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Monday, November 13, 2023

The US could have ruled the world, but this one weakness ruined it all

November 13, 2023
For more than 30 years, Washington has failed to build a just order, which is why we are now experiencing unprecedented crises
 Dmitry Trenin: The US could have ruled the world, but this one weakness ruined it all
The wars in Ukraine and in Gaza are very different; yet, they are definitely linked as two flashing indicators of how the change in the world order is proceeding. Regrettably but unsurprisingly, the relatively peaceful previous power transition that followed the end of the Cold War is unlikely to be repeated. The slow end of the American Century is already being marked by hostilities and tensions involving some of the major powers. With more likely to come.
The ongoing conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East have the same root cause. Essentially, the self-proclaimed victors in the Cold War – above all, the United States of America – have singularly failed in creating a lasting international equilibrium to succeed the post-WWII bipolar setup. Moreover, the innate arrogance of its elites, their complete disregard for the interests of others and unlimited self-righteousness have gradually undermined their own once unchallenged position of power and dispelled a lot of respect and goodwill that many other countries initially had for them.
In Ukraine, the geopolitically and geo-economically sound idea of a militarily neutral country enjoying the trade, investment, and logistical benefits of its position between Russia and the European Union was dismissed by Washington as “giving the Kremlin a veto right” over its neighbor’s security status. Instead, NATO’s unrestrained expansion was upheld as almost a sacred principle. This led to an outcome that many had predicted: Moscow’s pushback.
Rather than reaching for a compromise settlement via the Minsk accords, the West and its Ukrainian protégés used diplomacy as a foil to win time to better arm and train Kiev’s army. Russia’s security demands were largely dismissed, and its humanitarian concerns were ridiculed. Moscow’s warning in the form of a display of military power along Ukraine’s border did not impress Washington either. Americans had probably calculated that by entering Ukraine in force Russia would walk into a trap, opening a chance for the coveted regime change in the Kremlin.
Fyodor Lukyanov: World War Three has started, here’s what it will look like
Things did not exactly turn out that way. Russia did not collapse under the weight of a dozen packages of Western “sanctions from hell,” and its military has recovered after initial setbacks. Western military and financial assistance to Kiev, unprecedented in living memory either in scale or scope, has been unable to lead Ukraine, the vaunted tip of the spear for the West, to victory over Russia. Just the opposite: a specter of disaster is now looming over the country and its masters in Washington. Looking ahead, Russia’s resources are vastly superior to Ukraine’s, and the Russian leadership’s political will as well as the popular support it enjoys at home look much stronger than what the current US administration can muster.  
With regard to Palestine, the US took conflict settlement into its own hands, sidelining the other three members of the defunct Middle East Quartet: Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations. As a result, the two-state solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict was de facto put on ice. In its place, Washington focused on economic handouts to the Palestinian Arabs who in return were expected to keep quiet and forget their claim to statehood. More recently, the US also worked to get the Arab states to engage diplomatically and commercially with Israel. The obvious purpose of this endeavor was to make the Palestinian issue, long the centerpiece of the regional conflict, virtually irrelevant, and eventually send it to oblivion.
Thus, instead of bolstering the Palestinian Authority (PA) and helping it become a real government in the State of Palestine, the US, alongside with Israel, sought to benefit from a split among the Palestinians. To them, Hamas’ rule in Gaza in opposition to the PA in Ramallah, was a de facto guarantee that the two-state solution was dead. For some time, it looked as if this was working. Even in late September, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan pronounced the Middle East more quiet that it had been for two decades. Within about a week, however, Hamas delivered its mega-terrorist attack against Israel, prompting a massive and ruthless response. 
So far, the conflict has mostly centered on Israel and Gaza, with the West Bank and the Lebanese border experiencing lower levels of violence. It has the potential, however, to spread beyond the immediate neighborhood, and involve Iran, another country that the US has not been able to come to terms with over the past four-plus decades. Biden's government is probably not itching now for an attack against Iran. However, its knee-jerk reaction to the Israel-Hamas conflict by sending two aircraft carrier groups as well as a nuclear-armed Ohio-class submarine to the region was meant as a clear threat to Tehran. For their part, various pro-Iranian elements, in Iraq and Yemen, have already targeted American bases and Israeli assets in the region.
The two wars have not only exposed the limits of US power and influence in the world’s key regions, but the glaring deficit of statesmanship. They have also laid bare the hypocrisy of American and West European foreign policy and their mainstream media's propaganda. The vastly different treatment of the Russian and Israeli, Ukrainian and Hamas actions in the parallel running conflicts has not been lost on anyone following the news. The moral authority of the US-led West is crumbling just as its power dominance is waning.
Apart from the wars in Europe and the Middle East, a third hotbed of tension is simmering in East Asia. For decades, the US has been juggling its formal acceptance of the One China principle, and its practical support for Taiwan. The latter included political backing, advance weapons sales and military maneuvering around the island. Given China’s determination to eventually reunify it with the mainland, and Taiwan’s drift toward formal independence, this juggling act appears unsustainable in the long, or even the medium term. Should this happen – and there is a non-trivial chance that it might, – this third war could lead to a direct clash between America and China.
Thirty years ago, at the end of the Cold War, the US, as the world’s principal power, had an opportunity to begin building a multipolar world in which it would secure the role of a balancer and moderator. There was even a historical precedent for such a course. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s blueprint for the UN was headed precisely in that direction. In 1991, the situation was uniquely propitious for that – much more so than in 1945. Russia, having just shaken off communism, was dreaming of integration into Western institutions and councils. China was busy building capitalism and focusing on itself. The Oslo accords sent a ray of hope that the Middle East could be reformed on a platform of peace.
Sadly, America’s political class chose instead to celebrate its victory in the Cold War, and then indulge itself in unipolarity, indispensability, and exclusivity. Our wars of today are the price people in various parts of the world have to pay for Washington’s dereliction of its duty as the architect of a world order. Never before in the history of the world has so much depended on a single power. But that power failed them all.
Dmitry Trenin is a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council.
 
World War Three has started, here’s what it will look like
November 10, 2023
The journalistic cliché that World War Three is already underway has often circulated from one publication or another for decades. Indeed, since the beginning of the 21st century, when the US was attacked on 11 September 2001, people have been talking about a clash of civilizations as a new form of global conflict. Then, Washington's declared "war on terror" got bogged down in the Middle East before disappearing from the agenda altogether. Instead, the "good old" rivalry between the major countries was gradually revived, first in the political, propaganda and economic spheres, but with an increasingly pronounced military and force element. This was accompanied by warnings of the risk of a World War III in the classic sense of the last century. Such considerations, however, remained notional. 
Today, the idea of a "World War III " is fathomable. Nevertheless, a similar situation to World Wars I and II seems inadmissible at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, although some commentators see similar features in the armed conflict in Ukraine. Structurally, however, the state of affairs is very different.
The presence of nuclear weapons in the hands of the world's major players and a very complex range of significant and diverse players in international politics rule out (and make highly unlikely) a head-on collision between the major powers or their blocs, as was the case in the last century. However, the changes taking place on the world stage and in the balance of power are so serious that they are "worthy" of a confrontation on the scale of a world war.
In the past, such shifts have led to major military clashes. However, now the "world war" that some repeatedly talk about is a chain of large but localized confrontations, each of which in one way or another involves the main players, balances on the verge of spilling over from the original zone, and is indirectly linked to other hotbeds of instability. This sequence of military events began with the Middle East conflicts of the last decade (Yemen and Syria), continued in Ukraine since 2014, then the South Caucasus and now Palestine. It is clearly too early to put an end to this list.
End of status quo means world entering long period of turmoil
International colleagues have already pointed out that in the context of the disappearance of former frameworks and constraints (the very decline of the world order, which now seems to be universally recognized), dormant conflicts and disputes are almost inevitably resurfacing. What has been held back by the pre-existing arrangements is erupting.
In principle, everything is quite traditional; it was so before and it will be so after. The ideologization of world politics in the twentieth century meant that the end of that political period was very ideological in itself. The view that humanity has found the optimal political model, which will turn the page on previous confrontations, has triumphed. This is the only way to explain, for example, the belief that the contours of state borders will not change in the 21st century (or only by mutual agreement), because it has been decided and established that way. The historical experience of Europe and other continents in every historical period does not support such an assumption – borders have always changed fundamentally. And shifts in the balance of power and opportunity inevitably give rise to the desire to move territorial boundaries.
Another thing is that the importance of territories is different now than it was in the past. Direct control of certain spaces can now have more costs than benefits, while indirect influence is much more effective. Although it is worth noting that 15-20 years ago, at the height of economic and political globalization, it was often argued that in a fully interconnected 'flat' world, geographical and material proximity no longer mattered. The pandemic was the first and most vivid argument against this approach. The current chain of crises has forced a return to more classical ideas about the role of subordination between the regional and the global.
The disappearance of the status quo means that the world has entered a long period of turmoil in which new frameworks have not yet been established (and it is not clear when they will be) and the old ones are no longer working. The formal end of the era of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (Russia has withdrawn from it, the other countries have announced the suspension of their participation) is an example of the dismantling of existing institutions. The unprecedented intensity of the wave of assaults on the UN from all sides is an attack on the main bastion of world order established after 1945.
The current "World War Three" is likely to endure over a long timeframe and be scattered in terms of locations. But based on its results – and there will be some – a different structure of international organizations will emerge. This is always the case. This does not mean that the UN, for example, will disappear, but there will definitely be a profound correction of the principles on which it operates.
Fyodor Lukyanov is the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

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