The financial crisis of 2008-9, hyper-financialisation, the war in Ukraine, the economic sanctions against Russia, the rise of the BRICS and the idea that Western civilisation is in ‘decline’… All these are interconnected, and the neo-mercantilist tendencies rising in the US and Europe are both a reaction to and a consequence of all these processes.
The Norwegian political scientist and commentator Glenn Diesen argues in his books and speeches that the political and economic liberal ideas on which Western civilisation was founded are undermining it. According to him, it is essential to strike a balance between traditional values and social ideas and the requirements of modern society, and today’s Russia is moving in this direction and is emerging as the protector of ‘European civilisation’. Western conservatives, who see Russia as a natural ally in this struggle, also want to assert themselves against declining liberalism by returning to traditional Europe.
In your book The Decay of Western Civilisation and Resurgence of Russia (2019) you claim that the internal contradictions within liberal democracy and laissez-faire capitalism shake the foundation of Western civilisation. It sounds a bit like Spenglerian ‘decline of the West.’ Do you think there are similarities between Spenglerian analysis of the Western civilization and yours? Do we live again in a interwar-period-like situation?
Well, yes and no. I do side Spengler actually, but he is not unique in this sense. If we address most of the scholars who look on civilizations, they all tend to, more or less, reach the same conclusion, which is, civilizations end up destroying themselves, often in their excesses. They would exhaust fundamental culture at their core. I do actually side Spengler, but the collapse of the West is perhaps too much. But I think that all after the world order which has been built up around the West, a lot of the key ideas I think have begun to exhaust themselves.
If we look at, for example, political liberalism, with origin from the French Revolution. Remember, there were three slogans: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity or Brotherhood. Now, we tend to build a lot around political liberalism in terms of almost radical individualism. But what we forget is that the third part of the slogan, which is Brotherhood. I think that this is a reference to the unity of society. This is a kind of fundamental of sociology which is that we have to find a balance between the individual and the group. Once you have radical individualism, it begins to tear away at the common group identity, and eventually, it will fragment the group.
It is not just political liberalism I do see some weaknesses, but also economic liberalism. Again, this has been a challenge since the industrial revolution when capitalism was introduced. We always recognize that unfettered markets are deeply problematic because society becomes an appendage to the market in which the traditional community weakens severely. There has been a recognition since 1945 this had to be addressed, that some of the uglier sides of capitalism had to be contained. We had a kind of different form of capitalism until the 1970s and the 1980s in which there was a revert back to the unfettered markets in response to the stagnation of the 70s. And I also point out that a lot of these had been reversed after the Cold War. But I think there was an ideological hubris, the assumption that markets could do everything. These were excesses of liberalism in which both the economic and the political which failed to look at social cohesion. And I think this is what creates a lot of civilizational decay.
Another common aspect which is seen by scholars on civilizations is pointing out that civilizations are a bit like stars. They seem to shine the brightest when they are already dying. This is what we learn back from the Roman Empire as well. When it was at its height, there were a lot of excesses, a lot of self-indulgence which covered up decadence already set in. So yes, that’s one of the themes of the book. I do see this being a key problem.
You depict an international system in which a state needs a balancing act between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft to compete with others. The more markets get global and the state gets smaller, there is an urgent need for a broader state intervention. Do you think recent re-industrialisation and neo-mercantilism debate in the USA and using the so-called Chinese and Russian threat to the West are examples of this oscillation?
I think the return to neomercantilism is simply a reflection of the international distribution of economic power. Because, historically, we see that liberal economic systems evolve or develop when there’s a clear hegemony such as Britain in the 19th century or when the US took over in the 20th century. Under such conditions, the hegemon has an interest in creating trust. Because once there is trust in the international system, countries would not seek to control everything themselves, they would expect more integration, more open borders. And there is an interest for economic hegemon to support this when they are the most powerful.
So, again, with Britain and the US, they embraced liberal economics when they controlled the leading technologies. This is important because it is very ideal to have free markets if you are the economically dominant power. Because, you have the mature industries which are defined by low cost and high quality. And if you compete against the infant markets, the rest of the world, which are defined by low quality and high prices, open markets or unfettered markets and free trade would fill up the demands in other countries.
For example, when the British embraced free markets by repealing the Corn Laws, they were very open in the parliament, saying “Listen, this is great. The rest of the world would be like colonies to us, because they cannot compete against us on the free markets, they depend on us for manufactured goods, and they can do the rest.” This was the same with the United States.
So, there is an incentive to embrace free trade once you are the dominant hegemon. They will use your technologies, they will trust your control over the maritime sea corridors, they will use your banks and currency, so there is an interest in trust.
However, what we always see is new centers of power emerging. This is when the hegemon gets into a dilemma. Would you allow if you were the US, new powers to rise which can challenge the authority, like China? No. At this point, you have to weaken the rise of adversaries. You have to undermine its ability to develop its technological autonomy. You want to threaten its reliance on transportation corridors, undermine its access to the international reserve currency, banks, etc. Not just China, but of course, Russia as well for that sake.
But the problem is once the US begins to weaponize its administrative control over the international economy, it only increases incentives for other countries to decouple. And I guess that’s what we see now. Even the friends of America, be it Turkey or India, would also be punished by the US if they do not follow the unilateral sanctions of the US. The more the US weaponizes its control, the more you will see countries have incentive to move away from it. And I think that’s one of the things we have really seen in this, for example, that not just Russia is being sanctioned, but anyone can have their bank accounts taken away.
So I see liberal economics has been in decline, and when the hegemon goes away we tend to return to neomercantilism in which we reduce our dependence on others, we seek our own currencies, our own technological sovereignty. This is not necessarily a positive thing, as many conflicts can emerge. However, this is where the interests of states line.
So you think that the Biden Administration or who comes next would pursue the same policies against China and Russia.
Yes, I don’t think it matters who sits in the White House. Keep in mind when Trump unleashed all of these economic wars against China, Biden, Clinton, they all said “What is he doing? This is a Cold War.” However, after Trump went out, you have Hillary Clinton writing articles in Foreign Affairs, saying “We need powerful industrial policies,” which is neomercantilism. You take the government to fund your technological advancements, you use your economic resources, align it with state power to weaken adversaries. So, they follow the exact same policies. Whoever comes after Biden, they will do the same.
This is not necessarily in America’s interest. Because they currently are in a dilemma: they can either try to hold on to this unipolar order, even though there are now multipolar realities which they have to address, bu if they try to cling onto this, by preventing the rise of other powers, they would become so abusive, they would only incentivize the rest of the world to do it more, to diversify quicker.
In my opinion, the best policy for the US is to help to facilitate a multipolar system where they have a privileged position, instead of trying to fight it. Because once they fight it, they would see a multipolar world emerging which is in opposition to the US. You see that now with BRICS. They are very specific. They want to stop reliance on the US dollar. All see kind of a common threat from America. This is not what you want. You want to have a multipolar system emerging where the other actors may balance each other, and leave you alone, that is, the United States. They are not doing this at the moment. In my opinion, they do not pursue the ideal policy for the US.
Let me ask about the BRICS summit. Can an enlarging BRICS bloc cope with G7 and NATO?
Yes, I think so. Simply because they tend to follow the same policies which the Americans tried to weaken the British hegemony. Keep in mind that when the British were dominant, especially in the early 1800’s, the Americans developed what they called the American system. They had three main pillars: They said we need a manufacturing industry; we need our own more efficient transportation corridors, roads, and ports; and ofcourse, you have to own your national bank.
We see these same things now coming from China which is obviously leading. First, they seek a very ambitious industrial policy to take the technological leadership in most of the new technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution. We also see that they are pouring trillions of dollars into the Belt and Road Initiative for physical connectivity, new transportation corridors which are not vulnerable to the US pressure. And, the third is the financial aspect, which is the development of the new national banks, or the new development banks, diversifying away from the US dollar as a currency, but also setting up new payment systems, not being dependent on SWIFT, which can be used as a weapon by the US. So, they are already doing this.
I think that the BRICS becomes an institution to further build on these ideas, that is, brings together the huge amount of the countries which control a lot of the national resources of the world, the populations of the world, lots of the trade. They can set up their own transportation corridors, their own banks, and new technological hubs to cooperate with each other. There is a lot of potential. And I think this is the objective. I would not frame it as an alliance in the same way as the G7, because the G7 works together for a collective hegemony of the West under the US leadership. I think the BRICS is something different. They are facilitating multipolarity which means it does not have to have one dominant power. That is also obvious by the fact that the members they took in. For example, Saudis and Iran are not best of friends. But it is a way of resolving differences, instead of necessarily being dependent on a third party. So I think the BRICS has a lot of potential addressing a real demand which is that we have a unipolar world order developed over the past 30 years which no longer reflects the actual realities that the world has already become multipolar. So we need institutions which reflect this current reality. The Americans will not reform, hence you see parallel institutions appearing to facilitate this transition.
Let me ask you about the Ukrainian War. Why are European governments aligned with the USA on the Ukrainian issue even if European industrial interest contradict with breaking off with Russia? How can this war end? Has the Ukrainian army a chance to win this war?
No, I don’t think so. If we look at the front line, this is a war of attrition which is inaccurately being interpreted too much by territory, but it is a war of attrition which means you seek to exhaust the adversary. If you look at the causality ratios on the front line, the Ukrainian side is suffering greatly.
What we see now is the Ukrainian army is exhausting itself, and the Russians are building up a powerful force in their rear. But Ukraine is also in preparation of a possible war with NATO if it enters the war directly. There are many considerations. But for this reason, there is a necessity for the Russians to hold back a bit as well.
If you just look at the math of it, the attrition rates, with every Russian soldier wounded or killed you have eight on the Ukrainian side. Most casualties in this war are caused by artillery. The Russians have eight to ten times more artillery, we see now eight to ten attrition ratio. So, I don’t see them winning it. Also I see the West having run out of their weapon storage. And also, war fatigue is setting in. The people become less interest in this.
I think that Europe is betting full on this world order based on unipolarity and the endurance of the American hegemony. I think at the beginning of this, the Americans sold to the Europeans this: “We give weapons to Ukranians, we put sanctions on the Russians, by the end of the week the Russian economy will implode, and we will reassert our authority in the international system.There will be no multipolarity.” I think if the Europeans knew what we were getting into at the beginning, we would have been more cautious. Because, what we see now is huge economic problems in Europe, the deindustrialization of Germany. I guess it is very predictable what was going to happen in Europe because we decided to maintain these dividing lines in Europe after the Cold War, and move them closer to Russia which sparked this war. The problem is Europe will be weakened, exhaust itself more, which is bad for both the Europeans and the Russians. Because now, the Europeans will have to withdraw under a bit more US protection, and we already have seen this, they have become more dependent on US security. This means that the Americans have more leverage over the Europeans. Now, they are converting this security dependence into economic loyalties. They told the Europeans to cut themselves off the Russians. Now they are pressuring the Europeans to cut themselves off the Chinese.
What is going to happen with Europe? They are going to be completely dependent on the US which means all these dreams about sovereign autonomy or European independence are gone.
Meanwhile, Russia has other problems as well. It ideally wants to diversify its partnerships, wants to have as many partners as possible so it would not be excessively dependent on anyone. But now, they would be much more dependent on China than they were initially hoping. Still, China is Russia’s most important partner, so they will try to figure this out.
Overall, divided Europe is weakened, it would be more dependent, either on the USA, or on China.
You think that Russia is now balancing two mutually contradictory necessities, namely, ‘irrational’ traditional community and ‘rational’ complex society which mean that it is positioning itself as the defender of European civilisation, contrary to the revolutionary Soviet experiment. Do you suggest that an alliance between ‘populism’ in Europe and Russia can reverse the decline of the West?
I think that having a militarized dividing line in Europe will definitely weaken it, will make this continent into a new Middle East, where great powers use them, and become effectively a chessboard. That is what we already saw with Ukraine. And that problem in Ukraine will spread across Europe.
Russia has its own social problems. Russia is definitely heading towards more conservative stands for many reasons. The key problem with Russian history is it has been a very divided country. It used to live for hundreds of years of Mongol yoke. And then Muscovy. In the 1700s, they reinvented Russia as a European country. They divorced themselves from their own past, changed the alphabet, and the way we dress, we look, we talk. Everything. This splitted Russia in two. You have two ideas about what Russia is. And the Bolshevik Revolution. Now you have the idea of a communist Russia. Then you have the 1990s, the idea of a liberal Russia.
The problem is, once you have such a divided country, you don’t work with your opponents, you seek to crush them. This is not good for democracy, not good for internal cohesion. And you are very vulnerable to having foreign powers to exploit the internal divisions, obviously in the West we attempt to do so. Russia is pursuing this new conservative path in which it seeks to unify the past 1000 years of Russian history.
So effectively doing what Dostoyevsky argued in the 1800s: all these different parts of Russian history are parts of the same Russia. Russia will be European, it will be Eurasian, it will have a socialist past, it has some liberalism. So Russia will largely reject what they consider to be the excesses of liberalism in the West. Because in the West we have a different problem which is why the Russians somewhat compare it to the Bolshevik Revolution in which we are divorcing ourselves from our own past as well.
The liberal nation-state was a very powerful vessel. It was based on the group. Culture, language, all of this clearly create internal cohesion in the group. But at the same time, on this you build on individualism, individual freedom, something that made a very stable and also progressive. But over the past few years, in the West, many people are worried that individualism or liberalism effectively decoupled itself from the nation-states. “We don’t need national culture, we are multicultural. We don’t need secularism, dividing state and church is not enough, we need to have a radical secularism which we essentially pressure the church out of society altogether. So, a lot of these things cause a lot of division.
What I have said about the possible alignment between Russia and Western conservatives, which I think you can already if you look at especially the American conservatives, be it Trump or Tucker Carlson. Maybe to a lesser extent [Viktor] Orban of Hungary as well. They see this conservative Russia as dealing with the similar challenges as we do. Because after the Cold War, we decided not to unify Europe, but instead redivided it. New dividing line is not communism vs. capitalism, but liberalism vs. authoritarianism. This made Russia our main adversary. Conservatives effectively see Russia as being a conservative state. This changes the divisions altogether. Because if the conflict is between liberalism and conservatism, Russia goes from being our main adversary to a key ally. So, I think that on the ideological basis you see many conservatives now have a common cause with the Russians.
But also beyond this, it is just common sense that the 1990s is over. Any aspirational hegemony has been exhausted. There is a recognition that we have to come to terms with reality. And that reality is, the idea that you can just expand NATO up to the Russian border and this is going to be the recipe for stability is simply not going to happen. So, I think that a lot of things are dividing the West at the moment from this perspective.
