FROM UNIPOLAR TO MULTIPOLAR

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US HEGEMONY DWINDLES AS NEW POLES EMERGE

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American cultural and political leadership, on an international scale, began its ascendency in the aftermath of World War One. United States global power was further solidified after World War Two as much of Europe lay in ruins and was largely bankrupt.

A cold war between East and West emerged soon after the defeat of the Nazis in 1945. The victorious Allies, which included Britain, France, Australia, the United States, and the Soviet Union, and which had successfully collaborated to defeat nazi Germany and imperial Japan, split apart, leaving the Soviet Union isolated, despite the massive contribution made by the Soviets to utterly destroy fascism in Europe.

With nazi Germany in ruins, the West now adopted an anti-communist perspective and moved to undermine the “spread of communism.” During the 1948 Italian elections, the Americans interfered to ensure no communist government would come into power within Italy. This electoral interference is very probably the first serious act in what became known as the cold war.

The cold war was a period of intense competitive rivalry between two great superpowers, the USSR and the US. A distinct feature of the cold war was its lack of direct confrontation on the battlefield between the Soviets and the Americans.

Both nations did, however, come very close to engaging in a hot war with one another during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. For one fearful historical moment, it quite seriously looked like a nuclear war might occur. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.

Both nations also fought proxy wars against one another’s aligned forces situated in foreign countries like Angola (1975-76) and Afghanistan (1979-1989).

The cold war ended sometime between 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down and 1992 when the Soviet Union collapsed.

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The nature of the competition between the two superpower rivals was not confined to proxy wars. This is because a significant part of the cold war was fought not with bullets and bombs but rather with ideas and values.

These concepts were expressed through a variety of means including art, literature, music, architecture, film, television, radio, advertising, museology, art curation and display, technological contests like the “space race,” international sports contests like the Olympics and the World Cup, and other cultural activities.

Drilling down, the real battleground for cultural supremacy was located within the hearts and minds of the world’s population. Each superpower saw fit to promote a “package of ideas” that relayed critical cultural information to the recipient.

This “package of ideas” is sometimes referred to as cultural ideology or hegemony – which is, a way of seeing and interpreting the human universe, a sense of order that informs how things should be arranged and acted upon, an understanding that the world should be a certain way. It is hegemony that informs our minds how to receive and process all of the pieces of information that flow towards each of us.

Hegemony operates as if one has put on a new pair of glasses. Our perceptions are shaped by the lenses through which we peer. We may indeed see the world, but it may be a world defined by cultural ideology rather than actuality.

The cultural cold war provides us with a clear example of a contest of ideas that was fought, largely out in the open, in art, literature, film, and elsewhere, to win over the hearts and minds of both domestic and foreign audiences.

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The East consisted of the Soviet Union (USSR / CCCP), which was a multi-national state that existed between the years 1917 and 1992. The USSR incorporated Kazakstan, Ukraine, and another thirteen nations.

The West consisted of the United States, western Europe including the UK, the Commonwealth nations including Australia and Canada, and other aligned “free market” nations (also referred to as liberal democracies).

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), formally established in 1961, accounted for twenty five nations who chose to sidestep the ideological war between East and West.

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Between 1989 and 1992, the USSR collapsed and the US, quite suddenly, was left alone in the driver’s seat. Throughout the unipolar moment, 1989 – 2007, the US instigated a brute force campaign that included a number of forever wars.

Forever wars continue for years and rarely appear to have clear objectives beyond the initial destruction of a nation. This military ransacking of a country usually includes wrecking a nation’s political, social, and business economy. It also includes looting the conquered nation through extensive resource theft.

The United States bombed and invaded Iraq in 1991. Then enforced a brutal economic siege which obstructed goods, ordinary staples, and medical supplies, from reaching Iraq.

The sanctions war was still ongoing when the Americans bombed and invaded Iraq a second time, beginning in 2003. An American-directed nationwide search of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction failed to locate any WMDs. The US remains in Iraq to this day (2026).

In between the two armed invasions of Iraq, the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001. It took 20 years for the US to fully exit Afghanistan and no significant victory was achieved.

The unipolar moment delivered little more than unlimited violence and destruction. The perpetrators of that violence and destruction was the United States and its military. Its targets, without exception, were always militarily weaker. Simply put, the US never fought a war against a peer competitor during the unipolar moment.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his Munich speech in 2007, it signalled the beginning of the end for the unipolar moment (although we didn’t know it at the time).

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An alternate pole of finance and organisation came to life in 2009 when Brasil, Russia, India, and China established a new forum for international relations. During 2010, South Africa joined this exciting project and BRICS was born.

BRICS later expanded to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2024 and Indonesia in 2025. BRICS remains outside of the US sphere of influence.

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During February 2014, a coup unfolded in Ukraine, which led to the ouster of the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The coup was backed by the United States whose objective was to manifest an anti-Russia along the extensive border that is shared between Ukraine and Russia.

I wrote this back in 2024 [link here]:

“It was in February 2014 when the Maidan culminated. The Maidan included mass protests in which neo-Nazis provided muscle to oust the sitting Yanukovych government. The same neo-Nazis were subsequently awarded four ministries in the incoming nationalist government. A month later in March, the Crimean people voted to secede from Ukraine and to join the Russian Federation. During April, an uprising broke out in the east and south when local ethnic Russians began “fighting on their home turf for their futures.” The new nationalist government sent in neo-Nazi stormtroopers (who had been incorporated into the National Guard) to quell the uprising. This meeting of opposing forces marked the beginning of serious hostilities that can be described as a shooting war. On 2 May 2014, Ukrainian neo-Nazis set fire to the Odessa Trades Hall building. Many people were seeking refuge within the building at the time of the arson attack. 48 people died that day. Some jumped out of burning windows and were then clubbed to death by neo-Nazis as they lay upon the ground.”

Once the coup organisers had seized political power within Ukraine, a campaign of terror was unleashed upon Ukrainian citizens of Russian descent (ethnic Russians).

Donbass cities and towns were subjected to indiscriminate missile attacks. Many civilians died during these air raids.

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On 24 February 2022, Russia launched a special military operation. Russian troops entered Ukraine to secure the Donbass and protect the ethnic Russian population.

For the first time, the United States (via its Ukrainian proxy – the anti-Russia), is facing a peer competitor on the battlefield that is also armed with hypersonic weapons – a military technology the US does not possess.

Whilst also facing organised business competition in the form of BRICS, which notably includes a new development bank backed by substantial financial resources.

A multipolar world is coming into being and is as much the child of history as it is the product of organised resistance to unipolarity and globalism.

Full spectrum dominance is a thing of the past. The unipolar moment is over.

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Bartlett, Eva. What I’ve seen of Ukraine’s war crimes against civilians in the Donbass over the years. In Gaza and beyond. 10-08-2022.

Berger, John. Ways of seeing. 1972.

BRICS. Web | infobrics.org

Dobbins, James, et al. Extending Russia: competing from advantageous ground. RAND Corporation. 2019.

Editorial. Origins of special military operation: history of Ukraine conflict. Sputnik International. 19-09-2025.

Escobar, Pepe. Raging twenties. 2020/21.

Fisk, Robert. The great war for civilisation. 2007. See chapters Afghanistan & Iraq.

Lancaster, Patrick. Journalist who travelled to Donbass. He’s on YouTube.

Non-Aligned Movement. The Uganda Chairmanship 2024-2027. Web | nam.go.ug

Parry, Robert. Who’s Telling the ‘Big Lie’ on Ukraine? Consortium News. 08-12-2021.

Saunders, Frances Stonor. Modern art was a CIA ‘weapon.’ Independent. 22-10-1995.

Saunders, Frances Stonor. Who paid the piper? The CIA and the cultural cold war. 1999.

Stockwell, John. In search of enemies. 1978.

Talbot, David. The devil’s chessboard. 2015.

Winks, Robin. Cloak and gown. 1987.

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These videos help explain the rise and fall of the unipolar moment, and include a sneak peek into the emerging multipolar world.

A range of perspectives are included.

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THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL

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PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH ANNOUNCES PERSIAN GULF WAR 1-16-91

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NEWS AUGUST 24, 1991 – ABC NEWS SPECIAL REPORT ON SOVIET COUP AFTERMATH

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FROM 2003: COLIN POWELL ADDRESSES UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL ON IRAQ

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PRESIDENT BUSH ANNOUNCES START OF IRAQ WAR

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15 YEARS AFTER PUTIN’S ICONIC SPEECH AT MUNICH SECURITY CONFERENCE. WHY IS IT STILL RELEVANT?

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BRICS: THE RISE OF A NEW GLOBAL ORDER?

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FU** THE EU: ALLEGED AUDIO OF US DIPLOMAT VICTORIA NULAND SWEARING

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UKRAINE: THE FIGHT FOR THE EAST

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4:3 PRO-GOVT ACTIVISTS BURN PRO-RUSSIAN TENTS; CLASHES, EFFORTS TO SAVE THOSE IN BURNING BUILDING

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BURNT ALIVE IN ODESSA BY BONANZA MEDIA – VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED

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UKRAINE’S FAR RIGHT CHILDREN’S CAMP: ‘I WANT TO BRING UP A WARRIOR’

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RUSSIA ATTACKS UKRAINE

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RUSSIA-UKRAINE CRISIS: PUTIN ORDERS MILITARY OPERATION IN UKRAINE

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PUTIN BEGINS ATTACK ON UKRAINE AS US AND NATO VOW RESPONSE

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BRICS WAGE SILENT ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST TRUMP’S BRINKMANSHIP | WION

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Author | Keith Salter