Two Radically Different Approaches to Progress: A Competition “the West” Cannot Win

A flurry of summit meetings have taken place last week and this, which point to a fundamental difference in outlook between the so-called developed western countries and the majority of all others. To begin with the latter, the BRICS held their annual meeting of heads of state and government of the five member countries (Brazil Russia, India, China, Russia) on June 23 in Beijing, followed the next day by an enlarged gathering, dubbed the BRICS+, for a “High-Level Dialogue on Global Development”. The fundamental message was a rejection of the so-called “rules based order”, where the rules are dictated by a handful of western nations, and a firm commitment to a multilateralism and inclusiveness, allowing all nations to pursue their economic and social development.

The contrast could hardly be greater with the summits dominated by the transatlantic side, beginning with the European Union meeting on June 23-24, which vowed to continue the war on Russia and stick with the suicidal policy of inflation and soaring energy prices. Officially, candidate status for EU membership was granted to Ukraine and Moldova , in order to better combat “Russian imperialism”, as a radiant Ursula von der Leyen explained.

Just two days days latter, the leaders of the G7 met at the Schloss Elmau in the Bavarian Alps, wasting an estimated 200 million euros of taxpayer money on the event (cf. below), where they vowed to crush “Russian aggression”. Fortunately, the representatives of the five developing countries invited to attend (Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal, South Africa,) brought a certain dose of reality into the discussions. The NATO summit, which began June 28 in Madrid, is expected to take that policy one step further, while piously claiming to improve the security and stability of the world (bf. below).

Meanwhile, in Ukraine itself, although the mainstream media are doing their best not to report on it, the Ukrainian Army has suffered heavy losses and has had to retreat further from areas in the Donbass region, which is the main goal of the Russian forces (cf. the following item).