A Top EU Think Tank Admitted That The West Is Out Of Touch With The Rest Of The World
The contrasting views between the Golden Billion and the Global South over the past year’s events, the present state of affairs, and the coming future reinforce the European Council on Foreign Relations’ conclusion that the West is truly out of touch with the rest of the world, which is still taboo for its elite to admit.
“Western Exceptionalists” who believe in the supremacy of their civilization will be shocked to find out that a top EU think tank just admitted that their de facto New Cold War bloc is out of touch with the rest of the world. The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), which can’t realistically be described as “Russian puppets” or even “Russian-friendly”, just published a damning report titled “United West, divided from the rest: Global public opinion one year into Russia’s war on Ukraine”.
Citing data from a recent poll conducted by the UK’s prestigious Oxford University, they found that the “pro-democracy” and “rules-based order” rhetoric espoused by the US-led West’s Golden Billion consolidated unity within their own bloc at the expense of dividing it from the Global South. As objective observers could have expected, the second-mentioned don’t perceive the Ukrainian Conflict in the same way as the former does.
Whereas the Golden Billion is willing to support the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine for as long as it takes for Kiev to claw back all the territory that it claims as its own, the Global South wants the conflict to end as soon as possible. The first predictably came to practically hate Russia over the past year, while the latter still harbors very fond feelings towards it, especially in India where a whopping 80% of people regard it either as “an ally” or “a necessary partner – with which we must strategically cooperate”.
Likewise, the Global South believes that Russia is as strong as it was a year ago before the start of its special operation, if not actually stronger. Another major point of divergence between them and the Golden Billion is that the Global South’s states already consider themselves to be decent democracies, with the innuendo being that they don’t need the latter to “advise” them, and they’re skeptical of the West’s intentions in Ukraine. They also see no difference between the US and EU at this point either.
While the Golden Billion is bracing for a bipolar future largely shaped by the worldwide competition between the US and China, the Global South believes that the future will truly be multipolar. These contrasting views over the past year’s events, the present state of affairs, and the coming future reinforce the ECFR’s conclusion that the West is truly out of touch with the rest of the world, hence the somewhat surprising recommendation to actually respect those Global South states’ sovereignty.
As the report phrases it, “In our view, the West would be well advised to treat India, Turkiye, Brazil, and other comparable powers as new sovereign subjects of world history rather than as objects to be dragooned onto the right side of history…the West will have to live, as one pole of a multipolar world, with hostile dictatorships such as China and Russia, but also with independent major powers such as India and Turkiye.”
Those “Western Exceptionalists” referenced at the beginning of the present piece will likely remain delusional about the ECFR’s conclusion and recommendation since they can’t countenance accepting other countries’ sovereign decisions, especially regarding their governing system and international partnerships. Nevertheless, while it’s unlikely that this think tank’s advice will be perfectly heeded, there’s no doubt that it deserves praise for sharing such views that are still taboo in the West.