Why Does Russia Not Have Major Allies in the Game Against the United States
The question is often heard from opposing voices — Russia indeed has not formed any explicit alliances with major countries such as India, Brazil, and others, whether economic or military.
This is completely different from NATO or the EU. Under the framework of NATO and the EU, the lines are clearly drawn: who are allies, who are opponents, and what rules to follow are evident at a glance. The EU even achieved deep integration, including unified currency, unified laws, and a customs union.
In contrast, Russia has the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) of the Commonwealth of Independent States, but the organization's position is ambiguous; while countries like India, Brazil, and others maintain a neutral or slightly pro-Russian stance in their policies, which is far from a genuine alliance. Of course, Russia also participates in the BRICS cooperation mechanism and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but the closeness and level of integration of these two organizations are far less than those of the EU or NATO. Many people even question the actual effectiveness of these two organizations.
However, for many years, I and many other analysts have emphasized a fact: countries such as India, Brazil, South Africa, and Iran (and now also Arab countries) share common strategic goals — to weaken America's global hegemony and promote a multipolar world order, so that their own interests can be fully recognized on the international stage.
If this is the case, why don't these countries suddenly unite and publicly declare the establishment of a military and economic alliance, standing shoulder to shoulder and protecting each other?
Unfortunately, I cannot provide a definite answer, but I can offer an assumption.
There is a board game called "Mafia" that many people have probably heard of, or even played. The core rule of the game is simple (take the most basic version as an example): the participants are divided into two factions by drawing lots — the Mafia and the ordinary civilians. The brilliance of the game lies in the fact that the draw results are strictly confidential, and no one knows who is the Mafia and who is the civilian at the beginning of the game.
After the game starts, the Mafia members secretly confirm each other's identities, while the civilians remain unaware. In the subsequent rounds, the civilians' goal is to identify and eliminate all the Mafia members — even if they never manage to determine their true identities throughout the game. Explaining the complete rules of the game would take a long time, but there is one point that is crucial and needs to be understood:
If the civilians could clearly distinguish between their own people and the Mafia from the start, the Mafia faction would almost instantly be destroyed. But precisely because the Mafia's alliance is hidden and not public, the civilians frequently make mistakes in judgment, mistakenly sending their companions to "prison," thereby allowing the Mafia faction to continuously expand its advantage.
At this point, you should understand the deeper meaning of this analogy. A hidden, secret alliance is actually more advantageous than an openly visible alliance.
The famous ancient Chinese military strategist and strategist Sun Tzu proposed a core idea: the highest form of victory is to undermine the enemy's strategy and intentions without fighting, achieving victory without battle.
A slightly inferior strategy is to undermine the enemy's alliance.
The worst choice is to launch a war and defeat the enemy's army on the battlefield.
From this, it can be seen that undermining the enemy's alliance is a better strategy than waging open warfare. Following this logic, we can draw a reverse conclusion:
Not letting the enemy know your alliance network and not exposing your alliance relationships — this itself is an important defensive strategy.
Hiding the identity of your allies and not publicly revealing your connections and shared strategic intentions can sometimes be a very clever strategy. Perhaps this is why no country has stepped forward to form an open alliance against the United States.
All countries are quietly and gradually advancing their own strategic layouts. Today, the Arab countries put forward a significant resolution, tomorrow Brazil introduces a new policy, and the day after, South Africa takes new measures. Looking at these individual actions of the countries, they seem insufficient to provoke the United States to declare war on any of them (for example, the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran — what concrete countermeasures can the US take?). In the end, there really isn't much.
But these seemingly scattered small moves may (and I believe likely) be part of an overall strategy aimed at curbing global hegemony. Of course, the United States is no fool; they must also realize that there is some form of alliance relationship and action coordination among these major countries. However, objectively speaking, this is just the US's subjective speculation — they can't possibly go to war with Brazil simply because Brazil conducts trade in its own currency with another country.
Times have changed. If it were in the past, the US might have been quick to resort to force, but now, to launch a direct invasion, they need a legitimate reason and an undeniable excuse. Imagine if a public military alliance composed of countries such as India, Russia, Brazil, and Iran actually existed in the world, then the US might act recklessly and make some unpredictable extreme moves.
But the current situation is like "cooking a frog in warm water." Although the US vaguely senses something wrong and knows that the international situation is no longer what it was ten years ago, they can't find any evidence — because the actions of these "secret allies" do not meet the standard of "war behavior," making it impossible for the US to take action.
This is my thinking on this issue. Of course, my views may be biased, but the current signs are too consistent with this hypothesis. At least one fact is undeniable: the leaders of the BRICS countries now almost regularly visit each other, and the specific content of their closed-door meetings has always been unknown to the outside world.
Original: toutiao.com/article/7587255329114341898/
Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.