How is the US repeating the fate of the Soviet Union?
By Abdool Naser Noorzad, Security and Geopolitical Researcher, especially for Sangar
In the 1980s, the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev was in the same condition as the US today. Gorbachev assumed leadership of the Soviet Union at a time when the country was in the midst of an unequal struggle in the arms race, ideological rivalry, and the Cold War. The bipolar world of that time created conditions in which the Soviet Union, regardless of its economic, military, and political capabilities, was forced to provide financial and even political support to the Warsaw Pact countries, which included Soviet satellites, third-world countries, and what is known today as the Global South.
This unintentional commitment, far from the objective realities of the time, broke the Soviet economy. Gradually, the difficult economic conditions, the technological lag in comparison with the West, and the heavy burden of the enormous expenses of the socialist world led to the collapse of the bipolar system and the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev tried to defuse the tense atmosphere of the Cold War by reconciling with the West, led by the United States, and also to slowly and peacefully remove the Soviet Union from its ideological commitments and focus on internal problems. For this reason, he undertook reform programs, which found their embodiment in the forms of "glasnost" and "perestroika", to restore the international and domestic position of the Soviet Union.
Coincidentally, the current situation in the United States, where Trump abandons the ideological commitments of the liberal Western world in favor of American leadership, requires attention to America's internal problems and proceeds from reconciliation and compromise with the country's traditional enemies and rivals.
At the same time, the program and slogan of Trump and his associates, "making America great again," are very similar to Gorbachev's reform measures "perestroika" and "glasnost" in the post-Soviet space. Trump is trying to distract America from its core global commitments and limit to solving the country's growing problems. The multipolar political atmosphere, the economic problems caused by inflation, and the obvious exorbitant government budget, as well as the acceptance of large financial costs arising from supporting US allies in East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and America - all this corresponds to Gorbachev's ideas and plans. As if "history is repeating itself."
At the time Gorbachev withdrew the Red Army from Afghanistan, he reduced the ideological commitments arising from the ideas of international socialism towards the country's ideological allies and, in a sense, said goodbye to the bipolar ideological system. It also sent a signal to the West and Soviet rivals that there was no interest in maintaining the Soviet-led Eastern camp.
Gradually, these reforms broke the back of the Soviet Union, sending the superpower into economic shock and forcing it into a period of political, economic, and military anarchy and disorder. The consequences of this misguided decision were the collapse of the Soviet Union, the independence of the Warsaw Pact countries, which under Moscow's leadership opposed "America and Western liberalism", a brief period of a hierarchical unipolar order led by the United States, and a willingness to surrender the material and spiritual values of the Soviet Union to America.
Now, in the same situation, Trump is pulling the United States out of security pacts or demanding a price from its traditional allies in exchange for its presence in them. He has no interest in preserving NATO and is sending a message to the Eastern Axis that follows from "NATO without the United States". International treaties and agreements such as the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, immediate cessation of all US financial aid to its allies, Trump's verbal attacks on the occupation of the Panama Canal, the purchase of Greenland, making Canada the 51st US state, changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, imposing high tariffs on US imports, clear greed for Ukraine's underground resources, mutual understanding with Russia and willingness to negotiate with Iran, indicate a radical and unexpected US retreat in the arena of world politics.
The development of this unprecedented policy lies with Trump and his circle of like-minded people, who, with a complex, critical, and completely transformational point of view, are trying to make America great again. That is, the American “glasnost” and “perestroika” will become the source of weakening the situation and position of the United States on the world stage.
The strategic turn, the sad consequences of this turn in the spirit of the Western alliance against the Eastern axis, the transition from traditional alliances and the move to transactional diplomacy - all this points to the similarities between the doomed fate of the USSR and today's United States. However, among these historical events, the fundamental problem is the lack of an alternative to accepting world leadership since the Eastern axis is unwilling to bear the financial costs associated with accepting world leadership.
In this sense, weakening America's security commitments allows countries to strengthen their military power, create nuclear weapons, and change regional alliances. The reduction of Soviet commitments and practical presence in the world led to the formation of a “hierarchical unipolar world,” while the reduction of American commitments under Trump, from non-appearance as a power to assuming responsibility, will lead to the emergence of a post-polar world.
In any case, there are many similarities between the actions, ways of thinking, and efforts to save the Soviet Union under Gorbachev and the United States under Trump. This transformation and the cumbersome efforts of America under Trump may not be able to ensure its existence in the long term and will lead to the fact that we will face the current transition period to a post-polar system sooner than expected.
