AWhile on the territory of Ukraine the armies clash violently, behind the scenes the powers challenge each other in a strategy of one-upmanship and containment that is reminiscent of the fatal “Star Wars” in Soviet Union in the 1980s. As the American consulting and research institution RAND Corporation detailed in 2019, this strategy consists of “ cause Russia to compete in areas or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, which would cause it to overextend militarily or economically, or cause the regime to lose its prestige and influence ».
During the Star Wars or Strategic Defense Initiative episode, the United States and its allies were investing heavily in missile defense to push the Soviets into economic overheating. On Ukrainian soil, they arm fighters who serve their cause by proxy. Star Wars had ended in perestroika. Can they eventually achieve the same goal across Ukraine?
Even if it has no strategic or economic interest in forcing an end to the conflict, the United States keeps China in its sights. In the time of the USSR, two blocks challenged each other before the non-aligned. Today the West faces a block with vague contours which increasingly attracts hesitant disbelievers, eager to limit the consequences of the sanctions. But if yesterday the United States had only one rival, today they have two, whereas they have always maintained that they might only deal with one at a time. In the long term, the priority is very likely to pivot from the empire of the steppes to that of the Middle, in time not to let Beijing settle on the Alaskan border.
Mineral and cereal wealth
Faced with the Western bloc, the Eurasian bloc is structured in the refusal of sanctions around the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (OCS), which bring together partners of circumstances , almost half of the world’s population and a quarter of its wealth. Russia believes time is working in its favor if it shows resilience by circumventing sanctions and exporting its mineral and grain wealth. It also seeks to sell its weapons and nuclear technology through its national companies. Rosoboronexport is present at the IDEX 2023 exhibition, in the United Arab Emirates, with the slogan “weapons tested on the battlefield”and Rosatom, one of the world’s leading reactor suppliers, is active in Saudi Arabia and Morocco.
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