Other autocrats are directly benefiting from Western weakness and indecision, such as Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Xi Jinping of China, Ali Khamenei of Iran, Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela, and the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip.
The Alternatives Want Chaos, Not Order
When Vladimir Putin declared a new “multipolar world,” the Russian tyrant only used the phrase to gather support from the global south. In truth, Putin wants a new world full of like-minded people willing to break the international norms where wars of territorial conquest can once again be normalized and democracies are broken into hybrid regimes.
Perhaps realizing they cannot confront Western countries through military means, the authoritarian regime instead looks to see doubt and distrust amongst Western heads of state and their citizens, mainly through hybrid and information warfare.
Hybrid warfare, frequently practiced by Russian intelligence services, such as the FSB, is ongoing in Eastern Europe and Africa. The hybrid warfare strategy plays into collapsing Western governments, which give autocrats and populists new life.
First, migrants are purposely flushed toward Italy, Spain, Greece, Finland, Lithuania, and Poland. The goal is to overwhelm the European Union and potentially overextend and collapse the social system.
Next, due to failures to stem the migrant push, the traditional governments either step down or lose their next general election, allowing for the rise of populists, some of whom are directly tied to the Kremlin itself. Examples include Fidesz in Hungary, Smer in Slovakia, and the rising in polls AfD in Germany.
Current Conflicts Sow the Seeds of the New Multipolar Order
The Russian invasion of Ukraine from 2014 onwards planted the seeds of the new global geopolitical alignment—and the illegal annexations in Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaphorizhzhia, and Kherson planted the seeds for other autocrats to make their move.
Reflective of using gas to prop up his regime and lobby Europe akin to Putin and Nordstrom, Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan finished an ethnic cleansing campaign of the remaining Karabakh Armenian population in 2023, to much shock, concern, and criticism. Aliyev’s partner and top financer, Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, has made threats to annex the Aegean isles of Greece and potentially the occupied northern region of Cyprus.
Nicholas Maduro floated the idea of potentially annexing a large chunk of Guyana, especially their oil-rich regions. In Africa, Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient enshrined in genocide, has floated the idea of potentially annexing land in Eritrea in the future.
In Asia, Xi Jinping is currently eyeing an opportunity to take Taiwan into the mainland through force, and South Korea and Japan have raised the alarms over Kim Jong Un and the overly aggressive posture of the North Korean military.
The overall goal of breaking apart the unipolar Western system isn’t for equal rights for all but a cover for tyrants to use the emotions of the global south to further their own imperial and kleptocratic ambitions. The multipolar world chaos could become a reality if the traditional parties in the West are not more aware of the geopolitical realities around them.
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