On December 10, initiated by U.S. President Joe Biden, the so-called “Summit for Democracy” was held, which was attended by 110 countries (out of 197). The meaning of this event should not be underestimated.

In the Biden’s administration we are dealing with an attempt of American neoconservatives to preserve the unipolar world. This summit was held to give the unipolar model and American hegemony a semblance of legitimacy.

Here we should recall the geopolitical dynamics of the XX-XXI centuries and its reflection in international institutions.

The UN was created after the Second World War and reflected the balance of power in the world after the victory over European fascism and Japanese militarism. The projects of this organization were being prepared by the allies (that is, anti-fascist bloc of countries) during the WWII, and it was created as a symbol of the new – post-fascist – world order, where two ideologies were recognized: liberalism (capitalist West) and socialism (Soviet bloc). Initially, there were two more or less equal poles in the UN –

• the communist East and
• the capitalist West.

Plus a number of countries included in the Non-Aligned Movement, occupying a neutral position and situationally solidarizing with one or the other. In short, the UN reflects the geopolitical map of power just after the end World War II.

One might well consider the UN an institution that embodied a bipolar world order, in which the competition between the two world systems was seen as legitimate and limited by certain rules. The most influential body was the UN Security Council, in which the largest (later nuclear) powers were present – five of them permanent with veto power (USA, Russia, China, England, France). In fact, this composition of the UN Security Council is a vivid illustration of strategic parity.

After disintegration of the Soviet bloc and the end of the USSR, voices were immediately heard in the USA demanding either reform of the UN in view of new conditions, or to dissolve it and create a new organization in its place. The arguments were as follows:

The UN reflected the realities of a bipolar world and relative parity in the competition of two world systems with two clearly distinguished ideologies — liberal and communist one.

The end of one of the systems and the acceptance of capitalist rules by post-communist regimes (in China in the economy during Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, in Russia in Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics both — in the economy and politics by Yeltsin and the liberal reformers) meant that only one pole remained in the world – the Western – capitalist — one.

This de facto unipolarity that emerged in the 1990s contrasted with the rudimentary structure of the UN, reflecting by inertia the balance of power in a different – bipolar – world that had ended.

This was a major theme in the strategy of American neoconservatives, who insisted on giving unipolarity and American hegemony a “legal status” in the international community, as British Empire in its time had declared the world ocean as an area of its total dominance. Such reforms required the dissolution of the UN and the creation of an international body with only one legitimate leader, the US and its closest allies (i.e., vassals). The other countries would have asymmetrical rights – the honorary right to agree (or … grudgingly agree) with Washington’s decisions. Such projects have been openly formulated, lobbied for and discussed by neoconservatives and advocates of an open declaration of an America as World Empire (such as Niall Fergusson).

Obama’s rival in the 2008 presidential election, Republican and staunch neoconservative John McCain was particularly active in promoting the “League of Democracies” project. He demanded in his election program the creation of “a new UN, without Russia and China,” stressing that such an organization would unite within its framework “more than a hundred democratic states.

The main idea of the “League of Democracies” was to give unipolarity a legal status.

It should be taken into account that McCain was promoting his project under new conditions, when Russia and China ceased to be obedient satellites of the West (as it was or seemed in the 1990s) and turned into sovereign and independent from the West poles – Russia primarily in the strategic and energy sense, China – in the economic one. Hence the neoconservative McCain’s emphasis on excluding Russia and China from the “League of Democracies” was very aggressive step directed to the end to stop the sovereign rise of these countries.

By now the influence of Russia and China has increased significantly to the point that it is quite fashionable to talk about a virtually established tripolar world where in addition to Moscow and Beijing other countries – Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, etc. are pursuing sovereign policies that are increasingly independent of the United States and NATO. Therefore, the UN again changes its meaning and henceforth becomes an international institution reflecting the tripolar – in near future full scale multipolar — world. It is indicative that the two main poles of this world, Russia and China, are the former pillars of the socialist bloc (China remains faithful to a substantially reformed socialism to the present day).

And now Joe Biden, the president elected from the Democratic Party, the same party as Barack Obama, Republican McCain’s opponent in the 2008 election, is doing exactly what the neoconservatives have been preparing for so long – holding a “Summit of Democracies” without Russia, China and other sovereign nations that do not recognize American hegemony. Things have changed 180 degrees in American politics in recent years. Republican Trump, called by the neoconservatives their “main enemy”, embraced a kind of multipolarity, while the Democrat and convinced globalist Biden, who replaced him, pursues a rigidly hegemonic and openly imperialist policy, as the neoconservatives demand. Related to this are the plans to further expand NATO to the East, the escalation of Russian-Ukrainian relations, the support for the radical liberal opposition in Russia – against Russia; the creation of AUKUS and QUAD blocs, the support for Taiwan, and the provocations in Xinjiang — against China.

This is exactly how Biden’s slogan, Bild Back Better should be interpreted. It was not quite clear before what he really meant by it. And many people thought he was talking about a return to Obama’s policies. But in fact, it didn’t really mean that much. It was a return to unipolar U.S. (more broadly, Anglo-Saxon) hegemony, a declaration of war on a tripolar (multipolar) world and a new round of U.S. imperialism. “Bild Back Better” is a call to return to the 90’s, when the unipolar model seemed to be firmly established.

Of course, the event organized by Biden under pressure from neoconservatives has nothing to do with democracy. It is a purely imperialist initiative, and those who support it either do not understand its essence, or agree to recognize their status as “American vassals” in a strictly hierarchical system of new international relations, where only one authority should stand at the head – the United States and its subordinate structures (especially NATO).

How to respond to this for all supporters of real democracy? And above all Russia and China?

It is necessary to defend the UN, sabotage any initiatives to reform it in a unipolar way and ignore events like this shameful imperialist summit.