Atlantic magazine has identified five "bad guys" who are successfully undermining the American world order. And the question now is what to do with them.

There are several publications in the West that regularly delight readers with not only interesting, but also very deep covers. One of them is Atlantic. Some time ago, a number with a red cover was released, which featured five leaders: Nicholas Maduro, Alexander Lukashenko, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Beneath them was the caption: "Bad guys win" and a very pessimistic subtag: "If the 20th century was a story of slow, uneven progress towards the victory of liberal democracy over other ideologies - communism, fascism, violent nationalism, then in the 21st century today the picture is straightforward. the opposite. " And these are not some fantasies or complaints - this is a bitter statement of fact. A fact with which the West does not yet understand what to do.

The fact is that the worldview of the Atlantic editors, a significant part of their Western colleagues and, of course, the ruling class of Europe and the United States was based on the principle of the “end of history”. History as a period of confrontation between various civilizational ideologies, which ended with the unequivocal and irrevocable victory of liberal democracy. Yes, she has not won everywhere yet, and there are still those in the world who do not accept this ideology - however, in the understanding of the apologists of the liberal world, they are not only unable to somehow strategically influence the current picture, but are also doomed to defeat and liberalization. in future.

The bad guys, however, shatter this picture. Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko lead small countries that for many years have resisted Western pressure and do not allow the US or the EU to shape their policies. Neither sanctions, nor diplomatic pressure, nor even the threat of invasion have taken them off course. Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan lead states that defend not only their sovereignty, but their so-called. "Zone of responsibility", that is, control over the affairs of the region or (in the case of Russia, which includes Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia) regions. And so it turns out that the liberal world, which has much greater capabilities in the field of finance, media and global politics, can do nothing to completely break through this control. Finally, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is no longer a regional, but a global challenge to the dominance of the "good guys." Yes, China today does not have an attractive global ideology, and so far everything is not very good with political will (Comrade Xi is not a world leader, he is just studying), but China has enough money to turn Beijing into a global “Mecca” "For third world countries eager for Chinese investments and ready to implement Chinese interests in return. Some of these countries - El Salvador, for example - are in the American underbelly.

Yes, the five "bad guys" do not act as a single team, and sometimes (for example, now along the Moscow-Ankara line or in the future along the Beijing-Ankara line) they even conflict with each other. However, in the aggregate, by their very existence, they still pose a threat to the liberal-democratic world of "good people" at the country, regional and, most importantly, global level.

And the West today does not understand how to deal with this threat. But it is necessary to cope, since the rest of the world is watching the resistance of this "disgusting five". And, seeing the success of the resistance, he asks himself a very dangerous question for the United States: "Well, it was possible that way too?"

The methods of struggle standard for the West show their ineffectiveness. Collapse from the inside practically does not work - attempts to organize color revolutions in "bad countries" through the formation of a pro-Western part of the local societies and bringing them to the Maidan are not successful. The Chinese were able to almost completely close their population from Western influence - including through the creation of an effective and competitive internal information space (sovereign Internet, internal Chinese ideology, view of history, etc.). Russia is now trying to follow the Chinese path. Turkey, Venezuela and Belarus are more susceptible to Western influence, but a series of systemic errors of Western manipulators has become a stopper on the way of the formation of “fifth columns” there. In Turkey, the United States, if not organized, then at least knew about the impending military coup against Erdogan - a coup that failed and made a significant contribution to the anti-Western sentiment of the population. In Venezuela, the United States bet on the openly weak leader Juan Guaido, who simply fled the country. The Belarusian analogue of Guaido, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, also escaped. The remaining Alexander Lukashenko has a strong rear in the form of support from Russia.Sanctions instruments of coercion also fail - largely because they were used for nothing and made them inoperative. Sanctions are effective when they are clear and predictable. When the potential victim understands why the sanctions are being imposed (that is, at the intersection of which red lines) and what needs to be done to prevent them from being imposed. In relation to the same Russia, for example, sanctions are imposed according to a completely different, Portosan, principle: "I impose sanctions because I introduce them." There can be any reason for them - up to myths about Russian interference in the US elections in 2016, or for the construction of the legal Nord Stream 2. It is not surprising that in Moscow sanctions are already perceived as an inevitable part of reality, so they are not particularly afraid of them. The Chinese comrades have not yet reached such a level of enlightenment, however, the more Americans push against Chinese business and exploit (including for no reason) the human rights theme in the PRC, the closer Beijing will be to the Russian understanding of sanctions.

Finally, the tools of the military threat have also become dull. China, Russia and even Turkey were not and are not afraid of the arrival of democracy on the wings of bombers - they have something to break off those wings. As for Venezuela and Belarus, they are not afraid of an American invasion. And not only because the same Minsk has the CSTO, and Venezuela has Russian weapons. It is also because Americans do not have the political capacity to make the threat of invasion a reality. Not so long ago, the United States was defeated in Afghanistan by the army in flip flops and coats - and Washington is not ready to start a new war for democratization. President Biden publicly announced the "end of the era of major military operations to rebuild other countries."

So what should America do with the "disgusting five" and those who are already ready to join its ranks (the same Iran)?

There are two ways. The first is to continue the conflict with them for the sake of conflict, to restrain their growth by all available means. The path, in general, is nowhere - having passed it to the end, the States realize that not only have they spent a significant amount of resources on a pointless business, but will also find themselves in a more dangerous world, and even in strategic isolation. The second option is to admit that the victory of liberal democracy did not take place simply because this form of political organization of society is neither ideal nor universal. That other countries have the right to choose their own forms, and if these forms do not violate the basic (not Western, namely, basic) principles of human rights - that is, for example, do not lead to genocides and mass executions of dissidents - then the West needs to treat them with respect.

The second option is certainly optimal, but there is an almost insurmountable obstacle in the way of its implementation. A significant part of the Western elites are simply unable to abandon the liberal-democratic fundamentalism in which they grew up, in which they were brought up, in which they fervently believe. And as long as they don't refuse, the bad guys will win.

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.

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