The protracted war between Russia and Ukraine, which has lost media attention and become customary after a year, remains a pivotal event for the international order. The post-1945 (World War II) order had deterred war among the major powers and increased the costs of war and secession for the combatants. Yet, after the Cold War and America’s unmatched power, Washington sought to seize all the power and dictate its terms to other actors. This altered the post-war norms to America’s advantage. Washington aspired to rule the world, not just be a great power. The establishment of 800 military bases worldwide indicated its intention to turn the world into a US stronghold. This reached its zenith with NATO’s eastward expansion and China’s containment.
NATO’s eastward expansion provoked Russia and its attack on Ukraine, starting the era of conflict among the great powers and challenging the US-led order. Russia will likely lose the war in Ukraine, but it initiated a process of large and conventional wars, annexing or recovering territories, and spreading wars worldwide. This will replace the US hierarchical order with new blocs, such as BRICS and Shanghai. This is independent of China’s allies’ future coalition.
The great wars that were a means of creating the American system are now being used to overthrow it. The notion that “power creates rights” is something that has become prevalent especially in the past three decades in every action of the United States, whether from the occupation of countries in the Middle East, or the withdrawal from treaties, alliances, and agreements. Now this is the repercussion of the boomerang that the Americans threw at any country they wanted to subjugate.
The Western media asserts that collaborating with the West to oppose Russia is the sole method to reinstate the American order. Nevertheless, this is an impractical alternative. The countries that have maintained neutrality for a long period, such as Switzerland, Sweden, and Finland, have forsaken their neutrality and aligned with the stronger party in this ambiguous situation. This implies that the weaker countries will have to comply with the will of the stronger ones. Furthermore, there are other elements that influence the future of the world, such as Iran’s security partnership with Russia; China’s ties with Iran and Saudi Arabia; and the increase of Germany and Japan’s military expenditure. These are all components of a puzzle that need to be resolved to comprehend the transition from a critical situation to an unknown one. In addition to that, India will become the second economic power in the world in the next 50 years and China will supplant America by 2050. These are all aspects that need to be considered and examined collectively.
The objective of this war for the Americans is to deplete the Russian national resources in Ukraine and to generate a perpetual conflict between Europe and Russia, which is advantageous for Washington. Nonetheless, the global trends are not proceeding as Washington expects. One of these significant trends, especially in the relations between the dominant powers and the emerging BRICS countries, is the attempt to diminish the reliance on the US dollar in their trade exchanges. For example, China was the destination of 40% of Russia’s exports and the source of 30% of Russia’s imports in the previous year. While prior to this, the Russian people were not very acquainted with the Chinese Yuan, today 15% of the Russian Central Bank’s foreign exchange reserves are in Yuan, and the interest among Russians to buy Yuan has increased by 33%.
The US is waging a proxy war in Ukraine as part of its strategy to maintain the unipolar order, but it is a losing game. According to the World Bank, Ukraine needs about 1 trillion dollars to recover from the war, but neither the US nor Europe can afford to pay for its reconstruction. Ukraine is essentially destroyed, and its only hope is that China might step in and rebuild it and also gain a foothold in Eastern Europe. Russia, on the other hand, has succeeded in weakening its neighbor, but at a great price. This means that the US has lost its ability to end wars and that its interventions in the Middle East and North Africa have created a refugee crisis that will haunt Europe.
The American strategy seeks to create disorder in the world to advance its own agenda. It intends to debilitate Europe and render it reliant on its policies, to antagonize China by menacing its southern borders with its military presence, to undermine Russia with various crises, and to leave the Middle East in a state of terror after its occupation. This is a form of anarchy that the Americans employ to sustain their unilateral order in Washington, but it also entails annihilating the earth in the name of the international system.
