Amid the rapid economic, military and political waning of an Islamic-governing superpower the Ottoman Empire, that dominated supremely vast areas of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa for more than 600 years, emerged one of the most challenging and complex conflicts.
The mid-19th century Crimean War, which unequivocally produced a Pyrrhic victory toward the winners, played host to national ambition and feeling, psychological fear and fierce political rivalry.
Czarist Russia, and the brains behind the conflict while laden with dubious geopolitical designs, had to churn incessantly Ecclesiastical-type foreign policy, synonymous with that of 11th century Crusades.
Hence, the rejuvenation of the centuries-old paternalistic custody over Christians of the East, as well as the Church of Nativity at Bethlehem, and its sacred relics. Before the war in January 1853, the Czar Nicholas, whose country had fought against the Ottomans nearly once every twenty years for almost two centuries, had a famous conversation.
First with the British statesman John Russell, he described politically demoralized Ottoman Empire "a sick man-a very sick man," whose empire was disintegrating before them.
Thus Russia, an intractable power since the Middle Ages, single-handedly confronted Britain and France, as well as the army of Sardinia and Piedmont in the Crimean War.
Despite the Ottomans, who hardly had any military alliance with the West joining the internecine conflict, the Czardom nevertheless thought it was of utmost importance to decide obstinately on the "sick man's" territories before the inevitable and fateful event.
Today, the theater of this very dreary conflict the Crimean peninsula, with a population of 1,015,826 according to 2021 estimates and annexed by Russia in 2014, is once again witnessing on Ukrainian soil, a cataclysm so surreal in the 21 century unfolding.
Now a year after Vladimir Putin, the Russian president simultaeously acknowledged the independence of Donbas, a Russian-speaking separatist region of Ukraine and declared war on the entire country, the stalemate from the conflict in addition to devastating global economic, political and social effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, have placed the Kremlin's geopolitical standing above regionalism.
Speaking on nuclear security in The Hague in 2014, former U.S. president Barack Obama, described post-Soviet Russia as no more than a "regional power" whose actions in Ukraine appeared to be a weakness rather than strength. Obama was playing down his rival in the 2012 presidential election Mitt Romney, who had suggested that Russia was the United States main geopolitical foe. However, this talk down was augmented by another opponent in the 2008 contest Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who proclaimed on CNN's "State of the Union" that Russia was a gas station masquerading as a country.
Contrary to well-espoused punditry on Moscow's emasculated political power and military bluffs by both Obama and McCain even today, has seen Romney's geopolitical assumption on the East Slavic country becoming hegemonical reality.
Indeed, the sheer planning and timing of the Russian Federation's full-scale military attack on pro- West Ukraine, is symbolic of the decline of America's political influence and power, a phrase that for decades had become a scholarly cliche.
Among the seismic affairs in Washington, of which the Kremlin on a furtive two- pronged mission, is gambling upon, are a host of complicated liberal and utopian ideas, all adrift from the country's well-construed historical injustices.
Alongside these emotionally contested left-wing baggage such as the Critical Race Theory (CRT), the Pulitzer Prizewinning 1619 Project and wokeism in both the classroom and workplace, are an imbroglio of right-wing conspiratorial theories in the 2020 presidential election, that eventually led to the January 6, Capitol riots.
There is varying strategic assessment and optimism from the mainstream point of view, about a complete geopolitical debacle of Moscow in neighboring Ukraine, given an array of challenges chief among them unprecedented resilience from Ukrainians.
Despite all the analyses against Russia, and indeed, owing to the West's massive financial and military assistance to Kyiv, as well as the resolve of militarily- neutral Sweden and Finland, which shares a long border with Russia applying for NATO membership, there is more to Putin's grand scheme, than Washington's punitive geoeconomic and geostrategic response.
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