Now that I have your undivided attention with a headline using the now globally recognizable brand in military advice and support on the ground, let’s begin. To the general public, the “Economic Wagner” nickname quickly visualizes and captures the essence of the required scope, strength, commitment to rendering full and complex economic support, advice and guidance needed by the nation-states contemplating switching from the neoliberal to a sovereign economic model. Considering the difficulties that countries wanting to make such a switch are facing, they certainly do need an “Economic Wagner” even more than they need its globally renowned, and now retired, military component version.
Countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, that want to switch from neoliberal to the sovereign economic model in the Multipolar World Order, are facing an uncertain and risky path through uncharted waters and territories, something that prevents many that are contemplating such a move from actually committing themselves to it. If they had a clear, structured roadmap and a path “well-trodden” and systematized with “dos and don’ts” from the experience of countries that have earlier passed through the same process, coupled with the pledged support along the way by the multipolar world, the decision to embark on such a future-defining journey to economic sovereignty will be taken easier by the governments and be seen as credible, desirable and legitimate in the eyes of their populations. Hence, what is needed for enabling making this switch, is a standardized, systematized, diagnostics and solutions platform that provides all of this, a Rapid & Deep Sovereignization Toolkit, implemented by a team of experts, termed provocatively in this article as an “Economic Wagner” deployment.
While number of countries are already making this jump, such as Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, others that are contemplating similar move are dazed and immobilized by fear of the unknown path ahead and of the risks associated with it. And while some of them that are in the process of transitioning such as Saudi Arabia and other Arabic countries, have a deeper cushion to absorb the impact of these challenges, the less affluent countries of the Global South are facing immense, unknown and unquantified risks. Some of these countries have tested the waters of the road to freedom, such as the Philippines briefly under Duterte, only to fold back into the neoliberal system once again, partly by a combination of geostrategic factors, and to a significant extent also partly due to the difficulties that moving out of the neoliberal economy slavery system brings upon them.
The governments that decide to make such a move, are, and will be, immediately attacked by the entire financial, economic and political fleet of gunboats (read institutions) of the neoliberal order, of which most of the countries have been an integral part for decades now, making them even more vulnerable and exposed to its wrath. The attacks start and continue with ever-increasing rounds of economic, legal and administrative sanctions, coupled with overnight financial attacks on the “disobeying” country’s currency, budget, its ability to trade using SWIFT, etc. These attacks will be orchestrated and put in motion by the IMF, World Bank, WTO etc, helped by the global and local commercial banks, transnational corporations, other puppet neoliberal governments, and rating agencies such as Moody, Standard & Poor, Fitch etc.
The immediate effect on the country’s economy will be strangulation of its currency, budget and its most profitable productive and service sectors and their exports capabilities, bringing immediate real and perceived fall of the quality of life for the people of that nation-state. All of this will be accompanied by engaging a rainbow coalitions of previously groomed, paid and bought actors among the internal fifth columns’ of neoliberal supporters within the country. These are the members of the political and economic elites, professional networks that have benefited from being globalists’ local lackeys and whips. The so-called third sector of paid activists will also be engaged, and ”democratic opposition” politicians with zero popular support will be taken to the streets. All of this will be supported by censoring and shadow-banning of any independent and free thought and voice on the social media platforms, and by the orchestrated outcry of the local media, already corrupted by the neoliberals through their decades-long aid and development programmes.
Hence, and in order to help these countries make this switch in a successful, smooth and sustainable way, firstly the enormity and granularity of the difficulties that any such country faces (i.e. Mali, Philippines) will have to be deeply understood in order to be able to diagnose, identify, design, devise and implement the required, complex and necessary depth and breadth mix of short, medium and long-term activities a country will have to undertake. In order to deal with the complexity they face, the Rapid & Deep Sovereignization Toolkit will help the nation-state governments to quickly identify, diagnose and develop plan of activities ranging from the immediate, through the medium and long-term. The governments will then be enabled to immediately begin implementing these activities avoiding all of the pitfalls that the scorned neoliberal partner will throw at them. The needs assessment and the recommendations are based on the deep dive analytics of how the neoliberal system was implemented and transplanted in any given country that now wants to move back to sovereign model for the benefit of its people instead of the globalists and neoliberal transnational corporations. The Sovereignization Toolkit analysis identifies all the weak spots of the neoliberal system, provides precise entry points for the return to sovereignism, and helps devise precise diagnostics and targeted solutions and recommendations for doing so.
The same applies to the developing a detailed data, analytics, diagnostics, solutions and entry points for the international and bilateral support that countries such as Russia can provide to the mutual benefits of all involved. The leading countries of this multipolar world that are creating it through BRICS, EAES, Belt and Road Initiative, New Development Bank, etc, need and should have the knowledge, platforms and capabilities for providing such a systematic, standardized guidance and support to these countries that want, and are contemplating making the switch. Hence, this toolkit and platform will help both the sovereign nation states on their way to the multipolar world order, and will help the flag-bearing countries of the multipolar world order, Russia and China etc, as well as equip with the tools, instruments, data, diagnostics and recommendations, the newly formed international institutions that currently lack the scope, reach and depth to conduct such complex undertaking themselves, something that their Bretton Woods counterparts have built over the decades.
Who will do this? Now and for time being, this vacuum is left to be filled by an ad hoc private and good Samaritans initiatives undertaken by number of leading world experts with deep hands-on knowledge and experience of both the neoliberal and the incoming sovereign systems, such as for example the educational, mentoring and advisory initiatives implemented by the author of this article. However, these initiatives should be standardized, systematized and taken on board by the (currently embryonic) institutions of the new, fair and just multipolar order that are forming, such as BRICS+, its New Development Bank (NDB), AIIB, Eurasian Union, Belt And Road Initiative, etc. The national financial, economic and knowledge platforms of Russia such as: Rossotrudnichestvo, its academic institutions such as RUDN, its businesses, its Central Bank, ministries of foreign affairs, education, economics etc, has to form part of an integrated support platform. This toolkit and platform will be utilized for example, when a currency that is under neoliberal institutional attack can be supported by loans, by selling or lending gold, by agreeing to direct mutual acceptance of bilateral currencies, offering its СФПС (SFPS), Brics Pay, or other international payment systems.
Russia can, should and has to find and reinvent its lost habits and abilities of doing so. It is mind-boggling to read and learn about the depth, breadth and extent of the now-forgotten Soviet Union economic engagement in Mali for example, something that has many parallels with the contemporary struggle by Mali, only now lacking that deep economic component. Today’s adopted view of majority of the Russian economists is that for example a shipment of Russian grain to an African country is an “economic cooperation”. However, it is not. It is a great, noble, generous, good and humanitarian move, but it is not economics, it is social aid, and it is one off, and, does not establish sustainable economic links and institutions that are mutually beneficial for both the recipient country and Russia.
Hence, establishment of such a deep, meaningful, helpful for the recipient country and mutually beneficial economic cooperation of the nation-states and Russia will require from both, remembering and reviving of their past abilities, linkages and memories of mutually beneficial cooperation. Even more so, it will especially require from Russia to start once again utilizing the enormous quality and depth of its institutions, central bank, think tanks, universities, as well as financial, economic, scientific and public administration specialists but also engineers, businessman, educators, and professionals in agriculture, tourism, electronics, mining, etc, that will be able to be parachuted for a while and provide on-site expertise in the required areas.
Here is where the nation states’ governments will need all help, support, advice and guidance they will need and here is where the efforts such us this rapid & deep sovereignization toolkit fits in the wider picture of the necessity for systematization of the ability for linking the needs with solutions and closing the knowledge, systematization, instrumental, informational and capability gaps that currently exist.
Goran Sumkoski, economic development expert
Notes:
Russia’s Sergey Glazyev Introduces the New Global Financial System, Glaziyev, S. Interview by Pepe Escobar April 24, 2022 Janata Weekly, Editor: Dr. G.G. Parikh
Davidchuk A.S., Degterev D.A., Korendyasov E.N. Soviet Structural Aid to the Republic of Mali in 1960-1968 // Vestnik RUDN. International Relations. – 2022. – Vol. 22. – N. 4. – P. 714-727. doi: 10.22363/2313-0660-2022-22-4-714-727
Sumkoski G. Global Dissipation of Neoliberal Models and the Sovereign State Doctrine // Vestnik RUDN. International Relations. – 2022. – Vol. 22. – N. 4. – P. 771-787. doi: 10.22363/2313-0660-2022-22-4-771-787