The reason why the Ukrainian war uses very little aviation, apart from drones, is that both sides have strong air defences. And the air defence in this case is mostly Russian, and much of it goes back to the technological achievements of the Soviet Union.
Missiles and rockets are a Russian speciality. After the end of the Cold War, the Russians kept much of global space travel going with their old Soviet systems, after the Americans failed with their space shuttles. After all, the Russians were the first to put a satellite in orbit around the Earth and the first man in space.
Rumours of the crumbling Soviet empire, with its rusting ships and ancient weapons, were broadcast around the world in the 1990s. We know that it was not quite true. Russia was still a nuclear power with strong human capital, although it faced challenges, with a weakened economy and structural changes.
There is talk that the unipolar era is over now, that Russia and China are challenging the US for world domination, that there is no longer a single superpower dominating the world.
The question is, has that ever been true? China was a great power already in the 1990s, maybe even earlier, and so was Russia, as I said. And the US was probably not as strong as we make it out to be, with weapons systems mostly aimed at militarily backward countries, but not at equally strong opponents.
And while Europe is allied with the United States, our continent is also a great power, which actually has its own agenda, not always aligned with Washington’s. We rarely mention this, because it’s a bit uncomfortable and difficult to talk about. But the Nordstream blow-up did not benefit Europe or Russia, but it did benefit the US, to take a relatively recent example.
Cooperation between Berlin and Moscow, for example, would benefit both sides, as German industry needs raw materials, while Russia might buy their industrial products to develop its vast geography. And further co-operation would probably create trade routes and contacts across the Eurasian continent. And this, of course, would not go down well with the other great powers.
So we have had at least four great powers since the Cold War days: the United States, Russia, China and Europe. And in recent years, we also have India, as well as strong regional players like Turkey, Iran, South Korea, Japan and Brazil.
Why we still propagate the myth of the unipolar order is a mystery, because it never existed. Perhaps it’s because US politicians think they missed their chance? They regret not acting harder back in the 1990s, forcing Russia and China into submission? The question is, did the US have the ability and the means?
