Ukraine and World Order: Today’s Scramble for Eurasia

Abstract

After fourteen weeks of war, it is too early to determine the full impact of Russia’s February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine upon the existing world order. Nonetheless, there are emerging indicators of significant shifts in Eurasia, which must be recontextualized, given how they remain forgotten or ignored after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1990–1991. The shortlived era of corporate-led, neoliberal globalization—which dawned in 1992 as “the end of history” triggered in the ruptures of 1989—now seems eclipsed by another epoch ripped open by the Kremlin’s assault on Kyiv. Given the past ten to fifteen years, this time increasingly seems defined by a “clash of civilizations,” swirling around shards and specters of the Soviet Union in many new epicenters of ethnonational alliances.