Centrifugal Processes and Divisions as a Megatrend of Crisis Geopolitics

Abstract

The world has entered an acute phase of a protracted macrocrisis, one of the most striking manifestations of which is the processes of disengagement in global politics. The logic of confrontation inevitably aggravates old conflicts and reproduces new ones. The centrifugal dynamics received an explosive impetus because of directly interconnected process of internationalisation of the Ukrainian crisis and “Ukrainisation” of the Western-centric agenda. Conflict motives of local, regional, geopolitical divides, and gaps are acquiring increasing practical and political significance. The logic of asymmetrical, multidirectional interactions in global politics is rapidly gaining momentum. The previously inertial confrontation between the United States and Russia, the United States and China has moved into the acute phase of a dangerous confrontation. The potential for resolving the most important geopolitical and military-strategic problems in their relations has been reduced by US efforts to a critical minimum. A focused reflection of geopolitical divisions has become the sophisticated construction of a new Iron Curtain around Russia by the united West. The world is actually divided into the World Majority, whose countries take a neutral or favorable position towards Russia, and a non-structurally formalised coalition of countries led by the United States, guided by American foreign policy goals and priorities. Lines of demarcation and fragmentation run across a variety of spheres and formats, regional and geopolitical areas, erecting new boundaries and barriers in interstate cooperation and creating a dangerous tilt and distortions in strategic security. In the context of the chaotisation of world politics and the rapid development of centrifugal processes of geopolitical and geo-economic demarcations and confrontations, the asymmetry of approaches to the prospects for reformatting the world order is becoming increasingly visible.