Historical transitions from an outdated configuration of international relations to a new one have always developed in a discontinuous, irregular and uneven way.

This pattern was seen throughout the last century with the progressive decline of the European empires, their co-option and replacement by the North American empire, the respective outcomes of the great revolutions in Russia and China and the processes towards the emancipation and independence of the peoples of the majority world. Now, the transition concerns the decline of US power and that of its European vassals in the face of the dynamism, energy and technological and productive initiative of powers such as China, Russia, India and other countries of the majority world.

Most of these countries share a vision of the future based on international relations which recognize their respective national interests, encourage cooperation aimed at mutual benefit and promote the resolution of disagreements through dialogue.  At a very general level it has been a practically inevitable and predictable process but one evolving through often partial or precarious advances and also sometimes with unwanted and unexpected setbacks. In the same sense, it has been very predictable since at least 2005 that the ruling elites of the collective West were never going to assimilate a new, more democratic world order without first suffering a strategic political-military defeat forcing them to accept it.

Now, that defeat is under way in different regions. The ruling elites of the collective West lost the war in Afghanistan. They have lost the war against Russia in Ukraine. They cannot win the long war against Iran, Yemen and the Axis of Resistance in West Asia. They have no chance of overthrowing the Bolivarian government in Venezuela even with a long drawn out conflict, nor are they going to win the war they seek to provoke against China. However, the demented Western elites are unable to accept this new international reality. They start from the disastrous false belief that they still have enough political-military and economic power to contain and counter the rise of the power and influence of Russia and China in a new order of international relations

Since the second war in Iraq, they thought that they were going to be able to achieve that goal through easy blows achieved with their usual recipe of diplomatic bad faith, sadistic economic aggression, incessant psychological warfare, blatant interference and multiple covert actions of destabilization. When they have not been able to achieve their objective through a regime change or coup d’état, as they did, for example, in 2004 in Haiti, 2009 in Honduras, 2014 in Ukraine, 2016 in Brazil, or in 2019 in Bolivia, they launch military attacks. This is how they acted in 2011 against the Ivory Coast and Libya and against Syria until the collapse of the government of Bashar al Assad at the end of 2024.

Now, more than before, with every failed coup, as in Venezuela, and every failed aggression, as in Ukraine, the power and influence of the Western elites diminishes. On the other hand, the resistance and independent organization of dignified peoples around the world continues to strengthen. It has been very predictable how the development of the integration of the huge Eurasian region is naturally progressing faster and more successfully via the Shanghai Cooperation Organization than the even more ambitious global integration of the BRICS countries. Due to the proximity of the Central Asian countries to China and Russia, it is natural that the SCO has developed more decisively given the common economic interests among its member and associated countries.

The integration of India and Pakistan as full members in 2017, Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024 were decisive steps to establish the unquestionable practical relevance of the SCO as an independent alternative to the Western-dominated trade and financial system. In terms of infrastructure integration, the strengthening of the SCO paves the way for greater convergence between China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the North-South International Transport Corridor connecting Russia, Central Asia, Iran and India and the Northern Sea Route between East Asia and Northern Europe. These huge transport initiatives categorically eliminate the maritime advantage exploited by Western powers for centuries to control international trade.

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PM Modi with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping (The Trioka) (CC BY 4.0)

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In the sense of trade and financial exchange, there is increasing coordination between entities such as the Eurasian Economic Union, the Economic Cooperation Organization, the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, ASEAN and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Association.

In geopolitical terms, it is evident, from the integration of India and Pakistan to the SCO, that there is enough will among the Eurasian powers to overcome their many historical contradictions in order to cooperate positively and achieve security and stability for the entire region. So in different ways and levels, a convergence of economic interests and political criteria is promoted around the SCO as a regional project despite the constant interference of the powers of the collective West.

Along with the Western efforts seeking to sabotage successful Eurasian integration, it is also delayed and hindered by the various interests of neighboring partner governments such as Türkiye, a NATO member, or Azerbaijan. These partner countries appreciate the opportunities offered by the SCO but for the moment prefer to prioritize their role as intermediaries to the West. In this respect, the BRICS group of countries suffers from similar contradictions. It is a much broader global grouping than the SCO, composed of economies and governments with very different trade, financial and international relations than those prevailing in the Eurasian region.

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BRICS founding countries such as Brazil, India and South Africa have extensive, complex economic and political relations with North American and European countries and also within their regions. The same applies to the other BRICS member and partner countries of the Arab world and Africa. This reality makes impossible a process of constant, homogeneous and uninterrupted development of the BRICS countries towards a new order of stable international relations, even without the active resistance and interference of the Western ruling elites.

In any case, although with different degrees of commitment, the member countries of BRICS and the SCO share the essential impulse towards relations of cooperation based on respect and mutual benefit prioritizing the human development of their peoples and resolving differences through dialogue and the norms of international law. In fact, the reaction of the Western oligarchies to this challenge to their old regime of international relations has been one of political desperation and their customary commercial and financial extortion. They seek ways to avoid the consequences of NATO losing its war against Russia and resort to constant irrational provocations against China while also threatening military aggression against countries such as Democratic Korea, Iran or Venezuela that follow an independent foreign relations policy in defense of their national sovereignty.

Since 2023, Palestine has become the focal point of fear, paranoia and the refusal of Western elites to recognize the undeniable decline of their countries’ power and influence in relation to the majority world. The North American and European elites finance and protect the Zionist colonial occupation of Palestine with the complacency of the Arab elites of the region who fear the revolutionary solidarity of the Axis of Resistance, led by Iran. The abstention of Russia and China in the recent UN Security Council vote on the grotesque colonial plan on Gaza proposed by Western countries was controversial, but reflects their sense of the best option at that juncture. The perverse US trap was that if Russia and China had applied their veto, the criminal Western powers would have accused them of being the only obstacle to a ceasefire that the same Russian and Chinese representation had demanded in previous votes.  

China and Russia insist that the Palestinian people have the right to a viable national state, which requires an organic and lasting resolution based on regional consensus and international law. At the moment, the unconditional support of the United States and its European allies for the Zionist genocide does not allow progress in that direction without worsening the catastrophic conditions imposed on the Palestinian people by the psychotic Zionist regime with the full support of the collective West. In fact, when international law is abandoned, raw political military power imposes the ultimate outcomes. In Palestine, with practically every passing month, the ability of the collective West to sustain the genocidal Zionist regime and block a Palestinian state as it has done since 1948 is diminishing.

Still, despite its obvious decline, the collective West remains relatively powerful. It constantly seeks to exploit the contradictions in the countries of the majority world between pro-Western interests and forces committed to national sovereignty and international solidarity. The defeat of NATO in Ukraine, the firm defense by China of the one-China principle, the invincible resilience of the Axis of Resistance, Yemen and Iran, run parallel to coherent new structures of independent development, such as the SCO. It is also worth noting the extreme negative reaction on the part of the US government to South Africa’s leadership of the 2025 G20 with its determined focus on the needs and aspirations of the African peoples.

In this new international economic and political-military reality in progress, the resistance of the dignified peoples of the majority world against the sadistic, criminal desperate aggression of the West takes center stage. In Latin America, along with resistance to hybrid war waged by the collective West, our revolutionary countries have joined both directly and indirectly the initiatives of the new multipolar world. This year Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have finalized multiple cooperation agreements of all kinds with the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China and other countries of the majority world.

The experience of our countries categorically demonstrates the many advances made towards a new, more just and democratic world. Our countries and peoples face and overcome all the difficulties and obstacles imposed by the collective West. Maintaining international relations of respect, cooperation and solidarity, our governments have defended a dignified life of greater opportunities answering the needs and aspirations of our peoples. Faced with the theater of false diplomacy, sinister psychological warfare and mendacious US and European rhetoric, our governments focus on the reality of the new world under construction and guarantee the necessary resistance while our peoples work to achieve it.

This reality was expressed over the last few days by our [Nicaragua] Co-Presidents Comandante Daniel and Compañera Rosario in their message to the people and government of Venezuela

“Our Full and Permanent Solidarity with the Great and Brave People of Bolívar, Chávez and Nicolás, the Glorious Venezuelan People, to whom we express at all times and under all circumstances, as we have said so often, our support in the Struggles we all wage, these immense Battles for the Right to live our Sovereignty and Dignity, in Justice and Peace.”

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This article was originally published on Tortilla con Sal, translated from Spanish.

Stephen Sefton, renowned author and political analyst based in northern Nicaragua, is actively involved in community development work focussing on education and health care. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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