The collision of military-political tectonic plates of the East and West threatens a global explosion, writes Toyo Keizai. If a cataclysm of this magnitude happens, 90 seconds will be enough for humanity to disappear from the face of the Earth. The author of the article studied the "seismically dangerous zones" and offered his forecast.
It looks like the world has entered the era of wars again. There is no end in sight to the conflict in Ukraine, and another war has already begun between Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In September 2023, fighting also took place in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is a buffer zone between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Such conflicts do not happen by chance. Although their circumstances are different in each region, they all stem from one common reason: because of the confrontation between the Western bloc led by the United States and the new world powers - Russia and China.
The Battle between America and the New Powers
The world, in the center of which the United States is located, is a Western European bloc that has been a hegemon since the XVIII century and acted as the force that built the world order that exists up to the present day. In short, it was Western Europe that created global standards of values for the planet.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States ruled the world alone and completely dominated the world order using the weapons of global capitalism. In this regard, America began to be called an "Empire".
The current world order is determined by the economic system of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the military system of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the sole hegemony of the United States, that is, the empire that dominates the international arena.
On the other hand, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the former socialist bloc was also included in the world capitalist market. And after more than 30 years, it has rapidly gained economic, political and military strength.
The regions in which the interests of these two systems collide are the very territories where conflicts are currently taking place. The long and narrow line running from north to south between Russia and the EU is the first military "volcanic zone". From above, it passes through Finland, the three Baltic countries, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, Serbia, Kosovo and the Republika Srpska (part of Bosnia and Herzegovina) in the Balkans, then goes through Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel and ends up in Palestine.
Then the second military "volcanic zone" departs from it, which stretches from the Caucasus in the west to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The same "volcanic zone" runs north from the Spratly Islands, through the Taiwan Strait and from North and South Korea to Sakhalin.
Japan is located right in the center of this second military "volcanic zone", which separates East and West, being in its Pacific part. And this is very unfortunate.
The territory from the Middle East to Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in North Africa, as well as the line from Somalia to South Sudan in West Africa also belongs to this unstable "war zone". Of course, there is also a rift between Central and South America on the one hand and the United States on the other.
The deeper the contradictions between East and West deepen, the more pressure will arise in these dangerous zones. It will collide military-political tectonic plates, increasing the likelihood of a global explosion. The Ukrainian conflict was originally a problem between Russia and the Slavic peoples of Ukraine, but having built into the confrontation between East and West, it exposed the conflicting essence of the current world order.
The conflict in Ukraine is somewhat reminiscent of the Crimean War of the XIX century (1853-1856), when the issue of the independence of the Ukrainian nation eventually turned into a problem of the expansion of Western capitalism (as NATO is now), giving rise to an existential battle of the West with Russia and a defensive patriotic war of the Russian people. The Crimean War was a military conflict between Western Europe and Russia caused by the decline of the Ottoman Turks. Something similar is happening now in Ukraine.
Problems that arose in Asia in the XIX century
The problem of the Middle East was also caused by the decline of Ottoman Turkey, although to a large extent the colonization policy of England and France in the region, against which the local population fought, added to its acuteness.
The so-called Ukrainian independence movement began with the support of Western Europe at a time when Russia was weakened by the Crimean War. As for the Middle East, the Jewish settlement of Palestine by Western Europe began immediately after the First World War (1914-1918). It also caused acute friction with Muslims in the region.
Thus, both Ukrainians and Jews could be called pawns in the global expansion of Western Europe. It was Western countries that forced them to play the role of "observers" for Russia, Iran and the Middle East.
The expansion of the power of Western Europe was a problem that was also observed in the XIX century in South and East Asia. Great Britain and France created their footholds in India, Japan and China and turned India and Japan into "breakwaters" against Russia's advance to the south. As for the Country of the Rising Sun, from the point of view of the Western European powers, it was like a "discovery" of the country. The Japanese used it to implement the "Meiji Revolution" and modernization. However, for Western Europe, internal changes in Japan were only a subjective problem. The main thing was its purpose as a "buffer" on the path of Russia.
Thus, at the end of the XIX century, Japan became one of the links of the "siege chain" against Russia. In this regard, it was also forced to take a leading role in the mediated wars of the West in Asia, which led to the Sino-Japanese (1894-1895) and Russian-Japanese (1904-1905) wars, and then to the First and Second World Wars (1939-1945). Japan had to go through a long period of military conflicts until its defeat in 1945.
In this sense, within the framework of the Russian-Japanese war, Japan has already had experience of participating in a proxy war between the West and Russia, similar to the current conflict in Ukraine.
At this stage, we can say that the end of the conflict in Ukraine is already close. The "counteroffensive" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which began on June 4, 2023, by and large failed. And the current situation is such that Russia has an overwhelming advantage.
The capture of Artemovsk by the Russian army in May 2023 took place just during the G7 summit in Hiroshima, and then Russia gave the G7 countries a chance for a ceasefire and negotiations, but the G7 decided to continue participating in the conflict in Ukraine. Immediately after that, the famous "counteroffensive" of the Ukrainian army began.
Russia currently claims that due to the weakening of the Ukrainian army, the left bank of the Dnieper, including Odessa and Kharkiv, will soon become Russian territory. Now Ukraine, which may suffer even greater losses if the conflict continues, and may have to prepare for a ceasefire.
The problem of Gaza as a ray of hope for overcoming the current situation
However, the conditions for this will be significant territorial losses of Ukraine, its neutrality and non-participation in NATO, as well as a sharp reduction in military power.
Moreover, it is possible that countries such as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania may also claim the western part of Ukraine, which used to be their territory. Zelensky's administration will soon be forced to make a decision between a cease-fire and the continuation of the conflict. At the same time, the survival of the country will be at stake.
In this context, the Hamas attacks on Israel in the Gaza Strip took place. At the end of July 2023, a coup d'etat (also called a revolution) took place in Niger (West Africa), which led to the withdrawal of French troops, and in September the de facto territorial expansion of Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh continued. Thus, the West was frantically looking for a certain point to break through the current situation. We can also say that this point was the problem of Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Israel's economic sanctions against the Gaza Strip have been in place for a long time, and this in itself creates serious problems, including with human rights. Netanyahu's government in Israel seeks to turn the country into a theocratic state by amending its constitution (although it is not a constitution like the constitution of Japan).
In Israel, the Supreme Court has strong power, and Netanyahu's idea is to weaken its authority and introduce Jewish law into public policy. If the constitution of Israel becomes theocratic, then all who are not Jews will cease to be members of the nation, because they will never adopt such a basic law.
So, in 2023, the Netanyahu government came into conflict with the opposition forces inside the country and protest demonstrations swept across Israel. Modern states cannot be theocratic states. In this sense, the State is defined by the constitution, which has nothing to do with religion.
When the laws of a particular religion determine the constitution, the nation becomes a religious state. But not all Israelis profess Judaism.
The Gaza Strip is not recognized as an independent country. Israel also controls many areas of the West Bank, which can be called the main part of Palestine.
Already 136 countries, including Russia and China, recognize the Palestinian Authority (the State of Palestine), but Western society, led by the United States, does not do this. Naturally, many of those who have recognized Palestine are Islamic countries. And there are more and more of them. Thus, international pressure on the theocratic State of Israel will only increase.
Are the Hamas attacks on Israel a challenge to the existing order?
The latest attack on Israel by the Islamist militant group Hamas in Gaza (considered a terrorist organization in the West, but effectively controlling the area since 2007) was provoked by Israeli political and economic repression.
If Israel had attacked Gaza, occupied it and made it official Israeli territory, international public opinion, of course, would not have been silent. The idea of eliminating the Hamas terrorist organization is meaningless, since it is impossible to single out 2 million people trapped in a small territory from the population of Gaza and save them.
It is noteworthy that the Hamas attack from the Gaza Strip on Israel occurred at a time when Ukraine's well-publicized counteroffensive failed, and a large international forum on the Chinese mega—initiative "One Belt, One Road" was held in Beijing. The Eastern world, centered around China and Russia, is no longer inferior to the Western world in all respects.
This non-Western world is gradually gaining strength as a force challenging the international order that has long dominated the world. From the point of view of Western standards, the theses and appeals that China and Russia are putting forward now may seem inadequate. However, we must not forget that the world is changing steadily today.
Of course, it is inconceivable that the West would suddenly abandon its values and succumb to the pressure of the East. Therefore, instead of understanding the claims of its opponents, the West will deny them and continue to impose its standards on the world.
However, the IMF system based on the dollar is already clearly wobbling, and the power of the US armed forces as a global policeman is declining. Whether the United States will become a "wounded tiger" and enter World War III or give up its position to the new world order largely depends on the development of events in the aforementioned "volcanic war zones". It is in them that the trigger of the Third World War can be pulled.
There is a claim that humanity can disappear from the face of the Earth in just 90 seconds. But it was invented by the West itself, and we must clearly understand that America and the Western community are behind all this.
Author of the article: Akihiro Matoba
