‘Summit for Democracy’: Cover for Imperial Geopolitics and War

by Harley Schlanger

[Print version of this article]

Dec. 16—With the declared intention “to renew democracy at home and confront autocracies abroad,” the Biden Administration convened a “Summit for Democracy” December 9-10. In preparation, it was announced that the themes to be addressed would be: 1) “defending against authoritarianism”; 2) “addressing and fighting corruption”; and 3) “promoting respect for human rights.”

But in looking at the diplomatic and military activity of the leading nations of the trans-Atlantic world in the weeks preceding, this event would perhaps be better named the “Summit of Hypocrisy,” as their continued drive to impose a unilateral, arbitrary “rules-based order” made a mockery of the idea of “democracy.” Dr. Andrey Kortunov, the Director of the Russian International Affairs Council, described the summit in an op-ed published in Global Times, as an “attempt to advance one single model over all others.” With this event, he continued, the Biden Administration was “launching an ideological crusade against China, Russia and other nations that dare to deviate from the fundamentals of the Western development model.”

Left unsaid by Kortunov was that this “model” is undergoing an accelerating collapse, as it has no answers to reverse current urgent crises: a surging hyperinflation and the spreading global COVID pandemic, combined with the hunger and starvation being faced by tens of millions. Instead, its promoters are organizing a global bankers’ dictatorship that they have dubbed “the Great Reset,” which would centralize the issuance of credit in the hands of central banks acting not on behalf of the development of sovereign states, but in the interests of private banks and financial institutions primarily centered in the City of London and Wall Street.

This, they believe, would facilitate imposing a “Green New Deal,” using the control of credit to eliminate the use of efficient energy production from fossil fuels and nuclear power, in favor of investment by both governments and private funds, in inefficient so-called “sustainable” energy sources, and entities with a “zero-carbon” profile. Organized under the direction of the former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, more than 400 financial institutions have signed on to a new “bankers’ compact” to cut lending to any nation or institution which rejects the zero-carbon model—hardly an example of “democracy.”

‘You Are Either For Us, or Against Us’

Last month’s climate summit, the COP26 in Glasgow, was meant to forge a consensus behind this model. Instead, it failed, turning into FLOP26 as many nations rebelled, insisting instead on their sovereign right to pursue development models which include the use of energy production systems of higher energy-flux density, such as coal and nuclear—both of which the climate mafia is attempting to outlaw. In addition to countries such as Nigeria, India, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia, which reacted against the consolidation of a new climate dictatorship, Russia and China insisted on their right to use energy sources not approved by the COP26 model.

Behind the façade of democracy is the threat of regime change and war, which have been launched repeatedly against nations that have refused to submit to the “world order” that emerged following the fall of the Soviet Union. That “New World Order” was proclaimed by President George H.W. Bush in 1991 as he launched a war against Iraq. It was premised on a new wrinkle in British imperial geopolitics, declaring that as the “western democracies” had emerged triumphant in the Cold War, this meant that the only acceptable paradigm for all nations is one of neoliberalism and free trade. Defense of this order was used to justify U.S. and NATO military intervention against Iraq in the first Gulf War, and was extended to Europe in the intervention in the Balkans.

The same claim was expressed more crudely by President George W. Bush to justify the invasion of Afghanistan after the 9/11 terror attacks, and was explicit in the war which toppled Saddam Hussein and morphed into the barbaric “endless wars” that continue to this day. As stated by the younger Bush:

Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

This expression of unilateralism lies behind the frequent invocation of the “rules-based order” (RBO) litany, piously pushed by war criminal and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and adopted by his successor, Antony Blinken. Defense of this RBO was a central theme in the G7 and the NATO Foreign Ministers’ Summits in mid-June 2021. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in a statement issued June 28, described these summits as an attempt to “send a clear message” that the trans-Atlantic powers are “united like never before,” and this combine is committed to “forcing others, primarily Russia and China, to follow its lead.” He said these meetings “cemented the rules-based world order concept as a counterweight to the universal principles of international law with the U.N. Charter as its primary source.”

War-Hawks’ Fabrications

This theme was again at the center of speeches delivered at the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting Nov. 30-Dec. 1 in Riga, Latvia, to mobilize against an alleged Russian threat to invade Ukraine. Even following the video summit between Biden and Putin—which created the potential for a de-escalation—Blinken and other U.S. officials toured Europe proclaiming they possess evidence that Russia may invade Ukraine as early as January or February of next year. Blinken stated in Riga:

We don’t know whether President Putin has made the decision to invade. We do know that he is putting in place the capacity to do so ... should he so decide.

This allegation was supported by “evidence” produced by the same British and U.S. intelligence agencies which once had “slam dunk” evidence of Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, and claimed to have evidence of Russian hacking of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, and collusion between Donald Trump and Russia to assure his victory. In both cases, the “evidence” has proven to be fabricated by those intelligence agencies; and, in both cases, immense damage resulted from these lies spread by intelligence officials, elected officials, and the mainstream media, leading to the “endless wars” in Southwest Asia and undermining the potential for cooperation between the U.S. President and leaders of Russia and China.

This tradition, of false intelligence being manufactured to further the geopolitical divide between the trans-Atlantic nations and Eurasia, continued with the “leak” from the intelligence community on alleged Russian preparation for an invasion of Ukraine, published Dec. 3 in the Washington Post, and circulated widely in mainstream media.

In response to this alleged threat, there have been repeated NATO provocations against Russia, including military exercises at or near the Russian border, with nuclear bomb-capable aircraft flying within 20 kilometers of Russia; naval maneuvers in the Black Sea; delivery of new advanced weapons to Ukraine; pledges to provide military support if Russia should invade; and calls for harsh, punitive measures if Russia crosses into Ukraine. NATO General Secretary Stoltenberg threatened, “Any future Russian aggression against Ukraine would come at a high price and have serious economic and political consequences.” Such threats, he said, are designed to ensure that Russia “does not underestimate NATO’s resolve.”

Each of these threats, as well as the possibility that Ukraine will be given NATO membership, has been identified by Putin as crossing a “red line.” Further, giving such unconditional backing to Ukraine heightens the danger that trigger-happy war hawks in Ukraine’s defense and security forces—especially those involved in the 2014 Maidan coup and connected to neo-Nazi militias such as the Azov Brigade—may act unilaterally, moving aggressively into eastern Ukraine or Crimea to provoke a response by Russia, to force NATO into a military conflict.

It is in light of such provocative actions and inflammatory rhetoric from the west against Russia and China, that the actual nature of the Summit for Democracy can be seen. This has nothing to do with respect for human rights, or assuring democratic rights for all nations. Instead, it comes from the Hobbesian “war of each against all,” which is the “philosophic” origin of the concept underlying British geopolitics. It is the latest version of the blueprint to sustain the division of the world between the rich and the poor, supporting the imperial forces that defend the financial interests of the western powers through propaganda and psychological warfare, backed by military force, against the sovereign rights of all nations to choose their own model of development.

Behind the ‘Summit’

Where did this idea for a “Summit for Democracies” come from? While the overall idea has been implicit in the post-World War II order defined by Winston Churchill, and again in the post-1990 idea of a unilateral “New World Order” proclaimed by George H.W. Bush, its present incarnation emerged from within the State Department policy planning staff in 2008. This was the last year of the Bush regime, which began when George W. Bush declared his division of the world after 9/11: Join our fight against terrorism, or you’re with the terrorists. That division included endless wars, but also the imposition of a security or surveillance state on the so-called democracies. With the “war on terrorism” morphing into an era of “endless wars,” some officials believed that perhaps there should be a further redefinition of the unilateral order.

Part of the reason for this, and the impulse for it, came in response to the visible decline of the power of the United States due to the onrush of an economic collapse that has been building for many years. It was forecast by Lyndon LaRouche in 1971, and then again in the mid-1980s, when the Soviet Union rejected his proposal for the SDI. He forecast the fall of the Soviet Union, and when the Soviet Union fell, he said that if the U.S. didn’t change its ways, its financial system and its economy would collapse as well. That is accelerating now, at the same time that China has emerged as an aggressive competitor according to the war-hawks. In reality, China is seen as a threat because its Belt and Road Initiative is emerging as the basis for a very strong global economy, with support from nations which reject the idea of a unipolar world created to benefit Anglo-American financial interests.

In the 2008 State Department, one of the people participating in that policy planning group was Ash Jain. He later went from the State Department to the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic Council is a think tank which was set up to coordinate U.S.-British policy in 1961, funded by all the military-industrial complex firms—the defense contractors, and the corporate conglomerates. It has a very large staff, and according to a source who was employed there, there is a revolving door between the Council and British Foreign Intelligence, MI6.

In 2014, Jain launched a project called the D10 Strategic Forum. D10 refers to an expansion of the G7 to include Australia, India, and South Korea. Note that India is a former British colony, and is still part of the Commonwealth—although India often stands on its own as a sovereign nation—while Australia is part of the British intelligence-centered Five Eyes. The idea expressed by Jain in numerous papers and Atlantic Council podcasts is that the UN Security Council is inadequate to protect the interests of the trans-Atlantic powers because China and Russia have a veto. The United Nations is too large and awkward to serve as a policy platform to defend the rules-based order. The G7 is too small; the G20 is too mixed. What is required, Jain says, is a new platform of approximately 30 core countries, constituting the world’s leading democracies. The basis for membership, according to the Atlantic Council scenario, is “shared values and interests” as well as defining the countries that “possess the requisite diplomatic, economic, and military resources to act on a global scale.” This was brought to the G7 summit this June in England, when UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the G7 should move toward the D10. He called it his D10 Initiative.

A key actor in shaping the D-10 conception was former U.S. Ambassador Daniel Fried, who spent 40 years at the State Department. He served as Ambassador to Poland, and was a coordinator of Eastern Europe policy. From 2013-2017 he was the coordinator of sanctions policy for the U.S. government. In that capacity, he worked closely with Blinken and Victoria Nuland, who were directly involved in organizing the Maidan coup of February 2014 in Ukraine, and who were jointly involved in putting forward the sanctions against Russia following Russia’s response to that coup. Fried stated during a recent podcast that he’s very proud of that collaboration, and its results.

The idea underlying the D10 is that the countries that don’t accept the rules-based order have to be cut out on trade and economics with sanctions, with a policy which punishes them for their “authoritarian ways.”

Return to the question posed by Dr. Andrey Kortunov: “How is it democratic to insist there is only one development model which is acceptable?” The D10 is a return to the unilateralism promoted by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which argued that since the West prevailed in the Cold War, only the neoliberal model is acceptable.

But that model is collapsing now. It is based on a free-trade policy which is destroying the advanced sector countries even as it’s escalating the looting of the poorest nations in the post-colonial world.

‘Carbon Colonialism’

This same unilateralism characterized the Glasgow climate summit: Everyone had to accept zero-carbon-based policies, even though the science is fraudulent, and the result will be the lack of energy to power the advanced sector countries. Moreover, as leaders from Africa, India, Indonesia, and other countries have said, this is a new form of colonialism: carbon colonialism, based on a rejection of national sovereignty.

This is what the Great Reset is about: Putting in the hands of central bankers the power to control not only financial flows and monetary policy, but also spending policy. The compact of bankers organized by Mark Carney says that if you invest in any industry that has a carbon footprint, you’ll be cut off. Credit will be shut down to construction companies, to transportation companies, to power companies that produce carbon dioxide. How is such a bankers’ dictatorship democratic?

Finally, it must be stated that the initiators of this new global order—especially the United States, the United Kingdom, and NATO—have been engaged in one regime change after another in the last two decades, going back to the reaction to the 9/11 attacks. Afghanistan, where American forces finally left after 20 years, is now in a shambles. Instead of helping to provide for people who were victims of 40 years of war, America is holding on to $9.5 billion of money that belongs to the Afghan people. Millions face starvation, a cold Winter. How is that democratic?

Thus the Dec. 9-10 event was a “Summit of Hypocrisy.” Its backers were trying to sabotage any potential for positive negotiations and cooperation between the United States and Russia, or China. Look at its language directed against Putin in particular: authoritarian; opponent of democracy; enemy of free speech; suppressor of opposition political parties, etc.

The most grotesque example of authoritarianism was the treatment given to Lyndon LaRouche, the best economic forecaster of the last 50 years, who consistently intervened globally to provide an alternative to the collapsing financial system. He was constantly slandered. His publications were shut down. He and his colleagues were put in prison. He was vilified and slandered until the day he died; including in the obituaries that were written at the time of his passing.

Look at a second case, that of Julian Assange. The High Court in Great Britain just certified that he will be extradited to the United States, and the Biden Administration continues to insist on that extradition. What crime did Assange commit? He published documents showing actions of war criminals in the U.S. military and intelligence community. It’s they who should be put on trial. Nations that are actual democracies don’t punish the whistleblowers. More whistleblowers were punished under the Obama Administration, and many of those around Biden today are its veterans.

These cases of LaRouche and Assange lead the evidence of the fraud of “the Summit for Democracy.”