To answer, it is essential to place Russia’s motives in historical context. Since the conflict is essentially between Russia and NATO, the West must be willing to negotiate. Otherwise the struggle will be protracted, with no end in sight.

The failure of the U.S. president’s Mideast visit in July can be attributed largely to insensitivity over the legitimate concerns of GCC countries. It’s yet another example of America’s long-standing pattern of pushing for its own agenda at the expense of others’ dignity.

South Korea has become a dynamic economic force in the 21st century - and as a neighbor of China that hosts multiple U.S. army bases, has grown increasingly important as a potential player in the Quad’s designs for a security encirclement of China.

NATO’s global hegemony has gone unchallenged since the fall of the USSR decades ago. Now, with China’s rise to global prominence and arguably the second most powerful nation in the world, can NATO avoid another Cold War-style showdown on the global stage?

China stands at a crossroads and will be key in determining whether two camps will take shape. President Xi Jinping’s global development and security initiatives inject confidence into a world industrial scheme that has lost momentum and an international order that has lost stability.

When President Lyndon B. Johnson sent two battalions of U.S. Marines ashore the beaches at Danang in Vietnam on March 8, 1965, he probably had never imagined that America’s subsequent gradual military escalation would reach the height of over half a million troops, suffering more than 58,000 casualties, and eventually resulting in a totally disgraceful withdrawal after 8 years of brutal but futile fighting to shore up the Saigon regime

A significant step in the Biden administration’s effort to realign NATO is the attempt to link the Atlantic and Pacific strategies. The U.S. is doing this in part by amplifying the so-called China threat in the Asia-Pacific and exporting the NATO concept of alliances against big powers.

What has evolved is a sort of pseudo-multilateralism in Europe and Asia. After the Cold War, ASEAN developed into a mature community. But with the increasing hype of regional tensions came the idea that Asia can only be safe when relying on a NATO-like military grouping featuring live ammunition.

The systemic challenge for the U.S. is not China but the worst inflation in 40 years. In fact, fragmentation does not seem to be happening in the real world. Even an Asia-Pacific version of NATO will not likely divide the region, as China will continue to be a major trade partner.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, he envisaged a quick seizure of Kyiv and a change of government analogous to Soviet interventions in Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968. But it wasn’t to be. The war is still raging, and no one knows when or how it will end.