When Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin sit down at the remote Elmendorf-Richardson airbase in Alaska, they will do so as key players in an international order transformed from the eve of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
It is testimony to the shift in global geopolitics that the two presidents will be staging their initial talks in search of a peace in Ukraine in the absence of Volodymyr Zelensky – the head of the nation whose fate may be thrashed out in the chill air of Anchorage as a new era of superpower dominance dawns.
In diplomatic circles, the view is increasingly being taken that a schismatic world is reverting to a time when it resembles a cake being carved up by the superpowers with the leaders of America, China and Russia sat at the table with their knives and forks poised.
One Western envoy told The i Paper: “ -war international system is being eroded and we are watching it being replaced, or at least severely challenged, by something which is crudely based on the ability to flex muscle. That is conventional military muscle, nuclear muscle, economic muscle and technological muscle”
It is a view which is not yet universally accepted, with so-called “middle powers” such as the UK and European Union holding to the “liberal international order” of universal rights and legal red lines which has until now constrained the ambitions of the world’s wealthiest or most aggressive states.
Nonetheless, the question remains of whether events in Alaska this week represent a new global reality and, crucially, which of a triumvirate of potentates – Trump, Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, and their respective nations – is winning a race for global domination.
Traditional Russian wooden nesting dolls depicting Trump and Putin for sale in St Petersburg ahead of the Alaska summit (Photo: Olga Maltseva/AFP)It is a contest which is being conducted not just head-to-head but also on a global scale across continents from the Korean peninsula to the Sahel region of West Africa as Washington, Beijing and Moscow seek to recruit countries into their spheres of influence.
America
When it comes to an ability to exert military, cultural and economic might, the US remains in an unparalleled position to bestride the world stage.
Its economy accounts for more than a quarter of global GDP and America spends more than $900bn (£660bn) a year on defence – almost double that of China, according to some estimates.
When combined with the primacy of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, the dominance of Silicon Valley firms in AI and a plethora of sources of “soft power” ranging from Hollywood to McDonald’s and Levi’s, America undoubtedly has more clout than any other nation.
And yet, there is a consensus among observers that Trump and his Republican administration are abandoning or stepping back from the post-war system of international institutions which it helped to cement its dominance – from Nato to the World Health Organisation – and in many ways setting down its burden of seven decades of global leadership.
As Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the US and Americas programme at the Chatham House think-tank, puts it: “The US has begun to substitute nationalism for globalism, replace multilateralism with unilateralism, and abandon essential components of its soft power.”
Indeed, in the 21st century “great game” unfolding between the US, China and Russia, Washington is in the difficult position of having influence – and primacy – to lose while Beijing remorselessly closes the economic, military and technological gap on its chief competitor and adversary.
From the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 to the drastic winnowing of foreign aid under Trump, there is a sense that Washington is retreating at pace from the “Pax Americana” of the last seven decades.
In this regard, Trump’s apparent desire to wrong-foot allies as much as adversaries with trade tariffs, verbal broadsides and territorial claims on Greenland and the Panama Canal has left countries that would ordinarily consider themselves to be firmly within Washington’s orbit to recalibrate.
A demonstrator dressed as the Statue of Liberty sits in front of the Los Angeles City Hall on the American independence day last month (Photo: Apu Gomes/Getty Images)Professor Vinjamuri suggests the American President’s chaotic first months in office has led to “a new consensus that the US may be a necessary ally but not a reliable one”.
At the same time, even a US leader as mercurial as Trump cannot expect to act entirely within a vacuum of “America First” protectionism. The prelude to the Alaska summit has been defined by efforts by Britain, Ukraine and other European powers to persuade Trump of the need to act in concert rather than freelance on the global stage.
Neil Melvin, director of international security at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, points out that enough of the post-war structure of guard-rails for wielding international influence such as the United Nations or the World Trade Organisation remain to require the superpowers to seek endorsement for their deeds.
Dr Melvin said: “Great powers continue to need wider support to legitimise their actions and cannot act completely unfettered, as we have seen in the diplomatic battle to build international support around the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.”
Russia
While America and China may have unquestionable status as the world’s two most powerful states, the ability of Russia’s authoritarian regime to be seen as a global player lies in a more complex set of circumstances.
On the face of it, Moscow should have little claim to be able to pow-wow with Washington or Beijing on its own terms. The Russian economy ranks 11th in the world and when it comes to income per capita it is 53rd, below Croatia, Portugal and Poland.
According to experts, the reason why Russia is listened to is because of its success with two key exports – fossil fuels and warfare.
Putin inspects the crew of a new strategic nuclear-powered submarine. Moscow has put its military might at the centre of its strategy to reshape the global order (Photo: Alexander Kazakov/AFP)Despite predictions that sanctions imposed in the wake of the Ukraine invasion would hobble the Russian economy, its plethora of natural resources helped Russia to last year grow faster than all the G7 countries. Oil exports have remained stable in terms of volume due to diverting supplies once destined for Europe to customers such as China, India and Brazil.
But it is in its niche market of aggression and disruption – tied to a narrative about Western decline and the needs for a reassertion of “traditional” values – that Moscow truly excels.
Alongside its expansionist invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has made its presence felt in the Middle East and Africa with its support for the erstwhile Assad regime in Syria and the use of proxy forces such as the Wagner Group mercenaries – now renamed the Africa Corps – in propping up client regimes in the Sahel region and seeking control of strategic resources like uranium.
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It is a testimony to the Kremlin’s persistence with its strategy to identify places to maximise its influence and achieve long-term regional toeholds that even after the Assad regime was toppled late in 2024, Moscow’s two military bases in Syria currently remain intact.
All the while, Moscow is able to rely on its status as the keeper of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal – some 5,500 warheads, including 1,900 smaller “tactical” atomic weapons – as a potent tool of geopolitical leverage.
The result is that while it is economically and culturally overshadowed by an entity like the European Union, Russia has found itself able to profit handsomely from a world in which might is, if not right, then at least an increasingly dominant currency.
Dr Melvin said: “Today the exercise of military power around key national interests has become the way in which the stature of states is gauged. Economic giants, notably the EU, that may increase individual wealth but are unable to exercise power, face being marginalised.
“Russia has focused its limited economic and human resources around a small range of goals defined by its authoritarian leadership and has been willing to use force to achieve those goals.”
Putin and Xi at a G20 summit. Beijing and Moscow have pledged a ‘friendship without limits’ as they seek to reduce global American and Western influence (Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Getty Images)There is a strain of thought that in effect a naive West has been duped into believing that a post-Soviet Russia could be shaped into a global citizen in its own image when, in reality, Moscow’s ruling elite has never surrendered the vision of their country being a dominant regional power with global standing in its own right.
Philip Bednarczyk, a transatlantic security expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think-tank, said: “Where American and Western leader after leader may try to re-engage with today’s Kremlin in hope of a reset, this is no longer a goal for Russia, if it ever truly was. In short, Russia is to this day able to sabre-rattle its way to the negotiating table.”
It is a grim realpolitik in which Moscow reaps a reward for its penchant for violence and a brand of hybrid warfare which ranges from influence and sabotage operations to increasingly bold cyber attacks. The Norwegian government this week said Russian hackers had succeeded in taking control of a dam, opening a floodgate for four hours before the incursion was detected.
By dint of bloodshed and persistent interference, it is argued, Putin and his regime have elbowed their way to position of global power. As Dr Melvin puts it: “The Chinese and US leaderships understand that Russia is less capable economically and militarily than them. But they also recognise that Moscow is ready to exert its power to shape a new world order and that it, therefore, needs to be a part of the conversation.”
China
While Russia may epitomise military muscle, China exemplifies an altogether more comprehensive – and perhaps subtle – approach to its ambition to remould the world in its image, or at least bend it away from what it sees as an international order wrongly stacked in favour of America and its allies.
Four years ago, Xi stated that the US represented the “biggest threat” to China’s security and development. In order to counteract Washington, it has embarked on what amounts to a decades-long project to supplant American and Western influence and patronage with its own.
Container ships loading and unloading in Qingdao City, eastern China. Since 2001, China’s GDP has risen from £1trn to £13trn (Photo: CFOTO/Getty Images)In the abstract language preferred by the Chinese elite, Xi has expressed a desire that by 2050 China will have “become a leading state in comprehensive national strength and international influence”.
Experts argue that these goals are being achieved by transforming China not only into an economic behemoth by dint of a vast workforce supplying goods globally but also by challenging Washington’s military and technological lead over the rest of the world.
Chinese scientists now produce more research papers than anywhere else and have the highest proportion of the most cited papers in the world. Last year, Beijing overhauled the US to have the world’s biggest navy – some 234 warships compared to Washington’s 219. In fields from AI to pharmaceuticals, Chinese companies are widely perceived as rapidly narrowing the gap with their American competitors.
A Chinese guided-missile frigate docked in Hong Kong to mark the 28th anniversary of the territory’s handover from Britain to China (Photo: AFP)Elsewhere, China has supplanted the West in many parts of the developing world by providing loans for infrastructures as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which has so far seen £800bn sunk into investments in 139 countries from Indonesia to Kazakhstan.
It is a project which many believe will result in Beijing crossing the line into the use of military force to retake Taiwan.
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When the Atlantic Council, a transatlantic think-tank, earlier this year interviewed more than 350 leading strategists on how the world will look in 2035, some 65 per cent of those interviewed thought China will invade its breakaway neighbour; while 45 per cent believe a conflict will break out between Russia and Nato within the same time frame.
The same study found that a majority believe Russia and China will have formed a formal alliance along with North Korea and Iran by 2035, effectively dividing the world into two blocs, aligned with either Washington or Beijing.
The Western diplomat said: “We’re not there yet but it is a plausible and unpleasant blueprint for the future. America is losing influence, Russia is agitating for it and China knows it has an opportunity to run the show.”
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