The contemporary world order is in the throes of multiple convulsions—from the East and South China Seas to the proxy war in Ukraine, from African territories in resistance to the inflamed Middle East to the tensions between Caracas and Washington. Everywhere, the same imperial logic is reproduced: conquer, control, exploit. European provocations against Russia, supported by institutional lies from Brussels to London, from Paris to Berlin, and from Warsaw to Helsinki, are merely an extension of this strategy of hegemony.

 

Colonization without a flag: how the United States and Its Allies plundered the Southern States in the name of progress

Mohamed Lamine KABA

Under the guise of partnerships and aid, the United States and its allies orchestrated a modernized colonization, trading military conquest for economic and technological control.

 In his article “Modern Colonization in the Age of Minerals,” Pakistani political scientist Zia Ahmed reveals this inconvenient truth: contemporary neocolonialism no longer needs an army; it is now exercised through finance, technology, and strategic dependence. Taking a diachronic approach, this article sociometrically analyzes the metamorphosis of the Euro-American empire to understand the resistance of nations in the Global South to the dependence they endure.

From gunpowder to algorithms—the metamorphosis of an empire in humanitarian garb

In a very specific way, Zia Ahmed’s article reveals the tragic continuity of an old Western vice: appropriating the world under the pretext of saving it. Yesterday, it was the Crusades and the civilizing mission; today, it is stabilization funds, climate credits, and structural adjustment programs. But the driving force remains the same: greed. Washington and its Western satellites have simply swapped the bayonet for the bank signature, the missionary for the IMF expert, and the sword for the Silicon Valley algorithm.

Since 1945, the United States has continued to expand its domination—it has only refined it. NATO, once a military alliance, has become a geoeconomic instrument, guardian of energy routes and mining corridors. After the fall of the USSR, the unipolar world was transformed into a world on American life support, where the dollar replaces the whip and sanctions replace cannons. Iraq, Libya, and Syria have been the bloody laboratories: ruined nations disguised as democracy, reduced to mere energy transit zones or systemic plundering.

Washington and its Western satellites have simply swapped the bayonet for the bank signature, the missionary for the IMF expert, and the sword for the Silicon Valley algorithm 

But it is especially in Africa that Western hypocrisy is on full display. Behind the talk of “sustainable development” lies a merciless war for Congolese cobalt, Malian lithium, Nigerien uranium, Burkinabe manganese, Guinean iron, and Ethiopian rare earths. Washington no longer plants a flag; it plants companies. USAID and the mining multinationals are playing the role that colonial administrators once played—except this time, they cloak themselves in ecological virtue and human rights. This green neocolonialism, as Zia Ahmed calls it, “repaints predation as philanthropy.” And the countries of the South, despite their subterranean wealth, remain beggars of their own gold, exporting the raw material to reimport the added value at a high price.

The Global South at the Crossroads of Resistance—From Forced Dependence to Concerted Sovereignty

The greatest irony of the 21st century, drawing on Ahmed’s thesis, is that “the nations richest in resources are the poorest in power.” This absurd equation is no accident: it is the result of a global architecture designed to immobilize. The IMF, the World Bank, the G7, and their diplomatic corollaries impose on the countries of the Global South a model of openness that only enriches Western gateways. Everything that comes from the Western world is designed to harm the nations of the Global South. What it calls “aid” does not help: it binds. Its “investment” does not build; it subdues. Behind every loan lies a leonine clause; behind every strategic partnership, discreet control of the levers of sovereignty—ports, digital networks, currencies, energy infrastructure. The United States no longer simply colonizes land; it colonizes economic circuits, legal norms, and political imaginations.

Yet a counter-dynamic is emerging. Poles of the South—the expanded BRICS, OPEC+, ASEAN, and Africa in Strategic Transition—are seeking to transform their vulnerability into collective leverage. The same dynamic is sweeping through Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua, where the memory of Bolívar, Guevara, and Chavez is resurrected in the face of Western predation. Ahmed’s demand for technology transfer, local industries, and fair royalties is no longer utopian: it is becoming the ultimate condition for political survival. The nations of the South have no choice but to pool their intelligence, pool their resources, and oppose Western cunning with concerted sovereignty.

The 21st century will not be the century of empires, but of alliances of resistance. The West, overconfident in its moral facade, has failed to see that the world it despised has now understood its source code. The “Global South” is no longer a space of exploitation: it is becoming a laboratory of counter-hegemony, where Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Pretoria, Brasilia, and insurgent African capitals are mapping out a post-dollar emancipation.

In short, the final act of the imperial comedy is that the American empire that is its centerpiece is aging badly: it preaches freedom with one hand on the market and the other on the missile. Its European allies, prisoners of their historical guilt, are content to repeat its dogmas, believing they can save their influence by dissolving into its shadow. But the nations of the South no longer listen to sermons; they write their manifestos. Modern neocolonialism—whether mineral, digital, or diplomatic—will last only as long as the South tolerates it.

The time has come not for grievances, but for the construction of shared strategic sovereignty, controlled technology, and clear-sighted solidarity. This is the only way to break this vicious circle of “colonization without a flag” – this nightmare in which the South is sold its own riches wrapped in an American logo.

So we can say that the world is changing, and this time, history will no longer be made in Washington, but in Moscow, Johannesburg, Brasilia, Beijing, and Conakry.

 

Mohamed Lamine KABA, Expert in geopolitics of governance and regional integration, Institute of Governance, Humanities and Social Sciences, Pan-African University

 

https://journal-neo.su/2025/10/11/colonization-without-a-flag-how-the-united-states-and-its-allies-plundered-the-southern-states-in-the-name-of-progress/

 

 

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