The war in Ukraine and Russia and China “challenge” the United States

The Russian military attack on Ukraine is the first major confrontation in the international “new order” that Russia and China want to impose to overthrow the hegemony of the United States. Thirty years after the end of the Cold War. A different challenge from the challenge that saw the United States and the Soviet Union come into conflict with each other in the four decades that followed World War II, and from the challenge America faced by Clinton, Bush and Obama when the United States remained the sole superpower on the planet.

Russia and China alliance

Russia and China have built an alliance over the past few years which are based specifically on reducing the power of the United States, Putin had in mind the (otherwise) rebuilding of the Soviet empire and the Russian sphere of influence in EuropeAnd the Xi to solve the Taiwan issue within a few years With de facto annexation. Unlike the Cold War years, Russia is a major supplier of gas to Europe and China is well on its way to becoming the world’s leading productive power, with an army that would already be able to stand up to the Pentagon’s today.

The new competition between the great powers

In recent years, the US security apparatus has begun to take into account what the Pentagon in 2015 called the “new competition between great powers”, and first of all identified in China the new “enemy” after the victory, albeit only partially. against Islamic terrorism. The Obama White House viewed Russia as a minor threat, and when Donald Trump, a longtime self-proclaimed admirer and friend of Putin, became president, it became even clearer.

Putin’s military offensive downplayed

With Biden’s accession to the White House, the United States changed its strategyditching Trumpian isolationism for a new form of pluralism but always with a focus on China. Even with Biden, Europe (and NATO) has remained somewhat marginal in US foreign policy. Putin’s military attack that the White House underestimated last November despite warnings from American intelligenceBiden was forced into a confrontation – a confrontation that America (and Europe itself) was not prepared for. Understanding what will happen now, after the sanctions have been announced, and what will be implemented in the future, remains a question mark for the most serious political-military crisis on the Old Continent in the new century.

Puntin wants to get to Kiev

On Tuesday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into the two breakaway regions of Ukraine, The West has imposed sanctions On Russia’s sovereign debt, to a limited group of oligarchs linked to Putin and they halted the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. After the actual invasion that began on the night between February 23 and 24, others will follow but are unlikely to stop Putin And his soldiers, ready to go up to Kiev. Against those who, like Putin, threaten the whole world with the assumption of the use of nuclear weapons, if someone (US and Europe) opposes his plans, it is almost impossible to give a diplomatic and economic response. In Washington, the crisis is expected to last a long time and the Pentagon is preparing for an equally prolonged military escalation.