Russia’s actions in Ukraine aim to protect its own sovereignty. The West’s insanity is getting progressively worse. Western nations are oligarchies, whereas Russia is a democracy. These ‘outrageous’ assessments were shared by a leading French public intellectual. Of particular note is his observation that Russian society is far more stable than its US counterpart.
France finds itself in the throes of fiery controversy. A hit book, The Defeat of the West, written by demographer and essayist Emmanuel Todd offers the scholar’s take on the current historical and geopolitical process. According to Todd, the hegemony of the West and of the US, in particularly, is nearing its end. Moreover, in a recent video interview with BFMtv, he said that the ‘disappearance of the US is the best thing that can happen to Europe’.
One of Todd’s previous books, The Final Fall: An Essay on the Decomposition of the Soviet Sphere, was published in 1976, and predated the actual collapse of the USSR by 15 years. No wonder Todd’s recent oeuvre has grabbed the limelight big time.
Todd’s scepticism toward the West and his bitter disappointment with its strategy in Ukraine are nothing new, though. In May 2023, he wrote, ‘The West’s insanity is getting progressively worse. The US and the UK want a war-torn Ukraine to embark on a counteroffensive, whereas it lacks the weapons to be able to defeat Russia. Thousands will end up killed for no good reason at all.’ Bear in mind that it was penned before the beginning of the touted counteroffensive.
In October 2022, Todd wrote, ‘They [the Russians] won’t cave. We won’t wave. China will keep supporting Russia, as President Xi knows that if Russia folds, his country will be next in line. Yes, it’s World War III. But there’s a major difference: at the outbreak of both WWI and WWII the world was expanding. Now it’s shrinking.’ Todd concludes that real problems will strike ‘when everyone faces the demographic and economic winter’.
In his book tour interview, Emmanuel Todd admits, ‘As a historian, I realised that those events [that started in February 2022] presented a great opportunity for me to use half a century’s worth of musings and skills and explain this turning point in world history as it was happening <…> Most people believe that the West comprises the countries that are following the US lead and are therefore a priori liberal democracies. I think there is no liberal democracy to be found in today’s world. What we have instead is liberal oligarchies.’
‘The collapse of the USSR was viewed as a victory for capitalism that had spread to Eastern Europe where it was destined to battle it out with Russia. The trouble is, capitalism is also going through a slump,’ the scholar says. Todd believes deindustrialisation and demographic problems are at the core of it. Up until now the most successful Western nations have managed to keep their childbirth rates at an acceptable level, but since Western government are now seeking to cut social benefits for young mothers, the childbirth rates will inevitably be cratering. Women will be unable to juggle their family life, parenting, studies and work.
Todd opines that the demographic crisis will largely result in the US having to pull back from the regions where they are currently imposing their will. ‘The US will have to pull out of Europe, Asia and all the regions where they tend to stoke conflicts <…> It’s vital for them to be sowing discord in Eurasia <…> And contrary all the concerns, once they have pulled out, we will be living in peace. The best thing that can happen to Europe is the disappearance of the US,’ Todd notes.
As for the mighty hegemon’s prospects, the French researcher is adamant: ‘The biggest threat to everyone is a powerful state with no faith and rampant nihilism that is unaware of the course it is taking, that is declining and sparking conflicts worldwide in the process.’
Reviewing Todd’s essay, a Le Point journalist says that ‘by painting a contrast-ridden picture, the author aims to convince us that it was not Ukraine that was attacked by Russia. On the contrary, Russia fell victim to the slow-burner of the West’s expansion’. Besides, according to Emmanuel Todd, Moscow’s actions seek to protect the country’s sovereignty from the expanding NATO. He has even coined the term ‘defensive sovereignism’.
In the same interview with Le Point, Todd points to America’s artificially inflated GDP, child mortality rates as a good indicator of society’s health, suicide rates and the rising number of crimes against persons. Russia whose economy and society, Todd believes, are ‘stabilised’ outperforms the US on the last three metrics. The scholar warns that the US is most interested in Russia clashing with Europe and, above all, Germany, for a potential partnership between Russia and Germany would put an end to the US clout in this part of the world.
Yet, Todd is optimistic as he says, ‘Russian and Germany will end up having an agreement and restoring peace.’
Todd’s musings on America’s inevitable loss of leverage and the declining role of the West lead us to believe that humanity is on the cusp of a multipolar world. Thus, the French public intellectual proves Russia’ political practice to be right. This is exactly what Vladimir Putin means when he says, ‘The globalisation as the previous model is being superseded by a new multipolar model.’
Importantly, the West as a whole and France, in particular, are offering the only spin on multipolarity: the negative one. Le Monde persistently compares multipolarity (‘multipolar disorder’) to a bipolar disorder and thus scares the readers away from these thoughts. Even political scientist Pascal Boniface, who said in 2010 that the world was on the cusp of multipolarity, now shies away from revisiting that statement.
Others like political scientist Henri Guaino do acknowledge that the world is becoming multipolar while admitting to their fears. ‘The old bipolar world was the venue that saw the clash between the two ideologies invented by the West: liberalism and communism. It has been taken over by a multipolar world that marks the end of the West’s five-century-long international clout <…> Albeit wobbly and unsafe, the multipolar world has come,’ he wrote.
As for Emmanuel Todd, nobody in France wants to earnestly debate him on his statements. Far from it, some have already accused him of his ties to the Russian propaganda.
For instance, Dominique Simonnet, a journalist specialising in America, went so far as to dedicate a whole interview to smearing Todd. Simonnet claims that the scholar ‘backs the Kremlin’s ideas’ and ‘defends Putin’. As someone whose job hinges upon the US, he must have been hurt by Todd maintaining that ‘the best thing that can happen to Europe is the disappearance of the US’ because Simonnet’s entire career will be on the line.
The fact that debate is swamped with a smear campaign means that, in all likelihood, they nothing to disprove Todd’s statements. The world is changing rapidly, and Western ideologues are terrified by the impending changes, as they will put an end to the myths they have been perpetuating.