The Syria crisis is not Kerry’s “Munich moment” but quite the opposite. It signals the end of US global dominance. This the United States’ “Suez Moment”, the moment when an once-undisputed global superpower could no longer reign supreme and the power passed elsewhere. The power passed to the US from Britain during the Suez Crisis. But the US has shot its wad in countless, pointless wars, and hasn’t the stomach or the money for more war. The power is passing to multiple other hands like China, India, a resurgent Russia, the global South, and the EU. The US will still be a major player. It will no longer be the shot-caller.
Vladimir Putin is a brute. But he commands a nation that has all the power and might it needs to stand up to the United States and the rest of the West.
Just a few months ago, it was the Russians who wagged their fingers at European governments for confiscating bank accounts in Cyprus, comparing such tactics to the Soviet Union.
It’s also been the Russians who have stood up to the West and given sanctuary to Edward Snowden.
All of this would have been unthinkable ten years ago. And this may very well be the event that future historians look back on as the day America lost its global dominance.