his back on traditional allies and is openly pro-Russia. The two countries are officially frenemies since there is always a show of public antagonism but never any substance to it.
Trump went as far as threatening to impose sanctions on India, an ally, for buying oil from Russia but conveniently refused to back NATO’ s official position where it wants to check Russia’ s expansionist agenda that threatens many European countries.
Although Russia is still an authoritarian state its economy is totally capitalist with so many billionaires whose membership reads like the who is who in the Russian mafia. Wealth and crime go hand in hand in Russia with Putin as the chief mobster.
But the real shocker is China, the presentday economic juggernaut, that is poised to become the largest economy in the world if the USA continues on its misadvised trajectory led by a lunatic cult leader of a deranged white supremacist economic suicide group.
China’ s amazing transformation from a poor developing country to an economic superpower is nothing short of spectacular and equally astounding is its transformation from a closed economy into a market-led powerhouse while still authoritarian.
China which has been called the factory of the world still wields massive political clout but this time round it is not from ideological viewpoints but from massive economic influence as China builds an alternative sphere of influence from the traditional western one.
There is a new silent war ongoing as China positions itself as a superpower to rival USA and dismantle the financial infrastructure build on the dollar and to the benefit of the western world. BRICS has emerged as a real contender and an influencer in global geopolitics.
Ochieng pities the many developing countries who were on the Marxist agenda, who failed to realize that their de facto ideological role-model had morphed into a hybrid economy that was on full steam ahead to world dominance as they were still chanting Mao slogans.
Today we talk about Chinese billionaires; but this ideological summersault has left many third world countries confused as the capitalistic model of wealth accumulation is what was blamed for wreaking havoc and perpetrating misery in the lives of their citizenry.
The sun finally set on the British Empire and the country whose raison d’ etre was the expansion of the pax Britannica to all the four corners of the world, was quietly retreating to that rainy isle that once birthed the men who would rule the seas and the world.
There are Britons who felt that the retreat was not fast enough and vigorously promoted a divorce from Europe in the disastrous Brexit that saw the once model of expansionism and globalization turn into a mousy isolationist with devastating economic and social repercussions
The shift from a super colonial power to an inward-looking recluse nation suggests a country that has lost its soul and decided to lock itself up with the hope that it will rediscover the special spark that was responsible for its former conquering exploits.
Then we have the so-called leader of the
How one performed in school was a very poor predictor of what people actually turned out to be in life. Yet in school the storyline was to work hard and the world oyster would be yours. That rebellious ne’ er-do-well, who got suspended twice with a threat of expulsion on the third misdemeanor was now a respectable partner in a highly regarded accounting firm and the class‘ choppie’ is currently in a rehab having lost the battle to the drink.
free world, whose recent exploits mirror the British disaster, where the clarion cry of‘ Make America Great Again’ sounds not only hollow and myopic but it also just another way of saying‘ Lock the County Up’.
We may just be witnessing the final throws of an empire disintegrating by selfinflicted casualties that are so reminiscent of the British experiment. No nation ever became great by looking inwards and there are enough historical case studies to quote.
A nostalgic desire to go back to the good old days when an American rebuke was sufficient to declare a country a pariah state is long gone and having a president that the world cannot decide whether he is a clown or a maniac doesn’ t help.
These are the countries that determined how the third world countries behaved by example, coercion or influence. They seem to be way off mark from the days that they wielded the big stick of moral superiority.
The last word has to be a big question mark. If the countries, who were the beacons that the third world was following, have now meandered so far off-course, then who exactly are the third world countries following.
Is the world being run by a bunch of shadowy oligarchs who think that we should be exiting this world to colonize Mars and that the most important use of resources is to build a ballroom bigger than the white house to perhaps eventually celebrate the first trillionaire.
Is the new world order, one where there is no order and the global environment is on a free fall while hoping that a new and vibrant beacon shall arise to take up global stewardship which the Americans have abdicated by inept leadership. Whither-to Democracy?
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