“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” has long been a fundamental maxim of common political wisdom. Recent global and regional developments - all the ambiguity, ad hoc deals, and the conflation of strategy and tactics - are showing us why.
Look, for example, at the behavior of the United States, the strongest player on the international stage. It no longer speaks of deep, long-term strategic alliances but openly promotes “deals” that put out a crisis here or a dispute there as the ideals and lofty principles of the previous era recede in the face of immediate, narrow self-interest.
Two factors have led to this state of affairs in my opinion.
The first is the collapse of what, for a time, had seemed like a prototype for a world order that would succeed the post-Cold War order. The second is the accelerating pace of technological progress, which is currently culminating with artificial intelligence and its inevitable implications for humanity.
With regard to the first factor, Europe, despite its historical role in struggles over global hegemony, finds itself strikingly dazed and confused. By virtue of its geographical location next to Asia and Africa, as well as the influence of religions that emerged in West Asia, Europe had long been a very significant player in religion, technological development, and the economy.
Europe began to carry weight in the history of Christianity with the conversion of Emperor Constantine the Great (306-337 AD). Later, technological development was precipitated by the Industrial Revolution that followed the Muslim conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and the migration of scholars to Western Europe. Europe’s global economic dominance took shape through the discovery and colonization of continents.
This “colonial Europe” gave birth, in the West, to the United States of America. In the East, its imperial war and the class struggles engendered by the Industrial Revolution gave rise to a revolutionary ideology. This ideology transformed Russia into a massive political, economic, and military powerhouse called the Soviet Union.
At the same time, as Western European dominance over Latin America gradually loosened after the American War of Independence, the success of the Bolshevik Revolution produced repercussions in many regions, encouraging peoples to rise up against European hegemony. Foremost among them were China, later India, and what would become the states of Asia and Africa.
The collapse of the former Soviet Union was resented by many groups and factions in Russia, the largest and central polity of the Soviet empire. This resentment was greatest among those with strong memories and even stronger interests: the men of the former regime. Russia’s current leader, Vladimir Putin, is one of those men.
Putin worked for the intelligence services. A former KGB official in East Germany during the period of its subordination to Moscow, he could not easily forget, nor readily reconcile himself to, this change. How could he forget or reconcile himself to the banners and missiles of NATO reaching Russia’s borders?
Figures like Putin are not easily distracted by ideological disputes. What they see as usurped national interests and vendettas are always in focus, and they wait for the right moment to pounce. He is well versed in European and Western politics in general. That is why he found the most effective way to take revenge on the West for bringing down his former Soviet state.
Since the West succeeded in bringing down the Soviet Union from within, despite its devastating nuclear capabilities, Putin chose a similar strategy. He sought to undermine Western democracies from within, and he is doing precisely that: encouraging populist and racist extremism and by supporting the dismantling of the broad consensuses that have, until now, been the key pillar of the stability of these democracies.
The Kremlin’s current policies have nothing to do with Soviet-era ideas or leftist commitment. Its closest allies and supporters in Europe and the United States today are far-right racist parties and figures hostile to immigration and foreigners. The more powerful and popular these forces grow, and the closer they come to power, the greater the likelihood of domestic strife. This trajectory is undermining the cohesion of the countries concerned and, with it, the unity of the Western alliance as a whole.
Amid the steady rise of the European far right, many in the United States are highlighting the divisions within American politics. The most prominent of these signs emerged at the Munich Security Conference, with the remarks of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Similar views were expressed by the academic and defense expert Nadia Schadlow, associated with the neoconservative current, in an article published in Foreign Affairs.
Rubio’s speech amounted to a blunt political announcement. It promoted an American global order imposed by Washington. Europe was assigned the role of junior partner in a clash of civilizations, cultures, and religions. In his remarks, there was no apology for the colonial past. Instead, it was implicitly endorsed, alongside a rejection of international coexistence based on rules and institutions. The world was divided into two camps: good and evil. The former was presented as white, Christian, and conservative, backed by wealthy actors in advanced technology, while everyone else was placed in the latter.
Schadlow made a similar argument in her distinction between the two rival “operating systems” of today’s world. The first claims that urgent problems can only be resolved through a global, supranational, and multilateral system. The second holds that nation-states remain the pillar of legitimate authority and effective action.
After listing major challenges such as migration, pandemics, and the rise of China, Schadlow argued that the debate is no longer abstract. The contradiction between “globalists” and “sovereigntists” has become clear, especially in the political exchanges between Washington and European capitals. She noted that the current American leadership has begun to question the utility of global institutions, while European leaders continue to stress their importance for preserving the post-Cold War order. She concluded by advising Washington and other “democratic” countries to stop respecting what she called an “ossified global order” and seek their own solutions to international crises.
Quite a world we live in today.
