About Perils of Being a Proxy:
Well, the reason big powers do resets is because they can. 
What has happened in the US-Russia relations in the last three weeks is more than what happened in the last three decades of serious estrangement. The Lavrov-Rubio meeting in Riyadh indicated a major change in the whole context. An eye blink will restructure the entire geopolitical equation, just like light bends under the influence of gravity. These dynamics will inevitably bend in favor of the most powerful players.
When agency is supreme, curriculum vitae become insignificant. US, through President Donald Trump, will have a modern vision of America by actually looking at what is beyond the internal ideology in its global ambition. This was already clear during the campaigns and becomes clearer in the execution of policy. Patience would be at a strategic level within the Ukraine conflict for Putin, with actions both military and, most importantly, in a comprehensive way aimed at keeping Russia a global power even if it is among the more minor of the major ones. That patience is now yielding unexpected dividends.
US-Russia Reestablishment: Beyond Ukraine
New sprouts of budding US-Russian engagement spring into life in the larger setting of American readjustment toward China. While Ukraine is still under consideration, this agenda for adjustment is enormous and otherwise focused.
Three years of war have given an unfavorable military stalemate to America while being the goal of Moscow, which Washington right now accepts as a fact-no matter the situation of Ukraine or European interests.
Europe has not abandoned itself to the US but is discarding its old romance with the idea that Russia can forever be excluded from arrangements for European security. Russia already has the leverage with which to offer a good deal toward negotiating a settlement that served its strategic interests.
- Proxy Cost: Ukraine
- Policy decisions have consequences.
- Ukraine has presented itself as a proxy of the US and the European Union in their confrontation with Russia-an agenda that started in 2002 and deepened post-2014.
- The consequence of this is catastrophic:
Territorial loss
- A generation devastated
- An uncertain future dictated by foreign masters
- With decreased external support and as the war continues, Ukraine will face destruction and harsh penalties from peace.
- Historically, proxies have often ended up just being the expendable footnotes of a geopolitical war.
Europe in Strategic Crisis
- Outrage is not a policy.
- The reaction of Europe to the war is one of confusion and disaffection within.
France and Germany, the real centers of gravity on the continent, have been sidelined by NATO’s hawkish elements.
European NATO, which is so weak and economically hit within its own defenses, today serves more as a liability than a strategic advantage for the US.
The position of Europe is now totally untenable because of the mix of political economy crisis and territorial overstretch. Washington will not put its long-term interests at risk for a failing European policy.
This World Will Learn
The war in Ukraine proved to be the sharpest disillusionment contrary to illusions of any existing global power. Beliefs of the omnipotence of the United States were always flawed and that conflict with Russia would become permanent. Containing both Russia and China at the same time was never a viable possibility.
These changes hold a moment for reflection for India. Global politics, in its churn, opens up both risks and opportunities. As the realignments unfold, India will have to outgrow the old mindsets of external balancing and of military interoperability with other powers.
The search for proxies is eternal in global affairs. The lesson from the torments of Ukraine is clear: those who pay themselves forward as mere pawns often find themselves left behind as the game changes.
