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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic
The 2018 Skripal Attack Case
The current orchestrated Western policy of total Russophobia, directed by Collective West, can be recorded to start by the British Cabinet of Theresa May – the focal servant-dog to US global imperialism, followed by the creation of the War Cabinet of the US President Donald Trump (first administration), was a nothing else than a jumping to the new stage of the post-WWII Cold War (2.0) which was originally started (1.0) by the US and never was over as its main task of total economic, political, and financial subordination or/and occupation of Russia still is not realized. The Russian, at that time just diplomatic, an exodus from the Western jaw was a “punishment for Russia’s alleged nerve gas poisoning of a former Russian/MI6 double-agent, Sergei Skripal (66) and his daughter Yulia (33), who was visiting her father from Moscow”¹ (March, 2018).
However, it was quite obvious that “blaming Russia for Skripal attack is similar to
‘Jews poisoning our wells’ in the Middle Ages”.² In other words, the 2018 Skripal Attack Case was just another Western “false flag” in international relations with a very precise geopolitical purpose – to continue the Cold War 1.0 against revived post-Yeltsin’s Russia. We have to remember that originally American administration started the Cold War 1.0 as it was “the Truman administration (1945−1953) used the myth of Soviet expansionism to mask the nature of American foreign policy, which included the creation of a global system to advance the interests of American capitalism”.³ However, the current Western virus of total Russophobia (the Cold War 2.0) is a natural continuation of historical Western anti-Russian policy, which looked like to be over with the peaceful dismemberment of the USSR in 1989−1991.
S. P. Huntington’s Warnings and International Relations (IR)
„...that the philosophy of economic and political liberalism has triumphed throughout the world, ending the contest between market democracies and centrally planned governance“.¹⁴ |
Therefore, after the formal ending of the Cold War 1.0 in 1989/1990, the fundamental Western global geopolitical project was The West and The Rest, according to which the rest of the world was obliged to accept all fundamental Western values and norms according to the Hegemonic Stability Theory of a unipolar system of the world security.¹⁵ Nevertheless, behind such doctrinal unilateralism as a project of the US hegemony in global governance in the new century clearly stands the unipolar hegemonic concept of a Pax Americana, but with Russia and China as the crucial opponents to it.
Stability Theories and IR
According to the Hegemonic Stability Theory, a global peace can occur only when one hegemonic center of power (state) acquires enough power to deter all other expansionist and imperialistic ambitions and intentions. The theory is based on a presumption that the concentration of (hyper) power will reduce the chances of a classical world war (but not and local confrontations) as it allows a single hyperpower to maintain peace and manage the system of international relations between the states.¹⁶ Examples of ex-Pax Romana and Pax-Britannica clearly offered support by the American hegemons for an imperialistic idea that (the US-led) unipolarity will bring global peace and, henceforth, inspired the viewpoint that the world in a post-Cold War 1.0 era under a Pax Americana will be stable and prosperous as long as the US global dominance prevails. Therefore, a hegemony, according to this viewpoint, is a necessary precondition for economic order and free trade in a global dimension, suggesting that the existence of a predominant hyperpower state willing and able to use its economic and military power to promote global stability is both a divine and rational order of the day. As a tool to achieve this goal the hegemon has to use a coercive diplomacy based on the ultimatum demand that puts a time limit on the target to comply and a threat of punishment for resistance as, for example, it was a case in January 1999 during the „negotiations“ on Kosovo status between the US diplomacy and Yugoslavia’s Government in Rambouillet (France).
However, in contrast to both the Hegemonic Stability Theory and the Bipolar Stability Theory, a post-Yeltsin Russian political establishment advocates that a multipolar system of international relations is the least war-prone in comparison with all other proposed systems. This Multipolar Stability Theory is based on a concept that a polarized global politics does not concentrate power, as it is supported by the unipolar system, and does not divide the globe into two antagonistic superpower blocs, as in a bipolar system, which promote a constant struggle for global dominance (for example, during the Cold War 1.0). The multipolarity theory perceives polarized international relations as a stable system because it encompasses a larger number of autonomous and sovereign actors in global politics, which as well as giving rise to a greater number of political alliances. This theory is, in essence, presenting a peace-through model of pacifying international relations as it is fundamentally based on counter-balancing relations between the states in the global arena. Under such a system, an aggressive policy is quite hard to implement in reality as it is prevented by the multiple power centers.¹⁷
A New Policy of Russia and Cold War 2.0
A new policy of international relations adopted by Moscow after 2000 is based on a principle of a globe without hegemonic leadership – a policy which started to be implemented at the time when the global power of the US as a post Cold War 1.0 hegemon declines because it makes costly global commitments above ability to fulfill them followed by the immense US trade deficit – even today the cancer of American economy which the current US President desparately wants to heal. The US share of global gross production has been in the process of constant decline since the end of WWII. Another serious symptom of American erosion in international politics is that the US share of global financial reserves has drastically declined, especially in comparison to the Russian and Chinese shares. The US is today the largest world debtor and even the biggest debtor that ever existed in history (36.21 trillion dollars or 124 percent of the GDP), mainly, but not exclusively, due to huge military spending, alongside tax cuts that reduced the US federal revenue. The deficit in the current account balance with the rest of the world (in 2004, for instance, it was $650 billion), the US administration is covering by borrowing from private investors (mostly from abroad) and foreign central banks (most important are those of China and Japan). Therefore, such US financial dependence on foreigners to provide the funds needed to pay the interest on the American public debt leaves the USA extremely vulnerable, especially if China and/or Japan decide to stop buying the US bonds or sell them. Subsequently, the world's strongest military power is at the same time the greatest global debtor, with China and Japan being direct financial collaborators of the US hegemonic leadership’s policy of a Pax Americana after 1989/1990.
It is without any doubts that the US foreign policy after 1989/1990 is still unrealistically following the French concept of raison d’état that indicates the Realist justification for policies pursued by state authority, but in the American eyes, first and foremost of these justifications or criteria is the US global hegemony as the best guarantee for the national security, followed by all other interests and associated goals. Therefore, the US foreign policy is still based on a realpolitik concept that is a German term referring to the state foreign policy ordered or motivated by power politics: the strong do what they will, and the weak do what they must. However, the US is becoming weaker and weaker, and Russia and China are more and more becoming stronger and stronger.
Final Words
Finally, it seems to be true that such a reality in contemporary global politics and international relations is, unfortunately, not properly understood and recognized by the current US President Donald Trump as he is going to be just another Trojan horse of the US Neocon concept of a Pax Americana followed by the megalomanic Zionist concept of a Greater Israel of „From the River to the River“¹⁸ , and, therefore, there are no real chances to get rid of the US imperialism in the recent future and to establish international relations on a more democratic and multilateral foundation. Therefore, the US-led Western turbo Russophobia since 2014 has already driven the world into a new stage of the post-WWII Cold War–2.0.
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic Ex-University Professor Research Fellow at Centre for Geostrategic Studies Belgrade, Serbia © Vladislav B. Sotirovic 2025 www.geostrategy.rs sotirovic1967@gmail.com |
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¹ References:
Peter Koenig, “Russian Exodus from the West”, Global Research – Centre for Research on Globalization, 2018-03-31: https://www.globalresearch.ca/russian-exodus-from-the-west/5634121.
² John Laughland, “Blaming Russia for Skripal Attack is Similar to ‘Jews Poisoning our Wells’ in Middle Ages”, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, 2018-03-16: http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/16/blaming-russia-for-
skripal-attack-is-similar-to-jews-poisoning-our-wells-in-middle-ages/.
³ David Gowland, Richard Dunphy, The European Mosaic, Third Edition, Harlow, England−Pearson Education, 2006, 277.
⁴ Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order, London: The Free Press, 2002.
⁵ Zigmantas Kiaupa, Jūratė Kiaupienė, Albinas Kuncevičius, The History of Lithuania Before 1795, Vilnius: Lithuanian Institute of History, 2000, 106‒131.
⁶ On the Lithuanian occupation period of the present-day Ukraine, see: [Alfredas
Bumblauskas, Genutė Kirkienė, Feliksas Šabuldo (sudarytojai), Ukraina: Lietuvos epocha, 1320−1569, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos centras, 2010].
⁷ Ignas Kapleris, Antanas Meištas, Istorijos egzamino gidas. Nauja programa nuo A iki Ž, Vilnius: Leidykla “Briedas”, 2013, 123.
⁸ About this issue, see more in [Зоран Милошевић, О g Малоруса gо Украјинаца, Источно Сарајево: Завод за уџбенике и наставна средства, 2008].
⁹ Срђан Перишић, Нова геополитика Русије, Београд: Медија центар „Одбрана“, 2015, 42−46.
¹⁰ David Kirbz, Šiaurės Europa ankstyvaisiais naujaisiais amžiais: Baltijos šalys 1492−1772 metais, Vilnius: Atviros Lietuvos knyga, 2000, 333−363; Peter Englund, The Battle that Shook Europe: Poltava and the Birth of the Russian Empire, London: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd, 2003.
¹¹ On Napoleon’s military campaign on Russia in 1812 and its fiasco, see [Paul Britten Austin, The Great Retreat Told by the Survivors, London−Mechanicsburg, PA: Greenhill Books, 1996; Adam Zamoyski, 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow, New York: Harper Press, 2005].
¹² The US-led NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 is only one example of a gangster’s policy of a violation of the international law and the law on war when the civilian objects became legitimate military targets. Therefore, the attack on Serbia’s television station in the downtown of Belgrade on April 23rd, 1999 attracted criticism by many human rights activists as it was apparently selected for bombing as „media responsible for broadcasting propaganda“ [The Independent, April 1st, 2003]. By the same gangsters the same bombing policy was repeated in 2003 in Iraq when the main television station in Baghdad was hit by cruise missiles in March 2003 followed next day by the destruction of the state radio and television station in Basra [A. P. V. Rogers, Law on the Battlefield, Second edition, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004, 82−83]. According to the international law expert Richard Falk, the 2003 Iraq War was a „crime against Peace of the sort punished at the Nuremberg trials“ [Richard Falk, Frontline, India, No. 8, April 12−25th, 2003].
¹³ Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992.
¹⁴ Charles W. Kegley, Jr., Eugene R. Wittkopf, World Politics: Trend and Transformation, Tenth edition, USA: Thomson−Wadsworth, 2006, 588; Andrew F. Cooper, Jorge Heine, Ramesh Thakur (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015, 54−55.
¹⁵ David P. Forsythe, Patrice C. McMahon, Andrew Wedeman (eds.), American Foreign Policy in a Globalized World, New York−London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2006, 31−50.
¹⁶ William C. Wohlforth, „The Stability of a Unipolar World“, International Security, No. 24, 1999, 5−41.
¹⁷ Charles W. Kegley, Jr., Eugene R. Wittkopf, World Politics: Trend and Transformation, Tenth edition, USA: Thomson−Wadsworth, 2006, 524.
¹⁸ On the policy of Zionist movement, see [Ilan Pappe, Ten Myths about Israel, London‒New York: Verso, 2024, 23‒49.