Ranj N. Tofik, a PhD student at University of Warsaw

Introduction

While the Russia-Ukraine War has obviously not ended yet, and its outcome remains unpredictable and unclear so far, a set of hypotheses for its outcomes or final scenarios do exist. One such, presented in this article, asserts that the United States of America will be the major beneficiary of this war. A set of arguments are presented in support of that hypothesis, with both based around the course of the conflict, and the surrounding circumstances – from the time of inception through to now. Since current impressions and assumptions may change with any change in the war’s course, this article’s title deploys the term “most likely”, thereby indicating a (strong) possibility, rather than a certainty.

The USA is linked to this war on two levels. The first of these entails the provision of American aid and support to Ukraine, rendering the country an indirect party to a war that, this time, is not America’s war. The second level is embodied in the international system; as the effects and results of the conflict denote changes to that. This is as evident in the speeches of Vladimir Putin, who referred to a change in the unipolar world order; as it is in US statements accusing Russia of coercive efforts to the same end. Arguably, America is a direct party to the war at this level, to the extent that it can also be considered a US war. And, given that a victory for Russia, or else its failure in the war, will indeed bring radical change to the world order, such transformations will have either a positive or negative impact on America’s position in the world.

In light of the above, the focus of this article will be on the second level referred to, i.e. on the possibility of America’s position in the world order being strengthened on account of Russia’s war against Ukraine. This leaves the present article as an attempt at answering a more-detailed and insightful question wordable as follows: Why does America have more chances to be the biggest beneficiary and victor in this war? An answer can be founded in a set of arguments and events arising and occurring thanks to the war, with these revolving around: restoration of American leadership in Europe; a strong blow dealt to the Russo-European energy relationship; Russia’s far reaching involvement in a complex and exhausting conflict; de facto NATO expansion; and disturbing messages for China (regarding ongoing American hegemony, the superiority of American weapons, doubts about the capabilities of Russian weaponry; and the ability of the United States to impose and mobilize economic sanctions).

1.  Restoration of a major role for the USA in Europe

In the wake of World War II, the US had a decisive and indispensable role in Europe, through military intervention during the War itself, and then the Marshall Plan and creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. However, American leadership in Europe has been in gradual decline, and more so following the collapse of the Soviet Union and attendant reduction in the US military presence across the continent. The last decade brought even more serious doubt about American leadership in Europe, with this made manifest in ideas and projects demonstrating European strategic autonomy and referred to frequently by the Council of the EU and other Union institutions from 2013 onwards, notably with a French-Presidency focus on the creation of an EU Army. While proposals of this kind even hark back to a 1954 project to establish a unified military force between France, West Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, that was actually rejected by the French Parliament. Yet ideas and ambitions of this kind have more recently occupied large parts of the speeches made by leaders and institutions in the European Union.

The US Presidency of Donald Trump, with its specific policies towards Europe and views as regards NATO, reinforced doubts about American leadership in Europe, to the extent that they gained repeated embodiment in statements by key European leaders, not least former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said directly that: “Europe can no longer count on the United States to protect it” and “Europe must take its destiny in its own hands”. Of similar tone were utterances from France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, who opined that: “European nations should not allow other major powers, including allies, to put themselves in a situation to decide our diplomacy [and] security for us”, and “the partner with whom Europe built the new post World War order appears to be turning its back on this shared history”, and “Europe can no longer rely on the US for security.“

A key issue here would be that this European suspicion and distrust of America is not confined to the official or political level, but is reflected among the masses as well. A survey run before Russia’s war revealed 59% of Europeans believing that, within 10 years, China would replace the USA as the world’s leading power. Furthermore, where any developing US-China dispute was concerned, 60% of Europeans felt their given Member State should adopt a neutral stance, as compared with just 22% feeling the US should be supported. Even more pertinently, when dispute between America and Russia was cited, 59% of Europeans responded with a suggestion that neutrality was preferable, with a mere 23% preferring to be on America’s side.

This is all evidence of a change in the leadership position held by the US in Europe and in European views on how the US is placed, and on a scale sufficient to reveal the deteriorated relations pertaining between the USA and Europe just a short time ago. While the many reasons for the changes in question certainly extend beyond the policies of Donald Trump, the size and subject matter of the article do not permit further mention of these. What can be said is that Putin may have referred to the above in imagining that Russia’s war with Ukraine would be easy, given that America would not interfere effectively, and that it would be difficult for the US and Europe to unite in their efforts to help Ukraine face the Russian occupation.

In the event, it has become clear how the outbreak of the war saw America return to its leading role in Europe, with Europe and the West in general indeed united in opposing Russia, and in supporting Ukraine diplomatically, militarily, and in intelligence. The US is the country in the world that has provided most aid and support to Ukraine, and certain European countries backed Ukraine explicitly in line with the American influence. President Volodymyr Zelensky notes how “some countries in Europe want a balance between Russia and Ukraine. But owing to the US help they started supporting us”. The US imposed economic and diplomatic sanctions on Russia, and had a key role when the UN General Assembly voted against Russian aggression. Alongside Ukraine’s own resistance, Western aid led by America played and is playing a crucial role in Ukraine’s capacity to stand fast against Russia’s Armed Forces, most especially in the actual defeat of Russia in the context of the decisive Battle for Kyiv.

Russia’s war has been proving how America still plays a pivotal role in European security, and plays the largest and most effective part in protecting Europe from external threats. There is little doubt that Europeans remain unable to do this without America’s umbrella. This is then a renewal of American hegemony, not only in Europe, but probably also within the world order as a whole. A key, less-tangible aspect of this is probably restored confidence in American leadership in Europe, in the face of the many problems and doubts affecting that in more recent years. In essence, as this kind of restoration of American hegemony and leadership in Europe would not have been possible had the war not broken out, it is possible to treat the circumstance as one of Putin’s mistakes as he made his assessments; just as it may also be viewed as a strategic achievement of the USA.

2.  The beginning of the end of the Russo-European energy relationship

Europe’s dependence on Russian energy, especially gas, is Russia’s strongest card when it comes to hegemony over the continent. A serious threat to the interests and position of the United States and its European allies has been involved here, hence many years of US concern regarding Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. In 1981, Ronald Reagan was already seeking to limit the said dependence through his imposition of sanctions, and efforts to “sever” the gas pipelines of what was then the USSR. At the time, opponents of that stance were not merely Europe and Russia, but also even US energy companies, given their own major interests and investments in the power supply sphere in the Soviet Union.

Through the whole period from then up until the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine War, the US proved unable to persuade Europe to either dispense with or even reduce its dependence on Russian energy. Indeed, the reverse has been the case, with continuously increased energy dependence, especially in regard to natural gas, with the Nord Stream 2 project only supplying further proof. The dependence has been based largely on the ease and cheapness with which Russian energy can be transferred into Europe.

Yet the Russian aggression against Ukraine beginning February 2022 was at last sufficient to persuade the Europeans that it was time to think up and develop a serious plan to reduce, and then indeed terminate, their reliance on Russian energy. The Russian aggression brought an immediate suspension of operations regarding Nord Stream 2. The EU has decided to impose restrictions on about 90% of Russian oil exports to the EU by the end of 2022, and has also been seeking a two-thirds reduction in Russian gas imports within a year. Most importantly of all, the EU has announced the REPowerEU Project seeking a complete end to the use of Russian energy before 2030. To summarize once again, Putin has in some sense permitted the United States to rapidly achieve a goal that otherwise proved beyond it for decades.

What is more, the reduction and ending of Europe’s reliance on Russian energy, as regards gas in particular, does represent a major opportunity for US LNG as an alternative. According to International Energy Agency data, June 2022 marked the first time in history that the volume of US exports of natural gas to Europe exceeded those achieved by Russia via pipelines. If European dependence on Russian energy diminishes, and if the USA becomes one of Europe’s main suppliers of energy, then this will represent a great economic and geopolitical gain for America. Relations between the US and EU will be further strengthened in this way, and Europe could well be led into supporting the US more effectively as it goes on competing with China.

And that latter aspect will certainly be of crucial significance to the United States.

3.  Russia’s involvement in a grueling and complicated war.

At no time since the fall of the Soviet Union has Russia been satisfied with its role and status within a US-dominated world order. Consequently, since the beginning of the new century, and in the context of Putin’s emergence as Russia’s leader, the country has been industrious in seeking to again become a major pole of the aforesaid order. Furthermore, as the Russian Federation has indeed become stronger and more involved in international equations and politics, the state does have a role in the international system completely different from the one characteristic for the 1990s.

There are many indications and much evidence attesting to this changing Russian role in international politics, and to Russia’s desire to alter the world order. Just one example is provided by the military interventions – in Georgia in 2008, in Ukraine in 2014, in Syria in 2015 (hence far from Russian borders, and thus game-changing by the standards of the post-USSR era), and again in Ukraine in 2022.

It is obvious that Putin seeks a change in the global system from unipolar (American dominated) to multipolar; and indeed the leader has several times stated this quite openly. Attempts to change the world order as we know it constitute a clear and direct threat to the hegemony and position in the world characteristic for the US; to the extent that it would be in America’s interest for Russia to become entangled in a complicated, large-scale and protracted crisis. Putin’s declaration of war against Ukraine has likely plunged Russia into just such a crisis scenario.

Russia’s losses are anything but light from a military point of view, yet on top of that Western sanctions will cause great damage to Russia’s economy, in the long run in particular. If Europe indeed makes good on its plan to abandon Russian energy, that will generate a further major reduction in Russian hegemony over Europe, to say nothing of a degree of isolation from Western countries that does a huge amount to harm Russia’s political and diplomatic prospects. As the war continues, Russian focus will seem increasingly confined to Ukraine, i.e. to the immediate vicinity of the Federation itself, at the inevitable expense of neglect in all other regions of the world. As just one concrete example, a few months of war in Ukraine sufficed to initiate a gradual withdrawal of Russian Forces from Syria.

A state facing such a deep and multi-dimensional crisis is going to find it very difficult to become a new pole in the global system. Moreover, the reasonable assumption of Russia becoming weakened and exhausted by the war can only suggests future benefits for the United States as it devotes itself more determinedly to its rivalry with China.

4.  Strengthening and expanding NATO

For years, but most of all during the Trump Presidency, doubts grew regarding the activity, usefulness and effectiveness of NATO, as did the divisions characterizing the Organization itself. Advocacy in regard to an EU Army was very much a product of such doubts. A famous and controversial statement made by Trump – as leader of NATO’s largest and most important Member State – was ”NATO is obsolete”. How then might President Macron resist his 2019 declaration that “NATO is becoming brain-dead”^.

NATO anyway had other problems and divisions, such as the tension between Turkey (the Organization’s second-largest Member) and America and its other allies, given the latter’s support for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria (Rojava). Such NATO dilemmas were quite real, and may have further motivated Russia’s decision to go to war against Ukraine. Putin may have thought that divisions and internal problems would leave NATO unable to react quickly and strongly to an attack on Ukraine.

The problems referred to have roots in the disappearance of the main reason for NATO to be founded in the first place, i.e. a curbing of Soviet domination. That primary function disappeared, or was deemed to have done so, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, as long ago now as in late 1991. But with a Russian declaration of war on Ukraine, NATO’s main task is back, given that the war has been described as Russia’s attempt to return to the era of the Soviet Union (of which Ukraine was a key part), or indeed to the Tsar’s Empire (ditto). Both goals must see other countries occupied, and hence a direct threat to Europe.

Indeed, since the war broke out, NATO has very much united against Russia, through agreed aid to Ukraine, and through the imposition of diplomatic and economic sanctions on Russia. Trump’s successor as US President, Joe Biden, felt emboldened to say “NATO has never, never been more united than it is today”^. Indeed, Putin’s decision has not only reinvigorated and largely unified the Atlantic Alliance, but has also extended NATO membership, and even its borders with Russia. With Finland and Sweden joining NATO (the two are almost Member States already),

NATO’s border with Russia will increase in length by a further 1300 km (where it meets Finland), and the Baltic will become almost entirely a NATO sea. There is no doubt whatever that the two Scandinavian countries applied to join NATO on the grounds of the present war, even as a key and stated goal and justification for Putin to go to war was to keep NATO away from Russia’s borders.

Given the obvious reality that the US leads NATO, any strengthening and expansion of the latter is in the strategic and political interest of the former. Through NATO, the USA can besiege Russia more, and pressure it more. Furthermore, there is a prospect of a NATO of more Members being more ready to side with the USA in its rivalry with China. Thus does a strengthening and unifying of NATO help preserve the hegemony and position of the United States in the world system.

5.  Disturbing messages for China

While America has been assigning priority to the Russian threat and to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine for years now, it is China, not Russia, that is the foremost competitor for the USA at a global level. Both countries would wish to change the world order, but China is the member of the pair far better prepared to actually do that. As a RAND Corporation report noted, in assessing the nature of the threats posed: “Russia is not a peer or near-peer competitor, but rather a well-armed rogue state that seeks to subvert an international order it can never hope to dominate. In contrast, China is a peer competitor that wants to shape an international order that it can aspire to dominate… These attributes make China a less immediate threat but a much greater long-term challenge… Russia, nevertheless, is a more immediate and more proximate military threat than China”. This does not mean that Russian-imposed danger is not a serious one where the American position is concerned – given that subversion and chaos evoked in the world order do pose a major threat to America’s interests and position. But the ultimate truth is that Russia lacks the necessary economic capacity and speed of development in many areas, while China has those. Put simply, it is unrealistic for a country whose economy is not in the world Top Ten to become a pole in the international order vis-à-vis America.

In this regard, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and America’s reaction to it, had their own important and disturbing messages for China. During the months of the war so far, the US has been busy proving it can still unite under its leadership Western countries that include most of the powerful and major players (the UK, the EU, Japan…); and that it still has the capacity to impose, and encourage the imposition of, wide-ranging economic and diplomatic sanctions, in response to a threat experienced by the US. This raises the feasibility of such sanctions ( especially economic) being imposed on China too, in the event of an attack on Taiwan (the attack that some suspected might follow the Russian one on Ukraine). Sanctions of that kind would have a disastrous impact on China, given the way its strength and position depend so strongly on the economy and trade, as

opposed to on military might and the export of energy, as in the case of Russia. That said, imposition of economic sanctions on China would surely also have enormous negative effects on the world and on Western countries themselves.

Yet the Russia-Ukraine War to date has also demonstrated the superiority of American and Western weapons over those of Russia. Huge damage has already been inflicted on the Russian Armed Forces, even as America and the West have thus far held back from sending Ukraine their strategic weapons. The Western military aid that has materialized (considered limited and light compared to certain advanced weapons that America possesses in the form of aircraft, warships, and missiles at once long-range and accurate) has been enough to make the Russian Forces suffer greatly. Abundant evidence of that are offered by the loss and withdrawal of the Russian Army from the Battle for Kyiv and Kharkov, and the slow and costly progress that are the best it is able to achieve in the east.

This difference between Western and Russian weapons (denoting the superiority of the former) is a worry for China. If US weapons can do so much damage to Russian Forces, they can inflict even more on those of the Chinese. As is obvious, Russia’s Armed Forces are considered the world’s second most powerful, with those of China in third place. Furthermore, one way or another, the Chinese Army can be said to have relied heavily on Soviet or Russian weapons and military technology all the way through from 1950 to 2021. Then there is the fact that the forces of Russia have far greater combat experience.

All of this indicates that China may (need to) be more cautious and fearful in its attempts to change the world order and challenge the American position; or might at least seek to delay those attempts. Certainly, China will also be more anxious when it comes to military means being used to achieve its goals in Taiwan and elsewhere.

Conclusion

This article has sought to reveal how, in and through the Russia-Ukraine War, in terms of strategy and in the long run, it is the United States that may well be the major beneficiary, strengthening its position in a situation of ongoing maintenance of the unipolar system. Through the war, obstacles have been faced by both China and Russia – the two main rivals to the USA when it comes to changing the global system to a multipolar one. Russia is already exhausted by, and suffering heavy losses from, the war in Ukraine, even as that has meant a shift of main focus to its own borders. Likewise, on account of the war and the US reaction to it, China has realized that any changing of the world system can expose it to great dangers; as the United States still has a great capacity to maintain the global system, and its own position within it. The USA can impose, and act to ensure the wider imposition of, punishing economic and diplomatic sanctions. It can also cause great military damage to its opponents by proxy, as it extends military support to allies.

Indeed, the alliances retained by the United States remain the world’s strongest, and the US is readily able to operate as leader of the Western world.

These circumstances may make it necessary for China and Russia to suspend, perhaps even indefinitely, their efforts to change the global system and develop their competition with the United States for leadership within the world order.

As was pointed out from the very beginning, the above hypothesis and arguments are dependent on the months of the Russia-Ukraine War as experienced so far. As that war is ongoing, and we do not know when and how it will end, this article’s givens and hypothesis may change with the course of the war or its final outcome. Only when the war is over will it become clear whether what has been said here was wrong or right, or a mixture of the two.