The US National Security Document and the Return of Geopolitics to Eurasia

The new National Security Strategy of the US enumerates the major problems and challenges facing the US and its institutions, as well as the policies Washington plans to adopt to carry out its foreign policy agenda. Though the major thrusts of the document are relatively close to what US statesmen have expressed over the past few years, it can be argued that the new strategy signals a significant development in the US approach to foreign relations: the return of geopolitics.

On December 18, 2017, the US government unveiled the country’s new National Security Strategy. The document states unequivocally that “after being dismissed as a phenomenon of an earlier century, the great power competition has returned.” This is a striking admission by the White House. Although in Europe, Russia, and elsewhere, the position of the new strategy document raised eyebrows, politicians in some parts of the Middle East as well as the South Caucasus (particularly Georgia) and Ukraine think it is well attuned to the geopolitical situation on the ground in the region.

The overall tone of the document indicates that Washington has begun to realize that the post-Cold War approach to Eurasia did nothing to ensure a lasting peace or a furthering of American state interests.

The Russian military resurgence in the former Soviet Union, the rise of China in the Asia-Pacific, and Iran’s successes in Syria have exacerbated the security situation across Eurasia. Geopolitical differences have reduced potential US-Russia cooperation on a number of issues (with the exception of counter-terrorism). The era of post-Cold War hopes for a lasting cooperation and peace in the post-Soviet space and elsewhere has officially ended. “[Future US strategy] is a strategy of principled realism that is guided by outcomes, not ideology,” the document reads.

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The US National Security Document and the Return of Geopolitics to Eurasia

Πηγή: besacenter.org