(MENAFN- Asia Times)
The impact President Trump's election will have on American foreign policy is still up for discussion, but for all practical purposes, Washington will have to come to terms with a new global environment-an environment still held hostage, in part, by the defunct Cold War.
The Cold War was essentially a bipolar confrontation pitting the Soviet Union against the United States and its allies. On the margins of the confrontation stood what went under the name of the“Third World,” a motley aggregate of mostly mismanaged former colonies, absurd dictatorships and failed economies. Within this ecosystem, and excluding India, China stood out as massive but isolated and essentially focused on its internal concerns.
One of the defining features of this global archetype was that the Russian Empire, in its then-current incarnation, the Soviet Union, was one single land mass extending from the Kamchatka peninsula to the Elbe River.
This made it easier for Moscow to keep its dependents in line. Thus, when the Hungarians or the Czechs sought to regain their independence, it required no logistical feat for Moscow to send troops to quell the uprising.
Contrary to the Soviet Union and its Russian successor, the American Empire was a global endeavor with far-flung concerns. Both foreign bases and a major fleet were needed to ensure America's dominance.
By the 1960s, an equilibrium of some sort had been reached between the two dominant powers, and both sides implicitly acknowledged that each had a sphere of interest that should be respected.
Thus, Washington refrained from intervening when the likes of Hungary or Czechoslovakia sought to break away from the Soviet masters. Conversely, Washington did intervene, albeit through local proxies when Moscow tried to reach beyond its sphere of interest, such as in Afghanistan.
Ultimately, while the prevailing equilibrium was fraught with malevolence, it was an order of some sort with its unspoken rules and red lines, real or imagined. While the collapse of the Soviet Union was tantamount to Russia's loss of empire, the geopolitical setting of the two powers in relation to each other did not change.
Russia remained Russia as a continental power, albeit one that had been amputated from part of its land mass. The United States remained a global player with a far-flung empire and an impact that extended far beyond the military or the economic sphere.
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