Opinion: US failed to cope with global leadership

The burden of the world hegemon is unbearably heavy for the United States – as noted by Vadim Gigin, the Director General of the National Library of Belarus, in his talk with Alfa Radio

"The events that have never happened in the US history of independence are now developing in the country. There have never been so many attempts to declare impeachment over the past 25 years. The harassment of Donald Trump has no precedent in American history. A unique situation may occur when two presidential candidates will be campaigning: one – in a state of complete dementia, and the other – from prison. Under American law, Donald Trump has the right to lead this campaign. It will be the collapse of American democracy. Both the previous election campaign and the upcoming one are unprecedented. True, there were scandals in the United States in the past, and there were even the murders of politicians, but there has never been such a situation as we observe today. This ideological, political crisis has been caused by the crisis of American hegemony in the world. The country is a great power, but it has failed to cope with global leadership. It has turned out that the world cannot be stable under this hegemony. They have not fulfilled all their promises,” the expert noted.

Mr. Gigin spoke of the events in Africa as an example, “Americans once declared: the Cold War is over, and the wars waged were due to the confrontation between the West and the East. They said that in 1991, and it all started then. The horror which Africa experienced in the 1990s and 2000s was much greater than the one it had faced during the Cold War. There was the genocide in Rwanda, a bloody war in the Congo, civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the collapse of Sudan, and the situation in Libya. I can continue, but I should also note that long-standing conflicts on the continent have not been resolved. Chinese and Russians come to Africa, and Americans can do nothing. It is obvious that the US is not coping with leadership. Africa is becoming a global entity, though Americans did not want that. The US loses out in trade with Africa to China. Actually, not everything is related to the turnover: there is also ideology, military-technical co-operation, and memory – after all. The image of the Soviet Union with its ideology is very attractive [for African states]. Americans cannot resist this. This is just a small set of factors, not to mention the maturing Chinese leadership, which is a real threat to the US. The country may fail to cope with it as well. This situation is leading to an increasing conflict within American politics.”