Foundations of Geopolitics
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PART 1 - Founding fathers of geopolitics
Part 2 - Modern geopolitical theories and schools (second half of the twentieth century)
Part 3 - Russia and Space
Part 4 - Geopolitical future of Russia
Part 5 - Domestic Geopolitics of Russia
Chapter 3 - Mondialism
3.1 Background of Mondialism
The concept of "mondialism" arose long before the final victory of the West in the Cold War.
The meaning of mondialism is reduced to the postulation of the inevitability of complete planetary integration, the transition from the multiplicity of states, peoples, nations and cultures to the uniform world of One World.
The origins of this idea can be discerned in some utopian and chiliastic movements dating back to the Middle Ages and, further, to ancient times. It is based on the notion that at some climax of history, all the peoples of the earth will gather in a single Kingdom, which will no longer know the contradictions, tragedies, conflicts and problems inherent in ordinary earthly history. In addition to the purely mystical version of the mondialist utopia, there were its rationalistic versions, one of which can be considered the doctrine of the “Third Era” of the positivist Auguste Comte or the humanistic eschatology of Lessing.
Mondialist ideas were most often characteristic of moderate European and especially English socialists (some of them were united in the Fabian Society). The communists spoke of a single World State. On the other hand, similar mondialist organizations were created since the end of the 19th century by large figures in world business, for example, Sir Cesil Rhodes, who organized the Round Table group, whose members were supposed to “promote the establishment of a system of unhindered trade throughout the world and the creation of a single World Government." Often, socialist motives were intertwined with liberal capitalist ones, and the communists coexisted in these organizations with representatives of the largest financial capital. Everyone was united in their belief in the utopian idea of uniting the planet.
It is significant that such well-known organizations as the League of Nations, later the UN and UNESCO were the continuation of precisely such mondialist circles, which had a great influence on world politics.
During the 20th century, these mondialist organizations, avoiding excessive advertising, and often even having a "secret" character, changed many names. There was the "Universal Movement for a World Confederation" by Harry Davis, the "Federal Union" and even the "Crusade for a World Government" (organized by English parliamentarian Henry Asborn in 1946).
As the entire conceptual and strategic power over the West in the United States was concentrated, it was this state that became the main headquarters of mondialism, whose representatives formed a structure parallel to the government, consisting of advisers, analysts, and strategic research centers.
So there were three main mondialist organizations, the very existence of which the public of the West learned only relatively recently. Unlike official structures, these groups enjoyed significantly greater freedom of design and research, since they were exempted from the fixed and formal procedures governing the activities of UN commissions, etc.
The first "Council on Foreign Relations " (Council on Foreign Relations, abbreviated CFR). Its creator was the largest American banker Morgan. This unofficial organization was busy developing an American strategy on a planetary scale, with the ultimate goal being the complete unification of the planet and the creation of a World Government. This organization arose as early as 1921 as a branch of the Carnegie Endowment for the Universal World, and all its high-ranking politicians shared mondialist views on the future of the planet. Since the majority of CFR members were at the same time high-ranking digititarians of Scottish Freemasonry, it can be assumed that their geopolitical projects also had some kind of humanistic-mystical dimension.
In 1954, the second mondialist structure of the Bilderberg Club or Bilderberg Group was created . It united not only American analysts, politicians, financiers and intellectuals, but also their European colleagues. On the American side, it was represented exclusively by CFR members and was seen as its international continuation.
In 1973, activists of the Bilderberg Group created the third most important mondialist structure, the Trilateral Commission. It was headed by the Americans who are part of the CFR and the Bilderberg Group, and in addition to the United States, where its headquarters are located (345 East 46th street, New York), two more headquarters in Europe and Japan.
The Trilateral Commission was named on fundamental geopolitical grounds. It is called upon to unite under the auspices of Atlantism and the USA three “large spaces”, leading in technical development and a market economy:
- 1.American space, including North and South America;
- 2.European space;
- 3.Pacific space controlled by Japan.
The most important mondialist groups in Bilderberg and Trilateral are headed by a senior member of CFR, the largest banker, David Rockefeller, the owner of Chase Manhattan Bank.
In addition to him, at the very center of all mondialist projects are constant analysts, geopolitics and strategists of Atlanticism Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissindzher. It also includes the famous George Ball.
The main line of all mondialist projects was the transition to a unified world system, under the strategic domination of the West and "progressive", "humanistic", "democratic" values. To this end, parallel structures were developed, consisting of politicians, journalists, intellectuals, financiers, analysts, etc., which were to prepare the ground before this mondialist project of the World Government could be widely publicized, since without preparation it would come across to the powerful psychological resistance of peoples and states that do not want to dissolve their identity in the planetary melting pot .
The mondialist project developed and conducted by these organizations was not homogeneous. There were two main versions of it, which, differing in methods, should theoretically lead to the same goal.
3.2 Convergence Theory
The first most pacifist and "conciliatory" version of mondialism is known as the "theory of convergence." Developed in the 70s by the group of "left" analysts in the bowels of the CFR under the leadership of Zbigniew Brzezinski, this theory suggested the possibility of overcoming the ideological and geopolitical dualism of the Cold War through the creation of a new cultural and ideological type of civilization that would be intermediate between socialism and capitalism, between pure atlantism and pure continentalism.
Marxism of the Soviets was seen as an obstacle that can be overcome by going over to its moderate, social democratic, revisionist version through the rejection of the theses "dictatorship of the proletariat", "class struggle", "nationalization of the means of production" and "abolition of private property." In turn, the capitalist West should limit the freedom of the market, introduce partial state regulation of the economy, etc. A common cultural orientation could be found in the traditions of Enlightenment and humanism, to which both Western democratic regimes and the social ethics of communism (in its softened social democratic versions) can be built.
The World Government, which could have appeared on the basis of the "theory of convergence", was conceived of as Moscow's admission to the Atlantic control of the planet together with Washington. In this case, the era of universal peace began, the Cold War would end, and the peoples would be able to relieve the burden of geopolitical tension.
It is important to draw a parallel here with the transition of technological systems from "thalassocracy" to "etiocracy": Mondialist politicians began to look at the planet not through the eyes of the inhabitants of the western continent surrounded by the sea (like traditional Atlantists), but through the eyes of "astronauts in space orbit." In this case, they really saw One World, One World.
Mondialist centers also had their correspondents in Moscow. The key figure here was Academician Gvishiani, Director of the Institute for System Research, which was something like a branch of Trilate Rala in the USSR. But their activity was especially successful among the extreme left parties in Western Europe, which for the most part embarked on the path of “Eurocommunism” and this was considered the main conceptual basis for global convergence.
3.3 Planetary victory of the West
Convergence theories were the ideological foundation that Mikhail Gorbachev and his advisers, who carried out perestroika, alluded to. At the same time, several years before the beginning of Soviet perestroika, a similar project began to be implemented in China, with which representatives of the Trilateral Commission established close relations from the late 70s. But the geopolitical fates of the Chinese and Soviet “perestroika” were different. China insisted on a "fair" distribution of roles and on the corresponding shifts in the ideology of the West towards socialism. The USSR took the path of concessions much further.
Following the logic of the American Mondialists, Gorbachev began the structural transformation of the Soviet space towards "democratization" and "liberalization." First of all, this affected the countries of the Warsaw Pact, and then the republics of the USSR. The reduction of strategic arms and ideological rapprochement with the West began. But in this case, one should pay attention to the fact that the years of Gorbachev’s reign fall during the presidency of the extreme Republicans Reagan and Bush in the United States. Moreover, Reagan was the only president in recent years who consistently refused to participate in all mondialist organizations. He was convinced that he was a tough, consistent and uncompromising atlantist, a liberal marketer, not inclined to any compromises with the "left" ideologies of even the most moderate democratic or social democratic persuasion. Consequently, Moscow’s steps aimed at convergence and creation of a World Government with a significant weight of representatives of the Eastern bloc in it, at the opposite pole, had the most unfavorable ideological obstacles. Atlantist Reagan (later Bush) simply used Gorbachev’s mondialist reforms for purely utilitarian purposes. Heartland’s voluntary concessions were not accompanied by corresponding concessions from Sea Power, and the West made neither geopolitical nor ideological compromises with self-liquidating Eurasia. NATO did not disband, and its forces did not leave either Europe or Asia. Liberal-democratic ideology has further strengthened its position.
In this case, mondialism did not appear as an independent geopolitical doctrine, which was realized in practice, but as a pragmatically used tool in the Cold War, whose logic the USA based on the theses of Mackinder and Mahan did not refuse.
3.4 "The End of History" ; Francis Fukuyama
After the collapse of the USSR and the victory of the West, Atlantism, the mondialist projects had to either die out or change their logic.
A new version of mondialism in the post-Soviet era was the doctrine of Francis Fukuyama, who published in the early 90s a programmatic article entitled “The End of History”. It can be considered as the ideological basis of neomondialism.
Fukuyama offers the next version of the historical process. From the dark era of the “law of power”, “obscurantism” and “irrational management of social reality”, mankind has moved to the most reasonable and logical system embodied in capitalism, modern Western civilization, a market economy, and liberal democratic ideology. History and its development lasted only due to irrational factors, which gradually gave way to the laws of reason, the total monetary equivalent of all values, etc. The fall of the USSR marks the fall of the last bastion of "irrationalism." This is connected with the end of History and the beginning of a special planetary existence, which will take place under the sign of the Market and Democracy, which will unite the world into a harmonious rationally functioning machine.
Such a New Order, although based on the universalization of a purely Atlantic system, goes beyond Atlantism, and all regions of the world begin to reorganize according to a new model, around its most economically developed centers.
3.5 "Geoeconomics" ; Jacques Attali
There is an analogue of the Fukuyama theory among European authors. So, Jacques Attali, a former personal adviser to French President Francois Mitter for many years, as well as director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for some time, developed a similar theory in his book, Horizon Lines.
Attali believes that at the moment there is a third era of the “era of money", which is the universal equivalent of value, since, by equating all things with tangible digital expression, it is extremely easy to manage with them in the most rational way. Attali himself associates this approach with the advent of the Messianic era, understood in the Jewish-Cabalistic context (he develops this aspect in more detail in another book specifically dedicated to the Messianism “He Will Come”). This distinguishes him from Fukuyama, which remains within the framework of strict pragmatism and utilitarianism.
Jacques Attali offers his version of the future, which "has already come." Domination on the whole planet of a single liberal democratic ideology and market system, together with the development of information technologies, leads to the fact that the world becomes single and homogeneous, the geopolitical realities that have dominated throughout history, recede into the background in the “third era”. Geopolitical dualism is canceled.
But a united world nevertheless receives a new geopolitical structuralization, based this time on the principles of "geoeconomics ". For the first time, the historian Fritz Roerig proposed to develop the concepts of "geoeconomics" and popularized it by Fernand Braudel.
"Geoeconomics" is a special version of Mondialist geopolitics, which considers non-geographical, cultural, ideological, ethnic, religious, etc. factors that make up the essence of the geopolitical approach itself, but a purely economic reality in its relation to space. For the "geoeconomics" it does not matter at all what kind of people live there and there, what is its history, cultural traditions, etc. It all comes down to where the centers of world stock exchanges, minerals, information centers, and large-scale industries are located. “Geoeconomics” approaches political reality as if the World Government and a single planetary state already existed.
Attali's geoeconomic approach leads to the identification of three most important regions, which in the One World will become centers of new economic spaces.
- 1.The American space, which finally united both Americas into a single financial and industrial zone.
- 2.The European space that arose after the economic unification of Europe.
- 3.The Pacific region, the zone of "new prosperity", which has several competing centers in Tokyo, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. (12)
According to Attali, there will not be any special differences or contradictions between these three mondialist spaces, since the economic and ideological type will in all cases be strictly identical. The only difference will be the purely geographical location of the most developed centers, which will concentrically structure less developed regions located in spatial proximity around themselves. Such a concentric restructuring can only be realized at the “end of History” or, in other terms, with the abolition of traditional realities dictated by geopolitics.
Civilizational-geopolitical dualism is canceled. The absence of a pole opposite the atlantism leads to a radical rethinking of space. The era of geoeconomics is coming.
In the Attali model, those ideas that lay at the base of the “Tripartite Commission,” which is the conceptual and political tool that develops and implements such projects, found their final expression.
It is significant that the leaders of Trilateral (David Rockefeller, then George Bertouin, then the head of the European branch and Henry Kissinger) visited Moscow in January 1989, where they were received by USSR President Gorbachev, Alexander Yakovlev, and other high-ranking Soviet leaders Medvedev also attended the meeting. Falin, Akhromeev, Dobrynin, Chernyaev, Arbatov and Primakov. And Jacques Attali himself maintained personal contacts with Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
One thing is certain: the transition to geo-economic logic and neomondialism became possible only after the geopolitical self-liquidation of the Eurasian USSR.
Neomondialism is not a direct continuation of historical mondialism, which initially assumed the presence of leftist socialist elements in the final model. This is an intermediate option between actual mondialism and atlantism.
3.6 Poststructuralist Globalism ; Professor Santoro
More detailed versions of neomondialization ma exist. One of the most striking is the futurological geopolitical concept developed by the Milan Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) under the leadership of Professor Carlo Santoro.
According to the Santoro model, at the moment, humanity is in a transitional stage from the bipolar world to the mondialist version of multipolarity (understood geoeconomically, like Attali). International institutions (the UN, etc.), which for Fukuyama seem optimistic mondialism, seem sufficiently developed to become the core of the "World Government", Santoro seems, on the contrary, ineffective and reflecting the outdated logic of bipolar geopolitics. Moreover, the whole world bears a stable imprint of the Cold War, whose geopolitical logic remains dominant. Santoro foresees that such a situation cannot but end in a period of civilizational disasters.
He then sets out the proposed scenario for these disasters:
- 1.Further weakening the role of international institutions
- 2.The growth of nationalist trends among the countries included in the Warsaw Pact and in the Third World. This leads to chaotic processes.
- 3.The disintegration of traditional blocs (this does not affect Europe) and the progressive collapse of existing states.
- 4.The beginning of the era of wars of low and medium intensity, as a result of which new geopolitical formations are formed.
- 5.The threat of planetary chaos forces the various blocs to recognize the need to create new international institutions with huge powers, which in fact means the establishment of a World Government.
- 6.The final creation of a planetary state under the auspices of new international authorities (World Government). (13)
This model is an intermediate between the mondialistic optimism of Francis Fukuyama and the Atlantic pessimism of Samuel Huntington.