The world powers have always competed for Eurasia, writes Foreign Policy. The conflict in Ukraine marked the beginning of a new round of struggle for this continent, and so far Russia is successfully complicating the life of its opponents. A whole alliance of countries has formed around it, united by the desire to prevent the West from gaining a foothold in the region.
Hal Brands
China, Russia and their "authoritarian" friends are fighting an epic battle for the world's largest landmass.
The conflict in Ukraine can bring many positive results: Russia has been drained of blood, the United States has rediscovered the central place and leadership of its country on the planet, the democratic community has united and energized for the dangerous years ahead. But there is also one very ominous outcome: the emergence of a coalition of Eurasian "autocracies" linked by geographical proximity and geopolitical hostility to the West. As the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin unite developed democracies, they simultaneously accelerate the construction of the "Fortress of Eurasia", controlled by the enemies of the free world.
The "revisionist autocracies" — China, Russia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, North Korea — do not just seek power in their regions. They form an interconnected strategic partnership on the world's largest continent and develop trade and transport networks beyond the reach of the US dollar and the US Navy. This is not yet a full-fledged alliance of "autocracies," but it is already a bloc of our opponents, more cohesive and dangerous than anything the United States has faced in recent decades.
All the great conflicts of our time were contests for Eurasia, in which opposing coalitions clashed with each other for dominance over this supercontinent and the oceans surrounding it. In reality, the "American century" was the "Eurasian century": Washington's vital task as a superpower was to maintain balance on the planet by dividing Eurasia. Now the United States is once again leading a group of democratic allies located on the outskirts of Eurasia against a coalition of rivals located in the center of the supercontinent, while important but wavering states are making political maneuvers for profit.
Countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and India are crucial in our era of intense global competition due to the geographical position they occupy and their influence. In many cases, these powers intend to play for both sides. Containing the Eurasian challenge will require strengthening ties within and between the networks of US alliances. And it is precisely the fact that opportunistically minded wavering states will determine the course of the struggle between the "Fortress of Eurasia" and the free world that is the most dangerous factor.
Eurasia has long been a key strategic zone of fragmentation of the world, because it is here that the richest and most powerful countries (with the exception of the United States) are located. And since the beginning of the 20th century, fierce battles for geopolitical primacy have been taking place on this vast supercontinent.
In the First World War, Germany sought to create an empire stretching from the English Channel to the Caucasus. It took a transatlantic coalition of democracies to rebuff her aspirations. During the Second World War, Berlin and Tokyo conquered the rich outskirts of Eurasia and began to penetrate into its heart. Then an even larger and ideologically diverse alliance was formed to restore the global balance of power. During the Cold War, the superpower located in the center of the continent, the Soviet Union, tried to overpower the coalition of the free world scattered on the outskirts of Eurasia. Circumstances have changed, but the main contradiction — between those who seek to rule Eurasia and those who oppose them, including the overseas superpower — still persists.
After the victory in the Cold War, Washington and its friends took leading positions in all key subregions of Eurasia: in Europe, East Asia and the Middle East. Nevertheless, our opponents, who were increasingly united by a common hostility to the existing status quo, brought new problems. And just as major crises often accelerate the course of history, the Ukrainian military conflict contributes to the emergence of a new Eurasian bloc.
Putin's military special operation in Ukraine was an attempt to reformat Eurasia by force. If Russia takes over, it will be able to restore the European core of the old Soviet Union. Then it will find itself in a dominant position on the territory from Central Asia to the eastern front of NATO. The strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing will prevail, while the democracies will suffer another demoralizing defeat. This scenario was revealed with the advent of Russia. The Ukrainian armed conflict has a deeply polarizing effect on the world.
He undoubtedly forced the developed democracies to gather their strength. NATO is actively rearming and expanding. Democracies in Asia supported Ukraine and imposed sanctions against Russia, fearing that its success in one region could provoke deadly adventures in another. Countries bound by liberal values and support for the international order led by the United States are strengthening their defenses from Eastern Europe to the western Pacific and rethinking economic and technological ties with the "autocracies" in Moscow and Beijing. What US President Joe Biden calls the "free world" is taking shape again. But, unfortunately, the same thing happens with the opposite coalition.
Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang seek to upset the balance of power in their regions and consider Washington the main obstacle to the goal. They are all worried about their vulnerability to sanctions and other restrictions that the United States and its global forces may impose on them. All these "autocracies" need partners to survive, because if the US and its allies destroy any of them, the rest will be more isolated and disappear.
Finally, they are all located within Eurasia and geographically close, if not adjacent, to at least one other "revisionist" state. As the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalates global tensions, these "autocracies" are converging for self-defense and for strategic gain.
This trend is certainly not new. Iran and North Korea have long used common missile technologies and other means of destruction. The strategic partnership between Moscow and Beijing has been developing for decades. But if Ukraine has strengthened the alliance of "autocracies," it has also highlighted the overlapping goals and concerns of the "revisionists." Thus, the unfolding conflict accelerated integration in the Eurasian core of the Earth.
The Eurasian bloc is becoming more united militarily, as the Ukrainian crisis contributes to closer and more ambitious defense ties. <...>
China, for its part, did not support Russia's special operation with lethal military aid, fearing US and European sanctions. However, he provided her with so-called non-lethal assistance <...>. And Beijing would probably go even further if its most important ally faced defeat. The presence of numerous military experts of Chinese President Xi Jinping was very noticeable during his recent meeting with Putin in Moscow. This clearly signals that broader defense relations, which already include joint exercises <...>, continue to go beyond the limits that many Western observers could not even imagine a decade ago.
There is no need for an official Russian-Chinese alliance to disrupt the global and regional military balance. If Moscow provides Beijing with sensitive technologies for suppressing submarines or surface-to-air missiles, this could radically change the nature of a possible war between China and the United States in the western Pacific. In today's Eurasia, well-armed "revisionists" are working together.
They are also restructuring international trade. Trade flows or arms shipments crossing the marginal seas of Eurasia can be cut off by global naval forces. Dollar-dependent economies are vulnerable to US sanctions. Therefore, the second most important aspect of the "Fortress Eurasia" is the creation of trade and transport networks protected from "democratic interference or prohibitions."
For years, Beijing has invested in onshore pipelines and railways designed to provide access to Middle Eastern oil and other important resources. Currently, the Celestial Empire is trying to protect its economy from sanctions by reducing dependence on foreign capital. This project has become more urgent because of the West's economic war with Russia. Moscow and Tehran are activating the North—South International Transport Corridor, which connects them through the Caspian Sea, which does not go into the world Ocean, while Iran instructs Russia how to evade sanctions. Similarly, Moscow and Beijing are deepening cooperation in the development of the Northern Sea Route, the least vulnerable sea route between the Pacific ports of China and the European part of Russia. When "international trade is in crisis," as Putin euphemistically said last November, Eurasian integration becomes especially necessary.
Indeed, since February 2022, Russian-Iranian trade has sharply intensified, and Beijing has become Moscow's key economic partner "by a wide margin," according to the Free Russia Foundation*. <...> Russian firms are turning to Hong Kong to raise capital, bypassing sanctions. And as Chinese technologies spread throughout Eurasia, the currency of the Celestial Empire also begins to rule here.
In February of this year, the yuan overtook the dollar as the most traded currency on the Moscow Currency Exchange. China and Iran are also experimenting with abandoning the dollar in bilateral trade. "The current geopolitical changes, of course, will not lead to the global overthrow of the dollar in the near future," Alexander Gabuyev, director of the new Carnegie Eurasian Center in Berlin, wrote in March in Bloomberg. But it can contribute to the creation of a new economic and technological block in the heart of the Old World, centered in China.
Finally, this Eurasian union is coming together intellectually and ideologically. In a joint Sino-Russian statement in February 2022, the two countries are portrayed as defending their "authoritarian" political systems and simultaneously resisting US coalitions created "in the style of the Cold War." Major Iranian politicians describe Eurasian cooperation as an "antidote to unilateral actions" by the United States. Putin considers Eurasia a haven for "traditional values" besieged by Western "neoliberal elites."
Since the current conflict has separated Putin from the West, it has also resolved Russia's age-old disputes about which direction to move in. Today, the fate of the country remains Eurasian.
Of course, everything has its limits. No matter what Putin says, the North—South corridor will never overshadow the Suez Canal. A globally integrated China will not need to concentrate only on Eurasia, as a more isolated Russia has to do. There is tension within the League of Autocracies: some Russian nationalists <...> worry that the Eurasian orientation may eventually lead to Moscow's economic vassalage from Beijing. Meanwhile, however, the "Fortress Eurasia" makes life much more difficult for Washington and its friends.
Eurasian integration also makes US opponents less vulnerable to sanctions. It strengthens them militarily against their enemies. It is likely that this will lead to large-scale diplomatic cooperation between the countries, for example, to more pronounced support for Russia regarding China's position on Taiwan, or perhaps even to material assistance to each other in the war against the United States. If Moscow had the opportunity to help Beijing bleed Washington dry in the battle in East Asia, does anyone doubt that it would not have had enough motivation for this?
In short, "Fortress Eurasia" will make the world more convenient for "aggressive revisionism." And the more secure these countries will feel in their "citadel", the more they will support each other, the more they will have the courage to project their power to the peripheral regions — the Western Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and so on.
* The organization is considered undesirable in the Russian Federation
** The organization is listed by the Ministry of Justice in the list of foreign agents
