With the passage of time an increasing number analysts believe that the Ukrainian crisis has become a kind of turning point, after which American influence in the world will decline. It is highly likely that Ukraine will go down in history as the country where the US, so far considered the only one superpower in the world, finally meets its match – Russia.
Russian media outlets have long criticized the policy of ubiquitous intervention of Washington, which brings to the world nothing but trouble: bloody tribal and sectarian wars, economic crises (vede: Iraq, Syria, Libya). Lately, US foreign policy actions are also harshly criticized by Western media which overtly state that “cracked position of the American hegemony in the global political arena is the direct result of persistent intervention in the affairs of others”. This is clearly manifested in the backdrop of the civil war in Donbass, eastern Ukraine. It becomes increasingly apparent that the US – probably for the first time – stumbles, failing to negotiate the ‘Ukrainian fence’ in its quest for global hegemony.
One can say with confidence that Washington turns a deaf ear to the critical opinions expressed by a whole raft of seasoned Western analysts. The US administration must make up its mind for radical change in its foreign policy course. Otherwise, not only the dominance of the US dollar, but also the American world dominance in trade, economic, cultural and military terms will come to an end. This US dominance is already the big question.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war the U.S. “relaxed”, considering that the main geopolitical enemy had already been defeated. The level of training of political scientists, analysts and especially experts on Russian affairs decreased. This manifest decline in the study of Russia has led to serious problems in practicing the interventionist approach. In particular, this factor had a negative impact on the planning and implementation of the ‘Maidan revolution’ which gave birth to the the Ukrainian conflict and the surge of neo-Nazism in the country. The American strategists in charge were so confident of the US overwhelming power that did not even allow the doubt that anyone would dare to obstruct the implementation of their plans.
However, Russia was not willing to tolerate the re-emergence of fascism among their Ukrainian brethren, the older generation of which fought heroically against the Nazi war machine during what the Russians and the other ex-Soviet peoples call ‘The Great Patriotic War’.
No doubt, the American grand strategists have made a fundamental error: they failed to take into account the peculiarities of Ukrainian history, the ethnic heterogeneity of its society, the mentality characteristics of the population in the Western and Eastern regions of the country. They aimed to wrest the whole of Ukraine from Russia, but as a result they are splitting it into parts. Perusing a Soviet-Russian school history textbook would have sufficed for them to avoid the horrible blunders .
Another cause of failure was the fact that the U.S. underestimated the will of their chief opponent, i.e. Russia, to dare challenge American power. Without meeting much resistance in their waged wars, US believed in their invulnerable superiority. They have been under the illusion of omnipotence that blurred their judgment.
As it happens Moscow has shown remarkable resilience over Ukraine, putting up an unexpected degree of stiff political and diplomatic resistance. Washington did not seem to be prepared for this situation; thereby its much vaunted omnipotence is put under serious doubt. It is unlikely that the battered U.S. image will manage to regain its former lustre.
The international community, tired of the failing American dictates that bred trouble and enormous human suffering in the entire Middle East North Africa (MENA) region and now in Ukraine, begins to plausibly pose the question: Why should the United States make all world decisions? It looks like that the unfolding Ukrainian drama grants the initiative on the world chessboard to Russia, which has a unique chance to make the US acknowledge the fact that we live in a multi-polar world.