Abu Haras argues that a United States failure in Ukraine will lead to the demise of US imperialism.  

A United States failure in Ukraine will Accelerate the end of its Global Hegemony.

The Russia-Ukraine war was a pivotal moment for the US-led Western alliance and world order to reign in the rise of its competitors as rival superpowers. Russia’s defeat at the hands of a strong Western alliance would have forced a rethink in the Global South about US commitment and competence and changed perceptions of its decline.

However, the Ukraine war is not going well for the West. There are now even indications that Putin and Russia are on the verge of a victory.  When it came to the crunch the West considered the defence of Israel and diverting military resources for Israel in its war against Gaza more of a priority. This has affected the Ukrainian war. The Israeli war on Gaza has further highlighted the declining support for the US’s narrative amongst not only the Global South but also among its allies. Take just one example, the West defines Israel as the embodiment of good against evil Hamas terrorists whilst much of the rest of the world sees Hamas as an agent in a war of liberation against Western-backed colonial occupiers. They can see the different standards being applied to occupied Ukraine and occupied Palestine.

After Ukraine, the US may well remain a major power in terms of the size of its economy, its technological lead, its ability to project military force in multiple theatres around the globe and its political power to rally its allies. However, it will be more constrained by other major powers as the international structures built after WWII to maintain its supremacy become irrelevant and fragmented. How the US deals with this will be the major determinant of the speed of that decline. Western populations’ recognition of their nations’ relative decline has caused internal political fracturing and a marked loss of public confidence in their political leaders. Current internal convulsions within the political process do not bode well for a peaceful transition.

It is important to understand that as the current hegemon, the US has everything to lose from a fragmenting of the international system. There is growing confidence in the Global South as the economic and military gap with the Western alliance has narrowed. In a recent speech to members of the Security Council and Government and the heads of security agencies, President Putin argued that the US;

“as a global superpower is becoming weaker and is losing its position, and everyone sees and understands this, even judging by the trends in the world economy. The American-style world, with the hegemony of one country, is being destroyed and is receding gradually but inexorably into the past.”

How seriously the US administration is taking this can be gauged by the aggressive approach that a rattled US is taking with its allies to ensure compliance on its foreign policy agenda’s, using both coercion and inducements. Not surprisingly, its Western allies are muzzling public debate to facilitate a consensus across political parties to fully back the US position. More visible economic coercion, regime change operations, or even threats of military actions have been applied to Global South countries. These are not the actions of a hegemon whose elite has self-belief. A confident country would not need President Biden’s readout on the Ukraine and Gaza wars (60 Minutes, 15^th October):

“We’re the United States of America for God’s sake. The most powerful nation in the history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defence. We have the capacity to do this and we have an obligation to, we are the ‘essential nation’ to paraphrase the former Secretary of State. And if we don’t then who does?” Nor for the US Treasury secretary to reassure investors that “America can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israel’s military needs and we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia.”?

So why is the Ukraine war so important given that Russia appears to be a declining power, with a challenging demographic profile and structural economic weaknesses?

1. The US plan to weaken Russia is a key step in the struggle with China and this is how the PRC will have seen it. After President Trump’s attempts to coax Russia away from the Chinese sphere failed, the US set out to weaken and isolate Russia by successfully baiting it into a war. The 2022 US National Security Strategy argued that “our world is at an inflection point”, characterising the PRC as “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it”, leading to a strategy that will “prioritize maintaining an enduring competitive edge over the PRC while constraining a still profoundly dangerous Russia.”
2. Failure to militarily defeat Russia will accelerate Western decline as an effective global actor.  Russia is on autopilot to slowly grind down the Ukrainian forces, playing the long game with better logistics. NATO’s prestige will be further dented as it fails in deterring aggressors in Europe, following the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan.
3. The economic sanctions and Russia’s political isolation have failed and have been seen to have failed by the Global South. Certainly, Russia in 2022 would not be able or would be less likely to challenge the United States without the existence of the rising economic powers in Asia. India and China have refused to implement economic sanctions against Russia and may even stand to benefit from the redirected supply of Russian energy and raw materials. Sanctions have lost their impact as the share of world GDP of the countries imposing sanctions with the US has steadily declined, reflecting its waning economic power and the Thucydides trap.
4. The Ukraine war is adding unsustainable US government debts (US$ 33 trillion or 128% of GDP). China is the first power that is seen as economically comparable to the US, representing a challenge that far surpasses the Soviet Union. During multiple economic crises, the US and many of its allies resorted to debt creation and the monetisation of that debt (central banks printing money and buying all that debt) on an unprecedented scale. Fiscal expansion (as through President Trump’s corporate tax cut and President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act) have worsened the budget deficit that will be increasingly expensive to fund as Chinese and Japanese investors demand higher interest rates for lending to an indebted nation. The annual interest bill on US debt currently exceeds US$1 trillion. The seizing of US$ 300 billion of Russian foreign exchange reserves will further erode confidence in the Western financial system.
5. Rising inequality has led to the most serious internal conflict and the largest political fissures in Western societies in a generation. The printing of money and lifting of valuations for all assets (largely owned by the rich) has created the largest wealth gaps since the 1930-45 period. Hitherto, the ensuing populism has been managed by using a pliant media to denigrate the left-wing political parties and their re-distribution policies.
6. Any remnants of global support have unravelled during the Gaza war with increasing long-term damage to its prestige. The US is finding it difficult to corral support at international forums, with even close allies forced to distance themselves from the unconditional support given to a vital US ally. The FT (17^th Oct 2023) reports one senior G7 diplomat privately stating that;

“we have definitely lost the battle in the Global South,” as “all the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost . . . Forget about rules, forget about world order. They won’t ever listen to us again.”

Most non-aligned countries believe that the US is being overly aggressive and wants to stay out of the conflict with China. The soft power of the PRC has been gaining traction at the expense of the US, with the two publicly known examples being the Saudi-Iranian deal and the proposal of a path to peace in Ukraine (that neither President Zelensky nor President Putin criticized).

We are witnessing a monumental transformation of the world order, with far-reaching social and economic consequences. Among the shifts, the most consequential is the metastasizing of the US-China conflict, with the Ukraine war representing one horizontal vector. The incumbent hegemon is taking pre-emptive action against a rising China. More than 6 years after the Obama administration put out the “Pivot to Asia” strategy, President Xi has parted decisively from Deng Xiaoping’s 1990 “hide your strength and bide your time” doctrine in his October 2017 address to the Communist Party Congress.

“It is time for us to take centre stage in the world and to make a greater contribution to humankind.” On 22^nd March 2023, President Xi told President Putin as he stood at the door of the Kremlin to bid him farewell that, “Right now there are changes – the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years – and we are the ones driving these changes together.”

Russia is determined to create a multi-polar world with China, and this resonates with most of the Global South. In his annual speech to the Discussion Club on October 27^th, President Putin called on other countries to join Russia in building a multipolar world, arguing that: “America has nothing to offer the world except domination.” Both countries now perceive the other as a competitor, and that thinking has spread deeply within their respective policy-making establishments to shape decision-making and policy.

With an economic war already underway and a capital war starting, China and the US could also be on the brink of military war, which China will seek to avoid. The outcome of the Ukraine and Gaza wars will test the Western alliance’s appetite to create a blueprint for provoking China. Whatever happens, the old-world order is on the way out and new one beckons.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of Ayaan.