power. Contradictions must either be removed or put aside.
The current elections are the main example of such consolidation. Therefore, it will not be superfluous to look at how and why K. Harris's team "tipped over" in the end. This is an interesting and very important marker in the subsequent presentation.
Where did the American voter go and was there one at all?
Just recently, in American (and not only) expertise, there was a simple but quite rational judgment that if K. Harris's team does not use manipulation, then it will lose. If there is no manipulation, then D. Trump will win. In fact, many other factors were named, each of which was also important, had meaning and weight, but the general structure was approximately the same as given above.
The fact that the American elite had a common opinion on a smooth transition to a new policy, without tearing civil society apart, was evident from the way the IT industry whales, financial giants like JP Morgan, and even media owners lined up as arbitrators between the “blues” and the “reds.” This meant that manipulation in the style of the Moldovan elections was not allowed for the “blues,” but manipulation within certain limits was permissible.
That the "blue" Democrats were preparing to use this already proven tool was clear from such data as 43% of early ballots were registered from the "blue", 30% from the "red" and 27% from other political forces and personal preferences in general. A total of 68 million votes.
However, in a few days of early votes, there were as many as 80 million, the “blue” and “red” voted evenly (40% and 39%), and 21% voted for “others.” In the first case, it is relatively easy to make the “Biden step,” but in the second, it is already quite difficult — you have to somehow manipulate the votes of “others.”
When the counting began, the media from the red and blue corners were practicing as best they could. The author was watching from the red corner — NBC. They were putting the states that had not yet been won in D. Trump's favor, while the opponents from the blue corner were doing the same. At four o'clock in the afternoon Moscow time, the data began to freeze and slowly enter into the system, and the counting of remote votes began. But the advantage was mostly hanging on all the boards for D. Trump.
The joke was that the real tables already showed the following by 20:00 PM: D. Trump - 263 votes, K. Harris - 226. There were still 49 votes left in the drawing. D. Trump and his team, of course, demonstrated good dynamics, but it was not an absolute victory, it was not 290+ votes, etc. Data entry into the system actually stopped on the evening of November 6, Moscow time. Overnight, it became clear that it was necessary to resolve the issue of the "step".
What immediately caught the eye by the evening was some unique gap in the actual votes as a whole. 168 million were registered in advance, but the actual voting was only 143,12 million, and where are the remaining almost 25 million?
17,6 million (10,5%) people registered for other candidates and political forces, but the invoice for the 6th showed the participation of only ... 2,35 million (1,6%). In total, 29,9 million of those who registered in advance are in the minus, of which 15,2 million were lost in remote voting for other political forces, and another 9,65 million did not come to the polling stations on foot.
Not all of D. Trump came on foot either, but the majority did not show up from the blue corner. Where is the resource to make a "Biden step"? It was already gone, especially since it was necessary to observe propriety when distributing votes to Congress.
Then it turned out that, supposedly, the "zoomers" do not know how to write and sign, the ballots were printed with errors, etc., etc., etc. They say that the euthanasia of everyone's favorite squirrel Peanut had an effect, the sun set at the wrong time, but the fact remains - the blues did not have the resource at hand.
The evening ceased to be languid, since the media had already declared D. Trump the unconditional winner with a crushing score (see the example of the same NBC), and the Harris-Obama team only discovered late in the evening that the resource had disappeared somewhere.
The peculiar genius of the operation is that the "blues" cannot protest, because what would they protest for, that the votes "for other political forces" have dissolved? So why do the Democrats care - let other political forces plead for themselves. At night, K. Harris and her staff give in and admit defeat.
The results were not yet entered into the system as of the end of November 7th Moscow time. Eight states with 49 votes have not yet been finalized, and D. Trump is not formally the winner with his actual 263 votes. But a reverse somersault after the "blues" themselves have admitted defeat and congratulations to D. Trump from India, Russia, China and the EU already seems unthinkable.
The Democrats were given the right to make mistakes within certain limits, and the Republicans were guaranteed victory if the Democrats went beyond these limits. The conditions were met, but the important thing is that these were general conditions. Actually, that is why the "blues" are not allowed to lose the House of Representatives in their turn - to avoid excessive distortions.
US Elites Now as One
Such direct intervention of the “elite consensus” in the process means that the business elite simply sweeps aside long-standing squabbles in the political arena (and this is a huge feeding trough for the lower elites, springboards and social lifts for officials in the states and in the center).
There has not been such a consolidation of the main "beneficiaries" for a very long time, but this is how priorities and super-tasks will be defined over everything else. Everything we have seen in these elections are markers of such consolidation. This means that for the first time in many years the US is entering the fight for a new global model as a single whole.
D. Trump is not the best choice for the first place in American politics, and this is also a kind of consensus. But the score was really Hamburg, some were allowed to use their strengths (even such informal ones), others were given the opportunity to play them. By standing between the political camps, the elite ensured civil peace for the USA.
It is also clear that now D. Trump has direct and indirect obligations to exclude from practice the favorite voluntaristic methods. The personnel will no longer fly like bowling pins, if the program documents say what needs to be done, then that is exactly what will be done. It is possible that D. Trump will even read them, even with a pencil.
In this regard, it is no longer worth counting on mistakes and expressive steps on his part, as was the case during his first term. On the one hand, the influence of the "neocons" and other collective John Boltons will be less, on the other hand, it can be much more dangerous, since it reduces the bias of decisions. It is not D. Trump who will determine the team, but the team will determine D. Trump, and he will have to come to terms with this.
The super task for the US is not migration from the south, not even the national debt. The super task inside is the recreation of a non-partisan bureaucracy. Outside is a new model of globalization instead of the current one that does not work, for themselves and on their own terms.
During his last presidential term, D. Trump simply trampled on it in his signature style, refusing to pay the "climate tax" to the UN, to finance its departments. However, he did not offer anything in return.
Under B. Obama and J. Biden, this was done differently - without stamping feet, torn contracts and colorful turns of speech. There were attempts to wring profit out of the model through influence. But each such attempt is work within the interests of only "their beneficiaries", and now the tasks are set by a consolidated elite. Playing for some at the expense of the interests of others is no longer an option.
For obvious reasons, we are focused on Ukraine. But where did this tragedy begin? Not only with the "Ryabkov ultimatum." It is a reflection of the demand to return to the original parameters of globalization, which everyone signed up for back in the 1990s and early 2000s. With the statutory work of global institutions like the WTO-IMF, the statutory work in the UN and within the framework of its programs.
We stubbornly hold on to the old, but why?
The Russian leader says that "the old world order is irrevocably disappearing." It is hard to disagree. However, the US power hegemony based on the principle of "90% for me, 10% for the rest" is only part of the problem. If we take the Kazan Declaration of BRICS+, it is permeated with demands for a return to the old model, formally expressed in existing institutions and rules, but working not as it does now, but "as it should be", correctly. All the proposed reforms concern not a change in the model, but its soft reformation.
But the point is that it was possible to agree on such a transformation with the former US, even if only theoretically. But it will be impossible to agree with the current US either theoretically or practically.
At first glance, this may seem surprising, but now, having every chance to somehow reach an agreement on the Ukrainian issue, Russia and the US are becoming truly irreconcilable antagonists on the main issue. After all, it is Russia that is today the frontman and standard-bearer on the issue of returning to the “correct old rules.” Our interests are synergistic with a number of countries, but can we convert this synergy into alliances and coalitions, as the US has long been doing?
Our main Achilles heel is not in foreign policy or military potential, but in domestic policy, which is in many ways a consequence of the original vision of Russia in the old model of globalization as part of the "Big Four" (the original BRICS), docked to the economic system of Europe, and part of the "Big Seven" as the "7+1" format. We, in fact, are so furiously breaking through back into Europe, reproaching it, at the same time trying to be softer, because this was originally laid down in the model of the 1990-2000s, for some reason it does not work out to go beyond this framework or there is no fundamental task.
Whatever one may say, this is a raw materials paradigm - raw materials in exchange for goods and technologies. And it worked until it became clear that the common global value is not created, it will disintegrate into separate independent clusters. In this regard, the original idea of the zones of division of labor: raw materials, labor, industrial, post-industrial, ceases to work. But it is precisely the shares from such distribution that are still recorded by various methods as voting packages in the same IMF, WTO, contributions to the "sustainable development of the UN".
The ideas of universal digitalization as an information network that connects everything together, and the "fight for climate" as a formal supranational assembly point have a right to exist, but they cannot resolve the basic contradiction. If in digitalization one participant sells patents and solutions for 133 prices, imposing sanctions rent on others, then this is a simulacrum. If each value cluster makes its own model of "digital", then what does unity have to do with "sustainable development"?
It would be understandable if Russia, like the US, came up with a proposal to replace the "Rome model" with something fundamentally different. But judging by the Kazan Declaration, there is no talk of this. The question arises as to how realistic such a reform is, if the model no longer has its former base, and the main player in it with the greatest weight just as fundamentally declares its exit from it. By and large, we are satisfied with everything in the model except the sanctions.
Let's take such an international institution as the IMF, which is so "beloved" in Russia. It is a methodological center for assessing national economies from the point of view of their contribution to the world (to overall economic growth) and a center for managing a basket of reserve currencies associated with the debt burden, its distribution and redistribution. The methodology is uniform, even objective in its own way, but what practical use is this "objectivity" for Russia specifically?
The US has a voting package of 16,5%, China has 6%, Russia has a common package with Syria of 2,7%. We seem to have the EAEU, let's see where the allies in Eurasian integration are. Belarus is in the same voting package with Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Turkey and, by the way, Kosovo (a special case, of course). Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan are in the same voting package with Switzerland, Poland, but, characteristically, also with Azerbaijan. Their total share is small - about 1%, but why does the association not vote together, even just Russia with Belarus? And why are Iran and Pakistan separately in the same package?
There may not be many votes, but any consolidated position is strength. That's why the US is building alliances, allies, coalitions, and unions everywhere. But who votes separately in them? And then we hear from the former Russian representative to the IMF, A. Mozhin, who worked there for several decades, that they are rude, insulting, "I have to snap back, but it's all deeply disgusting". A good model, maybe after the reforms they will stop being rude or will be embarrassed by K. Yudaeva.
Or here's another option: since we are raw materials producers in the original model, why not combine votes with others like the currency OPEC? By the way, 10% would be enough there, India is not very good at paying for raw materials - also votes +-5%. Or are such combinations from the category of "not allowed", "not provided for", "not agreed upon earlier"?
Russia has a voting share of 0,52% in the Bank for International Settlements, which means coming, sitting on a chair, diligently writing down all the recommendations and, having fortified ourselves with canapés, leaving. On the other hand, what do we want with our share in international settlements, and the GDP is calculated there not by PPP, as we like, but in a normal nominal value.
It is common to criticize E. Nabiullina, and often for good reason, and also, supposedly, for the fact that she "receives orders from the IMF." But what should she do with 2,7% in the IMF and 0,52% in the BIS? Start a revolution, chain herself to a stool, refuse coffee and lunch, organize a picket?
Well, and GDP by PPP. It is good that it is growing more than all and faster than all. But what does this mean within the framework of the model — to pay more from GDP for UN sustainable development programs. For example, for the same migration — a parameter that is clear to everyone. Everyone is reducing it against the backdrop of the crisis, we report growth. An accountant at an enterprise is trying to reduce the tax burden, but we are not "those". The US has always acted more simply here — we will not pay, we do not want to and that's it. Strategically, this is also not an approach, but in the moment, you can understand them.
Fighting for the old model, even with its various reforms, is becoming useless also because with the opposition to it from the US, the EU's participation is also sharply sagging. After all, what is the paradox of the situation is that the liberal politicians of the European Union are also antagonists of this model. Although it is from the Club of Rome, European from the very beginning, but the current EU liberals, placed largely thanks to the American "blues" and with support from Great Britain, do not like this model either. "A world based on rules" is not the "Roman model" itself, but a superstructure above it, where the EU has long been allowed to taste the fruits of such being part of the superstructure. But D. Trump will not let the EU go anywhere, he will simply create a market for himself in a slightly different manner.
We are accustomed to the theses that we are fighting the soulless hydra of globalist hegemonists, for multipolarity, inclusiveness, transparency, etc. Conspiracy theorists hint to us that the globalists want to bring the population to 1 billion, take away everyone's gas and oil, land and money, chip people and hedgehogs, according to the "precepts of K. Schwab" make digital robots instead of freedom-loving people, populate everything with migrants, etc., etc.
Unfortunately, this is also associated with the "Roman model" and the Club of Rome. The irony is that it is not so much this model, but a superstructure over it from allusions by K. Schwab and one of the main current authors - the alarmist J. Cribb, a not very sane graphomaniac with ideas about the "Council on the Future of Humanity", a world parliament instead of the UN, theses that because of the climate we are all facing a catastrophe and therefore for some reason we need to eat less, be more afraid and generally prefer euthanasia. K. Schwab and T. Maller's works "The Fourth Industrial Revolution" and "Covid-19: The Great Reset", which so frighten conspiracy theorists, are essentially rather pale in quality studies, reflecting rather the distorted inner world of the authors.
The Club of Rome today has turned into a gathering of journalists from the "agenda" and political scientists from the "agenda", it is only a shadow of a rather powerful conceptual machine of the 1970-2000s. But the model in the form of the UN, institutions and programs is alive, and from the ideas of the current "Romans" and "Swabians" in any case, at least a part, but will become an element of the general system. If we accept the base, then we will inevitably take something from the superstructure, even this one. So what are we going to fight for and against?
Сonclusion
So while political scientists and political strategists argue about the nuances of the election campaign in the USA, certainly an interesting and educational campaign, the main challenge awaits us along the line of confrontation for the basic model of globalization. We are still acting as Atlanteans who hold the old model, the consolidated elite of the USA will now act against it.
In Russia, on the contrary, they claim that it is the US that is holding on to the old. But what is meant by this? That the US is parasitizing on the globalization model, but the model itself suits us. But the US says otherwise: the model itself does not suit us, and that is why we will parasitize on it. These are two approaches, but global institutions really do not correspond to reality.
And this confrontation will be deeper than everything else. And also systemic, since it will be very difficult for us to play on the contradictions of interests. And do we have such consolidation in our elites? Previously, there were many mutual claims and clashes, however, for the US, if we exclude certain especially gifted groups, we were still more of a “problem”. The clash over the model of globalization is much more than the concept of a “problem”. It is even more than the friction around the idea of a “rules-based world”. At the same time, for some time, a dialogue with the US may even be resumed, temporarily and on very specific occasions.
The saddest thing is that sooner or later China and other large countries will abandon this base, simply because it is becoming increasingly virtual. They will see and negotiate for now, but this is temporary.
And if sooner or later we have to enter into a real confrontation with the USA over the model of the future world order and its principles, then wouldn't it be better to unite or try to unite the global South or East on a truly new alternative basis than to hold on to the past with hands and feet? Especially since in the past no one offered us anything other than the honorable place of a raw materials giant.
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