Prominent American historian Stephen Cohen believes that Ukraine is the epicenter of a global geopolitical transformation, and that the world as it existed before the crisis will never be the same again.
Speaking on the John Batchelor radio program, Dr. Cohen observed that while “we talk each week about the micro and macro events emanating from the Ukraine crisis, we’re living through a geopolitical transition, and to what we do not know.” In any case, “the world will not again be the way looked 5-6 years ago, at least in Europe. These are historic times, and the epicenter is Ukraine.”
Noting that the “essential confrontation” in the conflict “is between the United States and Russia,” Cohen believes that Europe and China too are reconfiguring and reorienting themselves around events in Ukraine.
Fears of Ukrainian Military Conflict Reigniting
Russia Does Not Seek to Rebuild the USSR, or a Traditional Sphere of Influence
Moreover, disputing theories that Russia seeks to build a new, Soviet-style sphere of influence, Cohen argues that what Russia wants is something he calls a zone of security, not a sphere of influence: “[The] sphere of influence in military terms, which is an 18th and 19th century concept, is completely, utterly obsolete; missiles can fly 3 minutes across an entire sphere of influence; there’s no defense against them in that sense; that’s why Russia is adamantly protesting the US and NATO building missile defense right on Russia’s border. It wants these areas on its border free of military threat.”