“They don't seem to have the ideological flexibility to realize how unpopular their policies are,” said the commentator on Sputnik’s The Final Countdown program. “So, they continue tanking in the polls, but they don't seem to make any adjustments.”

“Macron has been historically unpopular now for several years,” he said of the French President, who has repeatedly heightened tensions with Russia over the conflict with Ukraine. “He still keeps talking about waging indefinite war in Ukraine. Now, this is clearly very unpopular in Europe, certainly unpopular in France and yet he continues doing this.” A recent poll by the French newspaper Le Figaro found that 68% of French people disagreed with comments by Macron about the possibility of sending Western troops to fight in Ukraine.

“Similarly in Germany, when you enter this traffic light coalition – which is gung ho for this war in Ukraine – even though the German public really doesn't want to do it,” he continued. “The German public has made it absolutely clear in poll after poll that they don't want to get sucked into another war in the East. And yet it continues.”

“It sounds to me like they're getting the band back together,” said Garland Nixon, cohost of Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program, noting Russian security agreements taking shape with Mali, Niger and the Central African Republic. “Russia's history and the Soviet Union's history during the Cold War in Africa is very rich, shall we say. As the US empire pushes a new Cold War narrative, it seems to me that this is the natural outcome of it.”

“There's obviously something to which you say,” responded author and researcher Dr. Gerald Horne, a professor of history at the University of Houston in Texas. Horne noted that many African countries face threats from jihadist movements funded by US Gulf allies. “Russia has to combat these same religious zealots oftentimes sponsored by US imperialism on their own soil. Not to mention in the vicinity – speaking of Syria, for example.”

“South Africa faces a very difficult environment, not least because US imperialism is unhappy with South Africa, because it's bringing the case before the International Court of Justice against US ally Israel, because of South Africa's close alliance with Brazil, Russia, India, [and] China… the BRICS, for example,” said Horne.

“I was a Soviet dissident and I know how hard it is to fight against the dictatorship. But in order to kill the great dragon, you need to be very strong and ready to suffer. Because without suffering, you could not achieve the real goal,” he told Sputnik on the sidelines of SPIEF 2024.

America itself is stagnating and teetering on the brink of civil conflict. The collective West has entered a period of its own radical transformation. Chaos in the Western countries' system is escalating – this is dangerous!