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Hot and cold wars in a divided Europe played a crucial role in the 20th century in making the United States the most powerful state on the planet. The war in Ukraine is having a similar impact this century in promoting American primacy. Any league table of winners and losers in the conflict so far will inevitably be headed by the US.
Put to one side for a moment the humanitarian and democratic motives for American intervention in the war, not out of any sense of cheap cynicism but to understand how the war is convulsing the world’s political landscape.
The US would have been a great power in the 20th century regardless because of the size and sophistication of its economy, but it was the Second World War and the Cold War that followed which gave it world hegemony contested only by the Communist powers. Its dominance was greatly enhanced by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, though it subsequently eroded as its economic primacy ebbed and it failed to win small wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Giant mistakes
Today Europe is again at war and the US is inevitably benefiting. On 24 February 2022, President Vladimir Putin repeated the giant mistakes of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1914 and Hitler in 1941 by starting a war he was unlikely to win. Russia will be the main loser but so too will Europe as a whole,…
