Eurasia Review, 23 February 2023
Even as the world is grappling with the horrendous effects of the year-long Ukraine war, Russia and the United States seem determined to keep the ball rolling—apparently in an unrelenting cold war mode. Does this strategic scenario suggest the revival of what Richard Rosecrance once called the “Napoleonic imperium”? It is certainly a problematic conceptualization in a world system dictated by both security and the economy—that too in a multipolar mode. This has also risky security implications for a nuke-based world order. However, Rosecrance himself argued elsewhere that “the essential problem for countries seeking to enhance both security and the economy is that success in one may involve a trade-off that entails failure in the other.” This surely applies to Russia, China, the U.S., and the European Union, and the Ukraine war is a reminder to all key actors of the present international dispensation. Many, however, believe that the ‘Putin imperium’–with all its infirmities—does not have a long future given the inherent defects in Moscow’s power genetics. For the full text Read
