While polarity may’ve been introduced as a term in geography – the North Pole and the South Pole are diametrically opposed – it has long transcended that border (pun intended!) and has migrated into areas that are prone to division. In politics, there’s been talk about “bi-polarity” – like when the US and USSR were competing for power in the international arena – and now the US and China.
“Unipolarity” – when the USSR fell like Humpy Dumpty and couldn’t be put together again, and left the US as the lone superpower standing!! This appears to be an inner logic, probably arising from the observation that “two man-crab cyaan live in de same hole!!”
“Multi-polarity” appears to be even rarer, but this is what some folks believe we’re evolving towards right now; what with BRICS expanding into BRICS+ at the rate of a supernova, and the individual members all fighting to become regional hegemons!! Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates are now in BRICS+, and Mad Maduro’s been boasting that Venezuela would soon be joining!!
In the meantime, there’s G7, consisting of the “top” immediate post-WWII industrial nations: US, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Japan and the EU – which isn’t a “nation”, but a continent that is still jostling for its place in the sun!! They used to be “G8” up to 2014, but Russia was thrown out after it invaded and annexed Crimea.
Sounds familiar?? Well, it should, since it’s pretty much this group that’s taken on Russia after it invaded Ukraine!! Never mind who poked who first!! Germany’s Chancellor” Scholz had intriguingly invited Argentina, Indonesia, India, South Africa and Senegal as partner nations” at their summit a couple of years ago. Senegal, you exclaimed, dear reader? Yep!! You heard that right!! In a multi-polar world, it’s all about winning friends and influencing nations!! So, we know what’s gonna be on top of THEIR agenda, don’t we??!!
In the meantime, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI) has gone a far way in literally tying groups of countries in Eurasia, Africa and South America into its manufacturing maws with its insatiable appetite for raw materials, and then selling those same countries manufactured goods. The B&RI has gone a long way in replacing the World Bank – dominated by the Yanks and Europeans after WWII – in funding big time infrastructural projects in developing countries!
Then there are the “special interest” groupings like the QUAD – the US, India, Japan, and Australia — to checkmate China’s expansionism in the Pacific.
As your Eyewitness has noted, the cause of all these group meetings, jockeying and recruitment is a realignment of the global order into a multipolar one. So, with our oil, why aren’t we at the table??
