In 2014, the rise of the Islamic State was the main thing on my mind. But even then, I saw the fighting in Ukraine as Russia vs America, and both events, along with the rise of Xi and Modi, as part of a tremendous shift from “unipolar” to “multipolar” geopolitics. The Trump presidency, in a sense, completed the revolution, bringing ideological change to America itself—but then Covid scrambled things enough, that there was a liberal restoration under Biden. Still, things are not as they were—Biden is now fighting a three-front struggle, against Putin, Xi, and Trump; and the progressive wing of his own party also has a greatly reduced appetite for global intervention. Whatever its outcome, the war in Ukraine already looks like a struggle between two poles of a multipolar world, rather than a global alliance against a rogue state.
In 2014, the rise of the Islamic State was the main thing on my mind. But even then, I saw the fighting in Ukraine as Russia vs America, and both events, along with the rise of Xi and Modi, as part of a tremendous shift from “unipolar” to “multipolar” geopolitics. The Trump presidency, in a sense, completed the revolution, bringing ideological change to America itself—but then Covid scrambled things enough, that there was a liberal restoration under Biden. Still, things are not as they were—Biden is now fighting a three-front struggle, against Putin, Xi, and Trump; and the progressive wing of his own party also has a greatly reduced appetite for global intervention. Whatever its outcome, the war in Ukraine already looks like a struggle between two poles of a multipolar world, rather than a global alliance against a rogue state.