Politicians using COVID-19 to centralize existing power: geopolitical expert

 The current coronavirus pandemic ravaging every corner of the world and many states are desperate in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Nations and governments are panicking and the economy has already collapsed. This crisis is expected to deepen more and more without a serious global willingness and cooperation.

Due to the great impact of the coronavirus on the world from different aspects, many believe that changes to existing world order and international relations are inevitable in the post-corona era. 

In an effort to make the dimension of the possible changes to the existing world order by coronavirus clearer, we reached out to the Bangkok- based geopolitical researcher Anthony Cartalucci.

What will be the effects of coronavirus on the current world order?

It is difficult to say what the effects of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) will be. It was essentially a bad cold and while headlines sensationalized infections and deaths, most of these deaths were among the sick and elderly who regularly fall prey to annual colds and the flu anyway and in much larger numbers than from COVID-19 so far. 

Because the effects of COVID-19 are mostly socioeconomic and psychological - imposed by politicians and the mass media - rather than stemming from the actual pathogen itself and how dangerous it really is or isn't - it is up to various governments and alliances on how the world order will be shaped by it. These interests driving the response to COVID-19 generally seek to centralize existing power while trying to acquire additional power - so they will likely use COVID-19 to do this and the only limit to how far it will go depends on the public's patience and nations who refuse to fall into line with this order as it emerges.

The current world order is majorly based on liberalism and to some extent on realism approaches. What are the deficiencies of the said approaches revealed by coronavirus?

The current world order can also be described as based on global trade - global-spanning supply chains - and over-centralization by corrupt and self-serving interests. Because global-spanning supply chains are vulnerable and the special interests controlling much of the world - particularly in the West - serve their own interests first and usually at the expense of the majority - the response to COVID-19 has been a mixture of absolute incompetence to cynical - even criminal - exploitation. 

We see unproven drugs being stockpiled in mass quantities by governments to the benefit of large Western pharmaceutical corporations - just as was the case 10 years ago during the 2009 Swine Flu scare. This is money that has been completely wasted and would have helped if spent on virtually anything else. Shortages of ventilators were easily avoidable too - with their shortages known for years and many cheap alternatives having been developed over the years and simply waiting for governments to properly validate and stockpile them - but they weren't. 

In other words - we're told by the current world order that outbreaks like COVID-19 are critical emergencies demanding sacrifice from ordinary people - yet nothing was done before or during the outbreak by these same interests to reflect the urgency we've been told this crisis warrants. And nothing will be done afterward either - with most attention focused on filling the coffers of the healthcare industry, pharmaceutical corporations, and lending the governments both own more authority over the very people they failed utterly during this crisis.

Although the Outbreak of the virus has put the realism and self-help approaches in the center of the focus, it also has revealed deficiencies of the realism which is based on state security and looks at the security issue just militarily. Outbreak of the virus also showed that militaristic economies also are not able to maintain the security of nations and governments in the post-corona era. What do you think of this?

This is particularly upsetting. Since the most dangerous and aggressive nations on Earth - for example, the United States - still maintain investments and interest in biological weapons - the rest of the world who stands to be targeted by these threats should have developed defenses against them - defenses that would have served the dual purpose of containing natural outbreaks as well. 

It is upsetting because it seems many nations have seriously neglected defenses against biological threats. Many nations opposed to the foreign policy and international order the US represents are also overly dependent on Western pharmaceutical corporations, their medications, and more worryingly - their vaccines. 

Vaccines may be useful under ideal conditions - but the West has already sought to use national vaccination programs as a vector for asymmetrical warfare - as seen in South Africa where the UN reported on attempts by the Apartheid regime to use vaccines as a means of covertly sterilizing the black population. 

These very same interests are rushing to develop "vaccines" to protect against COVID-19. Who would trust these vaccines? Why aren't nations developing their own vaccines independently of the West? This is the responsibility of those charged with protecting a nation - a responsibility that's being neglected. 

If we accept that the post-corona world order will be different from the existing one, will the changes be structural and fundamental ones? Which meanings will experience fundamental changes?

COVID-19 has been an exercise more in battling psychological threats and their impact on society and the economy rather than against an actual pathogen. While shortcomings in national healthcare infrastructure have been once again highlighted and should be addressed - nations must develop a means to defend against the mass hysteria that caused so much economic damage around the globe and helped rejuvenate the West's grip over global narratives and coordinated global action. 

If there are any major changes post-COVID-19, it will be because nations have allowed it to be imposed on them by those driving and profiting from COVID-19 hysteria rather than using their own common sense approach to defending against outbreaks and protecting their economies against threats like COVID-19 - whether they are truly dangerous pathogens, or waves of panic intentionally spread to help advance Western foreign policy. 

Source: Tehran Times