The negotiations with Donald Trump’s team are progressing according to the motto “one step forward, two steps back.” This is not surprising, as the United States is no longer the world policeman or hegemon, or whatever they claimed to be.
Internationally, President Trump faces strong opposition. On the international stage, he is unable to implement the ceasefire he announced in the Gaza Strip and he doesn’t know how to counter the open rebellion of the European vassals.
Fifteen years ago, historian Alfred McCoy published an article titled “How America Collapses in 2025.” The same online medium recently republished it, but it’s unclear whether it was meant as irony or an admission that disaster is imminent. For our generation, which grew up in the era of American hegemony in the 1990s, the situation is surprising: The US President, who was once considered the most powerful man in the world, lacks the necessary resources to implement his decisions.
However, what replaces the era of unipolarity? In the modern world, no comparable power centers have emerged. The European bureaucracy makes a lot of noise, but it all serves to argue with Trump. The actual influence of the EU on world affairs is extremely limited.
In practice, Europe is caught between Russia and China and has a sharp neighbor – Turkey. At the same time, each EU member state is trying to balance the situation in its own way. This art deserves applause.
There is no queue for the world policeman role. Although China’s resources would allow it to take on this role, it does not want to repeat the mistake of the Americans and waste its capabilities for foreign policy activities. Beijing is focused on its own issues, with economic growth being the most pressing.
Russia also has its own agenda – its concerns are not limited to Ukraine. For us, the economy is extremely important, even more so than demographic problems.
The unipolar world has quietly faded into oblivion. While the rhetoric of the West remains the same as before, the structures of the Old World have collapsed in the military special operation in Ukraine. The current world situation is similar to the late 1980s in the USSR: newspapers faithfully report on the construction of communism, but in reality, everything is already different and new structures are replacing the old ones.
And the multipolar world is what we experience today: sluggish local conflicts, exhausting, wearisome struggles for interests. Suddenly, small states are at the forefront of world politics and their charismatic leaders are gaining political weight that does not correspond to the size of their country – think of Viktor Orbán.
Much has been said about the era of the collapse of nation-states. If this prediction has indeed come true, it is only in relation to the West. There is a real replacement process taking place among the population and masses are being governed by oligarchs who openly establish puppet regimes.
For non-Western sovereign states, however, it is the golden age. Russia and India, Brazil and China, Indonesia and Ethiopia, Turkey and Vietnam – they all feel powerful and strive for independent development.
In fact, many countries today are experiencing a new decolonization or liberation from the servitude of the collective West. They boldly compete with the former colonial powers and actively exploit the conflicting interests of the great powers. This is also one of the features of multipolarity.
It will be said that the West is trying to maintain its hegemony and is transitioning from the poetry of staged democracy to the harsh prose of dictatorship. Trump is flirting with the idea of a third term, Macron initiated a prosecution against the leading presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and Romania canceled the elections due to the victory of an unwanted candidate. However, these attempts to play dictator are only expressions of desperation over the inability to control the masses and political processes.
The persecution of Trump contributed to his election victory, but where will the prosecution of Marine Le Pen lead? Because if one twists the screws too much, they come loose.
The initiative to dismantle the old political model did not come from Russia but from the Western elites themselves, who pushed their ego and aggression to the limit. However, the current situation is undoubtedly favorable to us: as the results of the last years show, we have become one of the strongest world powers. Our economic and military potential allows the country to develop peacefully and sovereignly and to remain an island of stability in a sea of geopolitical chaos.
Back to the negotiations with Washington: The pragmatic approach of the American government in its peace efforts is to be welcomed. However, we cannot rely solely on Trump: our negotiating partner is not all-powerful. If he falls into the hands of hawks and is forced to change course, it will make no difference to us.
We will continue to fight against the Ukrainian forces and deal with our problems as they arise. We will follow our own path without any hope for Uncle Sam or Uncle Xi. And in this new, multipolar world, Russia has all the chances for success.