Does the world remember President Bill Clinton’s moment of uncontrolled laughter during his joint press conference with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the Kremlin? Moments like this of multifaceted joy between the two countries are archived in history. Meanwhile, the West went chanting victory and impatiently traveling on a book tour to tell the world about his story of – the “War on Terror.”
Hence, the defeated camp, Moscow, begins thinking of a new strategy and how to bring Russia’s ancient glory back to the world stage. Russia progressively woke up from its geopolitical coma. First, it applied a political tactic that led the West to believe that Russia’s case was closed and it had become one of them. The Russian leadership espoused the sacred-saint capitalistic economy and political model, free market, “political pluralism,” and then integrated the club of the super rich countries: G7+Russia.
Guilt and Strength
Whereas, the strategy of buying time helped Russia to recover, the years went on and so did world affairs. After Russia got what it needed from the West: trust; they began to feel solid and stronger. In 2000, a fearful tactician politician occupied the lodge of the Kremlin, whose character is a mix of Machiavelli and Nietzsche with a background of world spying; he is very familiar with the complex game of national and international politics. President Vladimir Putin is a leader who never pardoned the West, particularly his former satellite countries and the former Soviet Republics.
He kept his influence on the Central Asian regimes; he squashed an autonomist movement in Chechnya, he destabilized his southern neighbor, Ukraine and annexed Crimea from Kiev with the sour consent of the West leaders. But his big challenge is in the southwest of Russia, the two sworn enemies of Russia: Ukraine and Georgia. The two countries clearly showed their pro-Western political orientation toward Washington and Brussels, despite the resistance and interference of Moscow.
Then-President Mikheil Saakashvilli got the green light from Washington, ordering his forces to assault South Ossetia, an enclave that made an allegiance with Moscow early in 1991 and with it Abkhazia. Consequently, Russia used this as an alibi to respond overwhelmingly to the Georgian attack in the same way as Israel reacted to the Hezbollah resistance in July 2006, Hamas in 2008, 2014, and 2022. However, the calls to end this conflict were not just belated communiqués, but strong words from Washington to Brussels.
Geostrategic naivety
The West lectured the world about the Soviets’ tanks parades in Budapest in 1956, Prague in 1968, not to mention the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, of course no word about Chechnya in 1999; the same West mutism continues in the on-going carnage and ethnic cleansing in Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Jerusalem in Occupied Territories in Palestine.
Did the West act then besides through rhetorical condemnations? Russia, nonetheless, benefited a great deal from the New World Disorder, and the post-Cold War Western leaders’ strategic mistakes and misjudgements. Although the U.S. was busy dealing with its unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, causing it the loss of its credibility and image at home and abroad, the high demand for gas in Europe and beyond made Russia play hardball with the E.U. and the U.S. leaders, warning them: be careful what you wish for.
Russia has been using the gas weapon as a tool of its post-Cold War hegemony for its international comportment toward its neighboring countries and the E.U. countries. Consequently, the West answered Russia’s regional demands in consideration, trying to engage Moscow diplomatically, economically, and sportily. The West needed Russia, for instance in the Iranian nuclear dossier and its “cowboy” foreign policy objectives in MENA (Libya and Syria), despite the strategic principles and objectives put in place by Moscow – this led to paving the Silk Road of pipelines from the Caspian Sea to the Marmara Straight being under the control of Moscow, while, the West was about to lose Ankara, a vital strategic ally in southeast Europe and the Middle East to Moscow. Today Ankara because of its balanced and active diplomacy is a key player in the Ukraine War’s negotiations process.
If the West then, (in this stance the U.S.) was genuine about the democratization of the Balkan countries so the Baltics and former Slavic Soviet Republics as it was promised in the MENA region. The West should not open an unnecessary fight with a strategic ally and fellow NATO member for religious imperative, to the contrary, it shall admit the fact that Ankara is joining Moscow’s virtuous cycle with Beijing, furthermore the BRICS+ club. A serious geopolitical bloc, commonly called: Global South.
Shifting point
A geopolitical shift in the post-1945 World Affairs Order equation, following the occurring Ukraine War that has entered its third year when U.S. President Donald Trump wants to end the war, and has decided to marginalize Europe or old Europe, this term Old Europe attracted attention when it was used by then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield in 2003 to refer to democratic European countries before the fall of Communism in Europe, after which a significant number of new members have eventually joined NATO, the European Union and sided with President George W. Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq in March 2003. A geostrategic appetite was attempted by Ukraine pro-Western leaders to follow, a strategic play to weaken Russia.
Political and military disagreement did cause severe tensions between Washington on one hand, and Paris and Berlin on the other, the two E.U. pillars. In 2025, President Donald Trump created friction in old Europe, and angered U.S. natural allies like France, Germany, and its European anglo saxon ally, the U.K. for welcoming warmly Russia. Thus the U.S., the Republican Administration’s aggressive foreign policy in Europe is setting a new paradigm, straightening Russia in Europe – this is a U.S. strategy to contain China furthermore according to President Donald Trump’s strategy.
An old protector and godfather who helped to create the E.U. in the late 40s, whereas the latter fully integrated to a North Atlantic military alliance NATO, enhanced by the former in the 50s made Europe to enjoy seven decades of security, stability, and prosperity. Until February, 2025 from Warsaw to Glasgow, Riyadh meeting between the U.S Secretary of State and his Russian counterpart over how to make an end to the War in Ukraine – this meeting was interpreted as the fall of the European integration bloc, becoming the sick man of Europe. Moscow on the other hand, positioned itself as a major player in the new world affairs, a geopolitical shift provoked by President Donald Trump’s bulldozer strategy as a result of its European allies who sees as weak business, political, and military partners to his new maximalist diplomatic paradigm: “business diplomacy” based on threat and blackmail.
In sum, President Donald Trump treats the strategy of war and peace like a fictional tragedy, where the narrative is assured to dominate the weak. So the divided Europe should have enough knowledge and cultural understanding toward civilizations, whether Slavic or Middle Eastern, to not try and mold them into its malaise.
