Hello
My name is Iain Davis. I’m an investigative researcher, journalist and author from the UK.
I would just like to thank Iurie Rosca and the Chisinau Forum for allowing me this opportunity to discuss the historical context of the concept of the multipolar world order.
The multipolar version of the world order is a departure from the unipolar model in the sense that it will—supposedly—genuinely observe international law and share power among a broader coalition of nation-states. As a result, it will supposedly introduce functioning multilateralism into global governance, arguably for the first time. To some, this multipolar model sounds preferable to the current, international rules-based unipolar order.
Yet, when we look at the statements of the touted leaders of the new multipolar world order, their objectives seem indistinguishable from those of their unipolar counterparts. For one thing, they express an unwavering commitment to sustainable development and Agenda 2030.
For another, they support the United Nation’s Security Council remaining the geopolitical centre of global governance—though, notably, no loss of the veto isn’t countenanced. In addition, they wholeheartedly endorse the World Economic Forum’s AI-driven 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR).
They also regard censorship and information control as necessary to fight the “infodemic”” and to protect the world against “disinformation”.
Their global initiatives—and the public-private partnerships that will implement them— are practically identical to the initiatives and partnerships of their unipolar counterparts. Finally, to supporters of multipolarity, a new global “financial system” is, as ever, the key to the supposed “transformation.”
Thus far, the globalist oligarchs, who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the unipolar model, have not only advocated the polarity shift from West to East but have also played a part in facilitating it. Indeed, they have created the monetary, financial, economic and thus geopolitical conditions that appear to guarantee it.
If the multipolar world order is something new, then surely this trajectory towards centralised global governance should change? But when the multipolar model seems to be accelerating the transition to centralised power, then we have to wonder if there is anything new and different about it at all.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) declares itself to be the leading organisation for global public-private partnerships (G3P). In 2019, the WEF attempted to stake its claim by entering into a strategic partnership with the UN. The broad objective of the partnership was “to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”
The WEF represents the most powerful global corporations on Earth. As we have seen in the last couple of years, the pharmaceutical corporations alone can and do shape, and often drive, global policy decisions. One would need to be extremely naive to imagine that the WEF and its stakeholders (members) cannot effect that which they claim merely to advise. This is context within which we will analyse their words.
According to the book written by Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret called “The Great Reset,” the essence of the GR is a plan to replace “failed ideas, institutions, processes and rules with new ones better suited to current and future needs.” As with nearly every other Western think tank and “international organisation,” they concede that the shift to the multipolar world is simply inescapable:
The 21st century will most likely be an era devoid of an absolute hegemon during which no one power gains absolute dominance. [. . .] In this messy new world defined by a shift towards multipolarity and intense competition for influence, the conflicts or tensions will no longer be driven by ideology. – [The Great Reset (TGR),
p. 76]
The only problem foreseen with the shift towards multipolarity is that the associated retreat from “globalization” might happen too quickly. Accordingly, a premature retreat would cause “havoc.” Therefore, the new “form of globalization” will only be “viable” if the right overarching system is firmly in place:
A hasty retreat from globalization would entail trade and currency wars, damaging every country’s economy, provoking social havoc and triggering ethno- or clan nationalism. The establishment of a much more inclusive and equitable form of globalization that makes it sustainable, both socially and environmentally, is the only viable way to manage retreat. This requires policy solutions [. . .] and some form of effective global governance. – [TGR, p. 81]
The Book alleges that the pandemic-initiated breakdowns raise what they see as the deplorable prospect of a “global order deficit.” Therefore, in the absence of an “absolute hegemon”—the unipolar world order—nation-states must find a way to “collaborate at the global level.” Schwab and Malleret added:
If no one power can enforce order, our world will suffer from a “global order deficit”. Unless individual nations and international organizations succeed in finding solutions to better collaborate at the global level, we risk entering an “age of entropy” in which retrenchment, fragmentation, anger and parochialism will increasingly define our global landscape, making it less intelligible and more disorderly. The pandemic crisis has both exposed and exacerbated this sad state of affairs. [TGR, p. 76]
The so-called Great Reset has been designed to manage and exploit the orchestrated collapse of the unipolar world order. The path toward multipolarity, or redesigned globalisation and a new order is therefore set. It is the “deglobalisation” inherent to the multipolar world order that provides the suggested “opportunity” for the global public- private partnership. No one, especially the WEF, suggests retaining the “hyper- globalization” of the “absolute hegemony.” They explained:
There is no point in trying to restore the status quo [. . . ], but it is important to limit the downside of a possible free fall that would precipitate major economic damage and social suffering. [. . .] This will only come about through improved global governance – the most “natural” and effective mitigating factor against protectionist tendencies. [. . .] There is no time to waste. If we do not improve the functioning and legitimacy of our global institutions, the world will soon become unmanageable and very dangerous. There cannot be a lasting recovery without a global strategic framework of governance. – [TGR, p. 81]
That “strategic framework” is the global governance of a multipolar world and the WEF claim that this is simply the most “natural” response to global crises, given that, in the WEF’s view, individual nation-states are unable to address the world’s problems.
This, then, is “the essence” of the Great Reset, as the book makes clear:
[W]ithout appropriate global governance, we will become paralysed in our attempts to address and respond to global challenges, particularly when there is such a strong dissonance between short-term, domestic imperatives and long-term, global challenges. This is a major worry[.] – [TGR, p. 83]
And further:
[T]he bottom line is this: in the face of such a vacuum in global governance, only nation states are cohesive enough to be capable of taking collective decisions, but this model doesn’t work in the case of world risks that require concerted global decisions. The world will be a very dangerous place if we do not fix multilateral institutions. – [TGR, p. 85]
The WEF’s “bottom line” is that, real or imagined, the Westphalian model is simply unequipped to deal with “global challenges.” Only “multilateral” global governance can avert the descent into a “very dangerous” world. Hence, a shift towards multipolarity is required.
These are precisely the arguments that the supposed leaders of the new multipolar order are making.
To claim, as some do, that the “Great Reset” represents a defence of the unipolar order, and that the shift towards a multipolar model is some sort of antidote to the GR appears to be based upon a fundamental misapprehension about the nature of the GR.
To illustrate this point further: Schwab and Malleret suggest that the “global challenges” they have identified will continue the trend of “regionalization.” They say that instead of the US-led unipolar hegemony, the world will increasingly be divided into semi-autonomous continental-scale regions:
The most likely outcome along the globalization–no globalization continuum lies in an in-between solution: regionalization. The success of the European Union as a free trade area or the new Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in Asia [. . .] are important illustrative cases of how regionalization may well become a new watered-down version of globalization. [. . .] In short, deglobalization in the form of greater regionalization was already happening. COVID-19 will just accelerate this global divergence as North America, Europe and Asia focus increasingly on regional self-sufficiency rather than on the distant and intricate global supply chains that formerly epitomized the essence of globalization. – [TGR, p. 79]
This “regionalised” world bears an uncanny resemblance to the model exposed by Professor Carroll Quigley. In his 1974 interview with Washington Post journalist Rudy Maxa, Quigley spoke about, what he called, the “three-power world.” He had already meticulously catalogued the activities of an Anglo-American network, whose members had taken great strides toward constructing a system of global governance that they hoped to control.
To quote Quigley from the interview:
They were working to federate the English-speaking world [. . .]. They were closely linked to international bankers. [. . .] [T]hey were working to establish a world, what I call a three-power world. And that three-power world was: The Atlantic Bloc (of England and the Commonwealth and the United States), Germany (Hitler’s Germany), Soviet Russia. [. . .] [T]his is all described in my book, and this was their idea. Now notice, it’s a balance of power system.
The idea of power blocs that were sometimes antagonistic to one another, but that each played their part in maintaining a centrally controlled global system of managed international relations, sounds very similar to the model outlined by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s Special Studies Project.
The Rockefellers, and Henry Kissinger identified what the WEF would later call the “global order deficit”:
One system of organizing international order has been destroyed without replacement by another. – [Prospect for America, p. 164]
The problem was that the UN wasn’t working as the Rockefellers or their partners intended. The sovereign decision making of governments was considered to be problematic. The Rockefellers’ “high hopes” for the “institutional expression” of true global governance were stymied:
High hopes were not fully realized because the formal institutions of world organizations were designed to achieve more than the consensus of existing shared aspirations was prepared to support. – [PfA, p. 164]
Nations were acting in their sovereign self-interest and were forming bilateral trade agreements and defence treaties. Thus they were somewhat resistant to absolute global governance by their private partners.
The Rockefellers’ solution to the nation-states’ intransigence was to balkanise the planet into more manageable chunks, or blocs. Today we might call them “poles.” This would then allow global governance, under the auspices of the Rockefellers and their public-private partnership, to flourish:
The hoped-for result is peace in a world divided into smaller units, but organised and acting in common effort to permit and assist progress in economic, political, cultural and spiritual life. [. . .] It would presumably consist of regional institutions under an international body of growing authority — combined so as to be able to deal with those problems that increasingly the separate nations will not be able to resolve alone. [PfA, p. 26]
The Rockefellers and their partners—a “network,” if you like—hoped the UN would be able to exert real global governance over the “smaller units” or regional blocs:
The United Nations [is] the international organisation that today holds out the reasonable hope of being able to take over more and more functions and to assume increasingly large responsibilities. [. . .] The spirit and the letter of the Charter [. . .] gives more than lip service to the indispensable world order[.] [PfA, p. 33]
And:
The UN stands, finally, as a symbol of the world order that will one day be built. [PfA, p. 35]
The key to global governance, they insisted, was multilateral “regionalization” (a claim the WEF and other advocates of the multipolar world order would later repeat).
The most natural multination arrangements are frequently regional. [. . .] Fully developed, they imply a joint accord on monetary and exchange arrangements, a common discipline on fiscal matters, and a free movement of capital and labor. [. . . ] We believe that this regional approach has world-wide validity. [. . .] What is needed immediately is a determination to move in the direction they imply. Regional arrangements are no longer a matter of choice. They are imposed by the requirements of technology, science, and economics. Our course is to contribute to this process by constructive action. [PfA, pp. 188–190]
In the Great Reset, Schwab, speaking for the WEF, declared that global governance in a multilateral, regionalized world with more localised supply chains was “the most natural” response to global crises.”
Sixty years earlier the Rockefellers published what appears to be precisely the same plan and claimed that the “most natural multination arrangements are frequently regional.” Prior to the Rockefellers’ Special Studies Project, the “network” exposed by Prof. Carroll Quigley also suggested essentially the same global governance system based upon a multipolar “balance of power.”
A central tenet of the suggested multipolar world order is to strengthen adherence to the Charter of the UN, thereby establishing genuine global governance. Globalist oligarchs have long advocated exactly the same approach and so do the claimed leaders of the multipolar world order.
The ambitions of the crowd that Quigley called “the network,” like the ambitions of the Rockefellers’ Special Studies Project and the ambitions of the WEF’s Great Reset, are now the ambitions of the nominally BRICS led multipolar world order.
Thank you very much for listening to this presentation.
[Once again, apologies for the sound quality]
