It stretched from the Caspian to the Baltic Sea, from the middle of Europe to the Kurile Islands in the Pacific, from Siberia to Central Asia. Its nuclear arsenal held 45,000 warheads, and its military had five million troops under arms. There had been nothing like it in Eurasia since the Mongols conquered China, took parts of Central Asia and the Iranian plateau, and rode into the Middle East, looting Baghdad. Yet when the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, by far the poorer, weaker imperial power disappeared.
And then there was one. There had never been such a moment: a single nation astride the globe without a competitor in sight. There wasn’t even a name for such a state (or state of mind). “Superpower” had already been used when there were two of them. “Hyperpower” was tried briefly but didn’t stick. “Sole superpower” stood in for a while but didn’t satisfy. “Great Power,” once the zenith of appellations, was by then a lesser phrase, left over from the centuries when various European nations and Japan were expanding their empires. Some started speaking about a “unipolar” world in which all roads led… well, to Washington.
To this day, we’ve never quite taken in that moment when Soviet imperial rot unexpectedly — above all, to Washington — became imperial crash-and-burn. Left standing, the Cold War’s victor seemed, then, like an empire of everything under the sun. It was as if humanity had always been traveling toward this spot. It seemed like the end of the line.
Tag Archives: eurasia
The Last Empire? | TomDispatch
Putin’s Grandest Dream: Could His ‘Eurasian Union’ Work? – The Atlantic
The concept of regional hegemony, in the form of a Eurasian economic union, would seem just the tonic to reinvigorate a jaded population. And from a geopolitical viewpoint, Putin’s Kremlin needs to join forces with formerly Soviet republics in order to be better positioned to economically compete with the United States, European Union and China.
The idea of an economic union has particular appeal for Putinists, as it contains the potential to “right the wrongs” of the Soviet collapse in 1991, placing Eurasia’s peoples back on track to fulfill their “historical destiny.” It is noteworthy that Putin’s Eurasian vision was first unveiled in his programmatic article headlined “A New Integration Project for Eurasia: The Future Starts Today,” published in the Izvestia daily last October.
Re-integrating the former “Soviet Eurasia” under Moscow’s leadership may seem simple in Putin’s concept paper, but reality is far more complex. Several powerful constraints will hinder the Kremlin’s ability to maneuver.
Putin’s Grandest Dream: Could His ‘Eurasian Union’ Work? – EurasiaNet – International – The Atlantic
Third Quarter Forecast 2011 | STRATFOR
STRATFOR has long argued that the United States is fighting an untenable war in Afghanistan and eventually would face the hard facts of the conflict, reorder its priorities and start bringing an end to the intensive military campaign. …
Russian efforts to consolidate influence in its periphery will continue to drive events in Eurasia as Moscow works to strengthen relations with Germany and France through major business, military and energy deals. …
Russia Rapidly Running Out of Its ‘Soviet Reserve,’ Kagarlitsky Warns
Russia is literally falling apart. Radical changes will be required soon.
The “Soviet reserve” of infrastructure and technology on which Russian officials and the Russian economy have been relying for 20 years is rapidly running out, leaving the country with little choice but to launch a crash program to try to bring these sectors up to speed or face the prospect of further decline, according to Boris Kagarlitsky.
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There is only one good thing about all this, Kagarlitsky concludes: “in such a situation, radical changes are inevitable.” But “it is too bad that one can no longer live by spending one’s inheritance,” which is what Russia and Russians have been doing in effect since the Soviet Union collapsed.
Perilous predictions for 2011
Nowhere is prediction more fraught with peril than in politics and world affairs. The success rate is in inverse proportion to the costs that unexpected acts in the real world can impose on the investor. So despite the difficulty of providing a reliable guide to the future there are huge incentives to try to chart the way ahead. Here’s Control Risks, a risk consultancy firm, on its view of 2011, while competitor Eurasia reveals in early January, as does the World Economic Forum. Nomura has a list of 10 political challenges to prosperity that range from the prospect of gridlock in US domestic politics to brinksmanship on the Korean peninsula.
A forecast for the 21st century: CEO of Stratfor.Com – George Friedman [Video]
George Friedman offers a forecast of the changes we can expect around the world during the twenty-first century. He explains where and why future wars will erupt (and how they will be fought), which nations will gain and lose economic and political power, and how new technologies and cultural trends will alter the way we live in the new century.
Drawing on history and geopolitical patterns dating back hundreds of years, Friedman shows that we are now, for the first time in half a millennium, at the dawn of a new era – with changes in store, including:
- The US-Jihadist war will conclude – replaced by a second full-blown cold war with Russia.
- China will undergo a major extended internal crisis, and Mexico will emerge as an important world power.
- A new global war will unfold toward the middle of the century between the United States and an unexpected coalition from Eastern Europe, Eurasia and the Far East; but armies will be much smaller and wars will be less deadly.
- Technology will focus on space – both for major military uses and for a dramatic new energy resource that will have radical environmental implications.
George Friedman is the founder and chief intelligence officer of STRATFOR, which analyses and forecasts trends in world affairs. He is an internationally recognised expert in security and intelligence issues. He is also the author of several books, including The Future of War. The Next 100 Years will be released in March 2009, and George will be touring in May 2009. He has been invited as a guest to the 2009 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
This lecture is part of the Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series 2009. Presented by Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, the Department of International Relations and the ANU International Relations Society.
Flashpoint recipe: Mix Russia, Islam, border war
U.S. military experts say the “most likely flashpoint” in Eurasia has become the Caucasus, a strategic location that is grabbing intelligence attention because of the prospect of a border war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a conflict that not only could draw in Russiabut also Islamic interests there
RUSSIA AND CHINA UNITE FORCES IN PEACE MISSION 2007
This summer the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will conduct joint military exercises called “Peace Mission-2007″. The Russian-led Collective Security Treaty (CSTO) will closely observe the drills. For the first time, the two organizations will act as partners rather than representing overlapping multilateral structures seeking to fight terrorism, extremism, and separatism in Eurasia. However, the drills also generate discussions whether both organizations are in fact pursuing transnational security or are more concerned with international dominance. The CSTO’s suggestion to practice defense mechanisms against nuclear terrorism suggests the latter.
