The radical re-direction of foreign policy by the Trump team has led to a revival of the idea that the world will once again be divided into great power spheres of influence.
But while the shift in US policy may indeed destroy the eight-decade-old international liberal order based on rules and norms, the idea that it will be replaced by US, Russian, and Chinese spheres of influence is profoundly unrealistic.
One reason for this is that the Trump administration is currently doing everything possible to destroy the sphere of influence it already has. The Munich Security Conference from February 12-14 did profound damage to European trust in the US. Comments there and elsewhere by senior administration figures have shown disdain for European political norms and ambivalence — at best — about NATO, while signaling the desire to normalize relations with Russia seemingly without a promise that Russia will leave Ukrainian sovereign territory.
If the US and Europe no longer share values, if the US is not a trustworthy security partner for Europe, and if it treats the European Union (EU) as an economic adversary, Europe has no reason to align with the US.
At the same time as it is risking its ties to Europe, America is alienating its Northern and Southern neighbors with tariffs, threats, and insults. There is no conceivable US sphere of influence that excludes Europe, Canada, and Mexico. Washington may perhaps be able to coerce them over some issues in the short term, but it lacks the capacity to compel any of them over the medium or long term — let alone all of them at once.
The idea of a Russian sphere of influence is even more unrealistic. The Kremlin has been desperate to maintain a sphere of influence since the collapse of the Soviet Union; it has been the most consistent element of Russian foreign policy since 1992.
The focus of these ambitions was always centered on the other states that emerged from the USSR’s collapse — Russia’s so-called near abroad. Over the last 33 years, Moscow has used many instruments to try to bind these states to it: the use of energy as both carrot and stick; the creation of Russian-dominated regional organizations like the Collective Security Treaty Organization; the development of not-so-soft Russian soft power; and interference, invasion, and occupation. But despite this enormous effort, the project has been an utter failure.
The Baltic states rapidly disappeared from Moscow’s orbit, becoming EU and NATO members in 2004 — though, of course, the Kremlin has always tried to retain what influence it could, and remains an acute threat to Baltic security.
Though they maintain close relations with Russia in some areas, the five Central Asian states are clearly not part of an exclusive Russian sphere of influence for several reasons, including historically complicated relations with the Kremlin and China’s significant involvement in the region.
Russia’s influence over the three states of the South Caucasus is uneven. Azerbaijan’s oil wealth and ties to Turkey have given it extensive freedom of action, and although Armenia has historically been dependent on Russia, its government has distanced itself in recent years (though not broken entirely). Finally, Russia is currently trying to control Georgia through its client government, but as huge ongoing anti-government protests show, this is complicated by significant popular opposition.
Then, there are the three states to Russia’s West. Since the stolen 2020 election, Belarus has unquestionably been a client state of Moscow — although, despite this, Putin was unable to compel Belarus to directly enter the all-out war against Ukraine in 2022.
Moldova has experienced decades of Russian interference, coercion, and the occupation of part of its territory, but Moscow’s attempt to manipulate the recent Moldovan election failed despite huge efforts, and Moldova is now perhaps closer to EU membership than it has ever been before.
Finally, of course, there’s Ukraine. Moscow has always seen Ukraine as the one absolutely necessary state for its sphere of influence. But Ukraine has had other ideas, something incomprehensible to the Kremlin’s imperialist mindset, as the February 2022 all-out invasion showed. It is very hard to envisage Ukrainians tolerating Russian domination after the last 11 years of monstrous aggression and occupation. Ironically, though, this desperate attempt to force Ukraine to join a Russian sphere of influence has made Moscow ever more dependent on China.
The US is still hugely powerful, and Russia remains an acute threat to its neighbors and wider Europe. However, the idea that the world is moving from an international liberal order to a 19th-century-style order of great power spheres of influence is misguided: Washington is alienating the sphere it had, and Moscow increasingly looks like part of Beijing’s.
The only real beneficiary of current US and Russian policies is likely to be China.
Dr. Ruth Deyermond joined the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London, after completing a PhD in Government and an MA in International Relations at the University of Essex. Before this, she worked in HM Treasury in areas including UK policy towards the international financial institutions and the development of the Private Finance Initiative.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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