There is no doubt that a man like Joe Biden with an unparalleled spirit of cooperation with Europe is undoubtedly the lucky in history to become the President of the United States. This historic opportunity should be seized to give the transatlantic partnership a more credible and solid foundation. However, Europeans should not get their hopes up: The new threat from Russia has given Europe another dramatic glimpse of how reliant it is on American security guarantees. Reducing this dependence will remain a daunting challenge for Europe in the coming years.
Because even as the US reaffirms its place in the Western alliance, Europe should not forget the hard lessons of the Donald Trump era and yearn for a greater degree of strategic autonomy. The war in Eastern Europe cannot hide the conflict between the United States and China for hegemony in the future world order and will remain the focus of U.S. foreign Fax List policy. For some time now, we have seen the erosion of international political rules and norms and the return of geopolitics and classic great power politics, whether in the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, the African continent or Eastern Europe. Putin's war on Ukraine may be the most serious attack yet on a free, rules-based world order. It is clear that we are in a phase of transition to a new global power structure.
We're still not sure what the future world order will look like, but if we take a closer look at the two votes by the UN General Assembly on the Russian invasion of Ukraine on March 2 and 24, we already have a clue. In both resolutions, the overwhelming majority of member states voted to condemn Russia (141 and 140). Only five countries voted against the verdict: Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, Russia and Syria. Thirty-five and 38 countries abstained in each vote, including many authoritarian states such as China, as well as India, the world's largest democracy.