Its like Hillary walking into a working class kitchen for the first time.
They’ve been shielded from even critical support of China and other AES for so long they literally, not figuratively, literally cannot process that people exist that have beliefs that aren’t Reddit Approved. They immediately assume it’s bots or wumao. Human beings can’t possibly hold these beliefs, so they must be Oriental hordes or actual robots.
I think it’s pretty evident that the western hegemony has already been greatly weakened by the conflict. While it’s true Russia isn’t trying to weaken capitalism, capitalist hegemony is a completely separate issue - Russia’s actions are weakening western hegemony. Capitalism is a domino later in the chain. Africa breaking the neocolonial chains and hopefully being able to develop itself into the economic powerhouse it could be will be a massive boon to everywhere that isn’t The West, because it’s a new market and trading partner that doesn’t require westerners to get their cut.
As far as the global south, the benefits don’t really have anything to do with Russia getting more territory. The benefits are about demonstrating western weapons and tactics to be paper tigers, showing how shallow western weapons supplies are and how slow and unproductive western military industrial complexes are. It’s also showing the value of western promises of military support - Taiwan and every other western vassal are surely watching this. The conflict is bleeding NATO resources dry, which is the reverse of what NATO hoped they would be getting out of this. The exposure of the west’s weakness is what benefits the global south and the rest of the planet.
I think it’s certainly true that Russia is now and will be feared in Europe, but that ship had already sailed. The US is doing as much economic warfare against Europe as they are Russia, and Europe is the one seriously damaged by it. America also started that warfare before this conflict expanded in 2022 - trying to cut Russia out of the European market has always been important for the US State Department. Europe has lost their energy sovereignty and is now undergoing shock doctrine style de-industrialization. It’s not going to matter what Europe thinks about Russia as they get increasingly economically hobbled and poorer. The rest of the world however doesn’t share Europe or America’s view of Russia, so this is not really any loss for Russia geopolitically. In South America and Africa, for example, Russia is largely viewed positively. The people of the world know whose heel is on their necks - it’s not Russia’s.
Sure, their tactical usefulness in a defensive conflict has been disproven, but NATO has already proved how effectively it can destabilize and terrorize countries in an offensive situation. Even if it doesn’t gain any land, like in all US wars after WWII, it still causes immense destruction and suffering for the people involved. The West has proven itself a poor ally, but not a poor enemy. I fear that even a multipolar world, capitalist powers will be willing to unite against leftist uprisings and be capable of thoroughly damaging them; as Russia is still able to gain by crushing left wing dissent.
A multipolar world will have less ability to crush leftist governments without consequence. This isn’t the solution to capitalism, but it weakens it. This is a domino, not the final blow.
I guess it weakens capitalism very slightly. Although I might not argue that capitalist multi-polarity is worth cost of the war (Russia cracking down harder domestically, Ukrainian fascism on the rise, privatization, etc…). But in the end it doesn’t really matter who I support as I can’t create any sort of meaningful change to the material world.
Anything that weakens capitalism is good, comrade, particularly if it’s capitalists on both sides doing it. It’s a terrible tragedy that lives are lost but we can’t stop that.