Australian Analyst Mentions Challenges of Multipolarity in Post-US World

In an interview with the secretariat of the 2nd international conference on the demise of the United States on Tuesday, September 21, 2021, Professor Tim Anderson, a lecturer of political economy at the University of Sydney, discussed the decline of the United States.

Anderson believes that it is definitely time to talk about a post-American world. The US itself often looks at rivals that may displace it. We are looking at a multipolar world, a world with several power blocs that are related to each other. And the challenge is that “(t)here should be a common language, I suppose that groups in Asia and West Asia and Africa and Latin America and even Europe can talk about and find a common language and then build some sort of networks of cooperation to displace these mechanisms of domination.”

“We have typically regional and cultural networks,” Prof. Anderson said. “We have the Latin Americanism in Latin America, a greater Islamic community in parts of the Middle East, pan-Africanism, and Pan-Arabism. And we see some cross-continental cooperation developing, for example, between Venezuela and Iran, between Cuba and Iran. Those sorts of links are very important and there are some identified common values and a common language in those new forms of cooperation.”

Anderson put forth that there’s been “significant cooperation between Venezuela and Iran, and clearly the cultural history of Venezuela and the cultural history of Iran are quite different. And that hasn't been an obstacle to the development of cooperation and identification of some common values between those countries. So I think that's an important area we should focus on.”

Anderson maintained that “(i)n West Asia, we've had terrible wars which are really the outcome of the US trying to hang on to its position of dominance in several regions of the world in the Eurasian continent, and it's been failing there and so to replace that I believe there has to be some very strong bonds of cooperation, first of all, regionally in West Asia and then also the links with those wider independent movements around the world. Some new form of financial cooperation is also important.”

As regards Iran’s joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Anderson said that SCO “is a very large and important block which can mobilize trade and commercial relationships, and hopefully also financial links. And also, there's been speak of strategic and even military cooperation within that block.” He referred to the BRICS group and the CELAC, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and said these are “mechanisms by which the world can start to break free from this uni-polarity domination by the regime in Washington.”

“The blocks like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the CELAC in Latin America,” he added “are the beginnings of a type of international network which can create new poles of power and displace and weaken the Washington regime. America’s mechanisms of domination have to be broken down. There has to be new mechanisms and stronger cooperation, stronger bonds in terms of West Asia.”

“Of course, there are big countries that are going to play an important role,” Anderson further said. “Iran is another one. Iran is the biggest independent state in West Asia. But that doesn't mean that Iran is going to become an imperial power. So, there's a difference between big powers and imperial powers.”

Anderson believed that the decline of the US has been going on “for several decades, at least since the mid-80s and arguably well before that. Decline is part of the reduction of the US capacity to carry out its operations of domination, its wars, its interventions, it's propaganda wars and so on. The propaganda wars, the media networks of the US are very important too. This is part of its hegemonic, its tools of hegemonic domination to dominate the way people think, their sources of information, the ideas and so on. So, it's still strong in those areas, but economically, it's been in decline for quite some time.”

“So, its reduced capacity is signaling that there are opportunities for new powers like China and Russia and Iran to break through and play a new role in creating these new power blocs, which are going to dilute and reduce the malignant influence that Washington has on international relations.”

“In this regard,” he continued, “the idea of greater, inclusive societies where people participate in their societies is very important. Thus, participation and inclusion are very important features of the new World we're looking for.”

The 2nd International Conference on “the Decline of the United States: The Post-American World” will be held on November 2, 2021, by Imam Hussein Comprehensive University (pbuh) and the Secretariat of the Expediency Discernment Council, in cooperation with the universities and research institutes. For more information, interested parties can see the conference website at www.usdecline.ir and the virtual pages of the conference secretariat on social media at @usdecline.