“Western countries have long relied on their technological advance and their superiority in the use of violence to impose their domination on other countries,” Professor Alexis Habiyaremye, a political analyst and senior researcher at the University of Johannesburg’s School of Economics, told Sputnik, commenting on his takeaways from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday.
“With the considerable technological catch up observed since the second half of the 20th century, but above all, with the technological sophistication of the Russian defense industry, Western countries are no longer able to impose their domination without challenge,” Habiyaremye said.
The West has traditionally also “used the Bretton Woods institutions to dominate and discipline developing countries,” according to the academic, but “with the emergence of alternative sources of development finance (e.g. the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank or the New Development Bank), the financial grip on developing countries has been loosened as well. The significance of the West in the world economy and in the world population is in inexorable decline, and no matter how much violence they are deploying to keep their domination, the world has already changed. The Global South won’t accept abusive and traumatic domination, and it is already showing it in different parts of the world.”
The multipolar “new world order” being constructed by Russia and other BRICS countries, “by providing alternative poles of economic and diplomatic power, will certainly benefit countries from the Global South and lower the pressure of the current hegemon,” Habiyaremye emphasized.
With that said, “for counties in the US ‘backyard’, such as Bolivia, Venezuela or Cuba, it will remain extremely difficult to extricate themselves from the stifling influence from Washington. That is why they need more support from the other emerging poles,” he added.
