The US was the number one military superpower on the planet when it lost in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. He has been defeated whenever he has wanted to turn his informal empire into a formal one: occupy a country. However, it has conquered us all as an informal empire: globalizing us with its technology, companies and way of life.
But not only the US loses if it invades: the historian Adam Tooze has shown that since 1914 no power has succeeded in occupying any country, even if it were very superior militarily. The paradox is that being a superpower would serve to win wars, but you only remain a superpower if you don't start them.
Therefore, we expect another defeat of the Russian invaders when they face those who defend their country; but also for this reason, because there are provinces in Ukraine that are considered Russian, Putin will save face from his failure to the extent that he manages to pass it off to the Russians as a victory and the Russians will be defeated to the extent that they accept him.
For this reason, President Biden is already the second loser in Ukraine, as Hirsh explains in Foreign Affairs, because his gesticulation as a defender of democracy in the world after his flight from Afghanistan has not helped him to come back in the polls at home –the inflation crushes him – and a Democratic debacle is expected in the midterms of November.
In the rest of the planet, the majority deplores the Russian invasion only because it has violated borders and everyone has their own to defend; but they consider that American democracy cannot teach them lessons. Indonesia, for example, has just invited Putin to the next G-20 summit in Jakarta.
Biden loses; but the US as a superpower can benefit from the new world disorder to the extent that it capitalizes on the resurrection of NATO, and that Germany – the third loser – has lost the economic leadership of the reunification of Europe. Perhaps what Volkswagen and Mercedes were in Eastern Europe will end up being Tesla.
We Europeans and the EU, which was born to serve peace, are obviously the fourth losers. And you already know why and you are already noticing it in your pocket.
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