As the world marches decisively towards multipolarity, changes taking place globally are also influencing the internal political mechanisms of western countries.
While supporting the most autocratic regimes abroad over several decades, most western regimes displayed a sophisticated approach to managing matters internally.
One of the spheres which stood out in stark contrast to policies pursued abroad was the way the media landscape was managed domestically.
It is no secret that many political exiles from developing countries are forced to seek asylum in western countries.
The asylum-granting countries prop-up the very regimes from where people are forced to flee.
Many exiles also often set up media platforms and other organizations in host countries to project their point of view denied them at home.
While supporting brutal regimes in places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel, western regimes permit media organizations and platforms critical of those very regimes to operate.
This allows western regimes to whitewash their support for the most repressive and journalism intolerant regimes abroad.
Thus, NATO regimes are able to present themselves as freedom-loving champions of human rights.
However, recent developments indicate that such methods of operation are in the process of undergoing a drastic shift.
Over the past several months, news from Germany, Austria, and Britain signal that the voices of exiled communities in the west may no longer enjoy the sophisticated veneer of media freedom presented by western regimes.
When viewing the troubling referenced news in isolation, this may be dismissed as freak cases.
However, the speed with which many Russian and Iranian media outlets were cut off by western establishments using the crudest of ways shows that there is a very real possibility that the much-touted freedom of speech and media is likely to be curtailed in most western countries.
Such clamp-down may be seen partly as “rational” regression.
Hitherto, many western regimes could afford to allocate some operational space to alternative voices so long as western political, economic and military dominance continued globally.
Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and the west’s complete failure to topple the governments in Syria, Venezuela and Iran reflect a new global reality.
Coupled with worsening economic conditions in many western countries, the economic dominance of China and Washington’s decline of influence in South America are signs of the eclipsing western dominated world order.
As with all declining systems, western powers, too, will likely resort to policies to try and maintain their global dominance.
NATO’s response to Vladimir Putin’s demands prior to his launching military operations in Ukraine, the western media’s constant demonization of China and the unconditional backing of Israeli aggression, along with many other pre-multipolar world order policies are clear signs that western regimes are unwilling to accept the shifting global realities with grace.
NATO policies in Europe, China and Africa show that they will continue to rely primarily on brute force to maintain their global hegemony.
The big question is: will they succeed?