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“Empires rise and fall like the abdomen of God. It’s just the universe breathing.” – Wes Nisker
“The truth of the matter is that the end of the American era had come much earlier.” – Francis Fukuyama, Тhe Economist, Nov.8, 2021
History: Truman 1947. Pax Britannica is Dead! Long Live Pax Americana!
On March 12th 1947, the 33rd President of the United States, Harry Truman, delivered a live speech to the United States Congress announcing $400 million in financial assistance to the governments of Turkey and Greece.
How did this prosaic speech, in of itself, turn out to be the most important defining geopolitical trajectory of the 20th century? Truman states three fundamental sentences:
- Quote – “Great Britain finds itself under the necessity of reducing or liquidating its commitments in several parts of the world, including Greece.”
- At this moment, the USA is the only country capable of providing financial aid: Quote – “There is no other country to which democratic Greece can turn”.
- From this moment on, US foreign policy has been radically transformed: Quote – “The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world — and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own nation”.
What was Truman trying to convey using this diplomatic, yet unambiguously firm tone and language?
In French royal court lexicon, his words may sound akin to: Le Roi est mort! Vive le Roi!
Truman’s 1947 speech has one essential message: Pax Britannica is dead! Long Live Pax Americana!
It is unnecessary to analyze the extent to which the tectonic rupture between the empire in which the sun never sets, Pax Britannica, and the arrival of Pax Americana has influenced the global geopolitical processes of the 20th century. An American global hegemony is an indisputable fact.
December 17, 2021
But let’s go back to December 17th, 2021. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs published two documents that, I would say, have the same geopolitical significance for the current 21st century.
In a very direct tone, to put it bluntly, Russia has issued an ‘ultimatum’ (despite Putin rejecting such formulation) to the United States and NATO: if you do not accept our terms, we will be forced to use military and military-technical means.
Obviously, it is not customary to speak of a hegemon, even more so of the global hegemon, who after the collapse of the USSR triumphantly declared not only the planet ‘American’, the so-called unipolar world, but also the 21st century the “American Century”, based on the famous doctrine of the “New American Century Project”.
What, actually happened on December 17th 2021?
In the same way that the end of the British Empire was announced to the world, on that date the end of American hegemony was publicly announced.
Russia’s proposals in these two documents are numerous, but in summary, the main pitches are as follows:
- No more NATO expansion towards Russia’s borders.
- Retraction of the 2008 NATO Invitation to Ukraine and Georgia.
- Legally binding guarantee that no strike systems which could target Moscow will be deployed in countries next to Russia.
- No NATO or equivalent (UK, U.S., Pl.) ‘exercises’ near Russian borders.
- NATO ships, planes to keep certain distances from Russian borders.
- Regular military-to-military
Please note:
- Withdrawal of US and NATO military contingents and bases from Central and Eastern Europe, maintaining military parity since 1997, before Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria are accepted as members of NATO.
- No intermediate-range nukes in Europe.
Despite the inevitable shock in Washington and NATO to the tone of Russia’s peace proposals, this time Russia has decided to cross the Rubicon and dictate its terms to the collective West – and has done so from a position of strength.
Translated into lay terms, the meaning of this ultimatum is: meet “the new sheriff in town” either in a peaceful way, by meeting with Foreign Minister Mr. Lavrov, or in the painful way, as has already been expressed figuratively and unequivocally by an influential foreign policy analyst, by “meeting with Mr. Iskander, Mr. Caliber, Mr. Kinjal and Mr. Zircon”.
Is such a threat exaggerated?
The answer is probably not!
According to the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and First Deputy Minister of Defense General Valery Gerasimov, warned that the confrontation will not be verbal which sentiment was echoed by the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko who bluntly said on Solovyov Live YouTube channel. “The moment of truth has come“
Such a tone would be completely unthinkable for Washington if we exclude the time of the 1962 Caribbean crisis, much less coming from a “gas station”, as the late Senator John McCain, described Russia. But this time, it seems, Washington is willing to negotiate.
Why?
Let us recall the categorical statement of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Grushko:
“We only make it clear that we are ready to talk about the transition from a military or military-technical scenario to a political process that will strengthen security in all countries. The OSCE area, the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian regions. If that doesn’t work, we’ve signaled to them [NATO] that we’ll move on to creating counter-threats as well, but then it will be too late to ask us why we made these decisions and why we deployed these systems.“
The possibility of a new deployment of weapons systems, including hypersonic weapons, threatening the United States not only from Russia but also from Belarus, the Arctic, the Atlantic (including the Gulf of Mexico) and the Pacific would force the United States to seriously rethink these proposals. Why? One possible explanation… is the insufficiency of 5 minutes required to destroy strategic sites on US territory, including Washington, given the speed of the new Russian hypersonic attack systems: Zircon – Mach 9 (9,800-11,025 km / h or 3 km per second) and the Avangard 20-27 Mach (30,000 km / h or 8.5 km per second).
It should be noted that the new generation of hypersonic systems does not address the sole challenge of the new geopolitical reality that Washington should address at this time.
The China-Russia Alliance: “Rock Solid”
In addition, there is one particularly significant, unavoidable factor, which should not be ignored – China. Days before the publication of Russia’s ultimatums, Chinese President Xi Zing Ping described relations with Russia using a particularly enigmatic diplomatic lexicon: “We (understand) (Russia and China) are much more than allies“.
Whatever truly lies behind this statement, the Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijiang of China described relations between the two countries as “rock solid”.
In this sense, the United States will have to respond to the Russian ultimatum given the Moscow-Beijing axis – i.e. the absolute nightmare of the parent of modern geopolitics Halford Mackinder, according to whom the only obstacle to global hegemony of the “collective West” is the creation of a union of two major Eurasian colossus – Russia and China.
It remains to be seen how the United States will accept this new geopolitical reality.
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Prof. Ivalyo Grouev is a prominent author and geopolitical analyst, teaches political science at the University of Ottawa.
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