Bordachev: The Game of Empire Begins in the World

Just a few days after his essay in Expert was published, Timofey Bordachev wrote another that was published by Vzglad on 30 April having a decidedly different outlook that also begs the question about where this academic has spent his life when he opines that Empire is only now just beginning to return as an entity. But before becoming too critical, let’s read what he wrote and then make an assessment:

Soon, empire may become a fashionable word for discussing the direction in which the political organization of the world is moving. Donald Trump's constant talk about the annexation of the territories of Canada and Greenland to the United States, the stuttering of Dutch politicians about the desire to divide Belgium–-all these are only the first swallows of a large discussion that will inevitably occur as the order that was created in the second half of the twentieth century is destroyed.

This order, we recall, was based on granting independence to the maximum number of peoples, and the United States, which promoted this concept, always proceeded from the fact that it is much easier to economically subordinate small and weak countries than to cope with large territorial powers.

The West is starting a new "game in the empire", and the rest are taking a closer look, but they will not necessarily pick it up. And as always, Russia is behaving with restraint, whose intention to allegedly restore the "empire" is one of the most replicated by the military propaganda of the United States and Europe. Especially when it comes to our policy in relations with the countries of the former USSR. And Russian observers, to be honest, may come up with different ideas in cases where the situation in neighboring countries looks tragic, and hostile powers seek to use their territory to harm Russia.

In scientific and popular literature, the concept of "empire" is one of the most compromised–-primarily by the efforts of American authors. In the mass consciousness, it is associated either with the ancient world or with the era when aging European empires, including Russia, sought to impose their will on the rest of humanity. As a result, they only unleashed the First World War of 1914-1918, as a result of which almost everyone died, physically or politically. At that time, the United States, which rejected the imperial idea, and Russia, which successfully revived in its new capacity as the USSR, came to the forefront of world politics. Although soon they themselves began to call each other empires, thereby strengthening the negative perception of this concept.

Be that as it may, pronouncing the word "empire" in relation to the desired strategic goal of the development of the state's foreign policy even now remains the lot of very great originals. Moreover, all the countries of the World Majority friendly to Russia cannot stand empires. For them, these are European colonizers, from whom nothing good happened: first a complete plunder of resources, and then neocolonial enslavement through bribing the elites and unilateral economic agreements.

In this regard, Russia has never been an empire in the European sense of the word, since its most important organizing principle was precisely the integration of local elites into their own country and the development of new possessions. The most striking indicator is the demographic statistics of Central Asia since its entry into Russia, including, of course, its stay in the USSR. There is reason to suspect that even now the demographic boom in the five republics of the region is based on the health care and social policies created in the last century. And it is not known how long it will last if our friends in the region move towards the civilization of South Asia, but with much worse climatic conditions.

Be that as it may, the concept of empire still remains predominantly negative. At the same time, in the last couple of decades, we have begun to actively use it in relation to the United States or Europe. The American empire has even become a quite common category of journalistic discussion, denoting the ability of the United States to use many countries for the purposes of its foreign policy and its development. As for Europe, the matter, as always, was limited to words. European powers retained some influence on their former colonies for a long time. But it can in no way be called imperial even in the most distant approximation. And talk about the European Union as an empire in general quickly became a joke. The "blooming garden" has gone anywhere, but an empire associated with formidability and the ability to expand its borders uncontrollably is not at all about modern Europe.

However, now there are several signs that empires may return to world politics not only in the form of gloomy shadows of the past. First of all, in its functional sense, as a way to organize a space of security and development in conditions when chaos is growing around us, for the people who are creating an empire (here is Trump's "make America great again") and other peoples for whose fate the empire takes responsibility. It should be emphasized that such discussions are becoming inevitable in a world where other major formats no longer work, and problems are only growing, whether we like it or not.

The West is conducting this discussion in different words than those written in history textbooks. But it means precisely the creation of good conditions for its citizens through the physical extension of its power over wider geographical spaces. And it is no longer possible to do this by the previous methods–-through economic cooperation. Too strong competition from other major powers: it is not for nothing that Trump insists that if Canada and Greenland are not taken by the United States, then China or Russia will be there. Russia is not going to do this, of course. But the fact that direct administrative control is needed to be confident in the future is gradually becoming axiomatic.

There are several reasons, and all of them are material in nature–-not invented by political scientists but proven by life itself. International institutions are poorly coping with their tasks. As a result of the sabotage of the West, the UN is becoming almost a representative organization. Although we will still fight to preserve its central role and the primacy of international law. Perhaps even successfully. But the weakening of international organizations of the 20th century has not yet contributed much to the emergence of new ones. The only impressive exception is BRICS. However, it does not pretend to replace the national elites of the member countries in solving their main problems.

The European Union, an old-style organization, is slowly sliding towards disintegration. Other international organizations do not know the answer to the question of how to force their members to fulfill their obligations. This means that those great powers that create and maintain all the world's numerous institutions risk being disappointed.

Discussions about the imperial order are also facilitated by the processes taking place in the field of advanced science and technology. Unlike some colleagues, the author of this text is not a sophisticated observer of this area of development. However, even a superficial observation of the debate suggests that the competition of artificial intelligence models can lead to the formation of "digital empires"–-not new states, but zones of unconditional dominance of technological giants from capable countries. Another important factor is that some countries are failing in their responsibilities to ensure peace for their neighbors. It also makes us think that the imperial order is not so obsolete.

However, the imperial order is terribly expensive. Even the empires of the West paid a lot to maintain their incredible size–-everyone knows Kipling's lines about the difficult fate of British retired soldiers. And so Britain or France gladly got rid of overseas territories in the middle of the last century. Russia came to understand that it did not need all the territories later–-this was partly the reason for the collapse of the country that we were all proud of–-the USSR. Although even now, in the same Tbilisi, among the local intelligentsia, there are those who welcome the return of the beautiful city to the number of capitals of a huge power. And themselves–-as part of its multinational elite.

The second most important obstacle to the restoration of empires, including those around Russia, is the contribution of new territories to the stability and development of the main metropolis. Russia is not seeking to recreate an empire around itself now, because it itself is a state of a new type, where classical imperial features are combined with features that are completely unsuitable for Europe. First of all, the equality of inhabiting peoples. Such equality requires cultural affinity, or at least the presence of a foundation for it. Russia before the October Revolution, and then the USSR, obviously went beyond the boundaries when an empire can be beneficial, not harmful. And we now need to develop new approaches to how to ensure the security of our neighbors without causing damage to ourselves. [My Emphasis]

IMO, the author needs to rewrite his essay since its actual thesis is stated in his conclusion. There’s a lot of muck to wade through, most of it bolded. At the start, we have a description of how the Outlaw US Empire has managed itself for most of its existence. Next is a reference to EU/NATO’s propaganda that Russia seeks to revive the USSR and resubordinate Europe. As an educator from the American system, US history textbooks do not mention empire or imperialism and those two concepts must be explained to students. Empires reign throughout ancient history, but a more honest approach is to say that they’re a constant and still in existence today. I have no idea where the author got the notion that the Outlaw US Empire “rejected the imperial idea” during WW1, unless he interprets Wilson’s 14 Points as being anti-Imperialist. Wilson was running the American Empire and denied many at Versailles their right to self-determination—most famously the Vietnamese. American financial dominance was swiftly turned into economic imperialism via “Dollar Diplomacy” and the wars and interventions made roughly from 1898 to 1932. Empires have never been about uplifting the living standards of the Metropole’s citizens—elites were always the beneficiaries and that remains true today as we watch Trump escalate the Class War. The global balance of power between the Collective Western Empire, the Outlaw US Empire and the Global Majority was such that the UN and its institutions were never allowed to do what they were designed to, mainly because the two empires violated the UN Charter with impunity and still do despite the Outlaw US Empire’s hostile takeover of the Collective Western Empire. France and UK did not want to relinquish their Empires; they were denuded of them by the Outlaw US Empire which took what it wanted. France was able to fight that the best since it wasn’t chained to US War Loans that needed to be repaid. And then we have the international trading and finance systems as proof of America’s intent even before the war ended. The beginnings of a discussion about the possible evolution of Capitalism into a new format based on new technologies has begun and spawned new concepts like Technofeudalism and Cloud Capital. These are related to the actions by Neoliberal rent seekers—financialized capitalism—that currently is dismantling western industry.

The new concept of Civilizational States is aimed at isolating the Outlaw US Empire, which isn’t civilizational, but is rather an extension of European Feudalism and an Imperialistic Vaticanized Christianity and lacks any moral underpinning or ethical philosophy that could be termed humanistic. In his previous essay, Bordachev insisted that Russia needed to chart its own path while also being a Global majority leader. The one commonality facing the Global Majority is the Outlaw US Empire’s escalation of hegemony that threatens all national sovereignty, which it’s doing economically because it now lacks the military power to coerce the world as it has for over 100 years. What Russia needs to do is implement Bordachev’s closing sentence while helping the Global Majority to stand tall and not capitulate to the Empire’s Trade War.

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