Crisis in Eastern Europe may re-pivot America back to the Atlantic

IT was not very long ago that members of the US foreign policy establishment in Washington and pundits in the Mainstream Media (MSM) told us that America would soon be entering a new Cold War. Forget the old one with Russia. Cold War 2.0 would pit the United States against its new major global rivalry, China.

There is no need to provide informed readers with summaries of addresses by government officials and lawmakers, op-ed pieces, magazine articles, research papers, think tank seminars, that made it clear that the time has arrived to switch the focus of American strategy from the Greater Middle East and the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Which made a lot of sense since the geo-strategic and geo-economic centre of the international system was shifting to East Asia with its emerging economies and an evolving middle class that have opened new and promising markets to American businesses. And as it always happens when it comes to the US position in the world, its military power tends to follow its economic expansionism.