US primacy challenged in Eurasia

Eurasia is the problem now. Not Europe by itself, and not the Indo-Pacific by itself. The basic shift is that Washington no longer faces separate regional headaches — it faces a connected landmass where Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea increasingly help each other, while U.S. allies try to stitch together their own response. That does not mean the world has snapped into two clean camps. It means U.S. primacy is thinner, and the map is getting messier. (foreignaffairs.com) ### What changed in practice? The clearest change is strategic linkage. A recent Foreign Affairs argument framed Eurasia as a more unified theater because U.S. adversaries are coordinating “in unprecedented ways,” with the Ukraine war and Indo-Pacific competition no longer separable in planning terms. That is why Washington has spent the la(foreignaffairs.com)n the implications of Asia. (foreignaffairs.com) ### Why does Eurasia matter so much? Because Eurasia holds most of the world’s population, industrial capacity, energy routes, and several of its biggest military powers. If a hostile coalition could dominate that space, the United States would face pressure in both Europe and Asia at once. But the catch is that no single power can dominate(foreignaffairs.com)tterns matter more than raw size. (foreignaffairs.com) ### Are today’s blocs really like Cold War blocs? Not really. The Cold War had harder lines, stronger discipline, and more formal hierarchy. Today’s groupings are looser and more transactional. BRICS has grown fast — Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE joined in January 2024, and Indonesia joined in January 2025 — but BRICS is still not a mi(foreignaffairs.com) and representation. (mea.gov.in) ### So what are the Quad and AUKUS, then? They are also not NATO-style alliances. The Quad is a diplomatic partnership among the United States, Australia, India, and Japan focused on a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” with work on maritime security, technology, infrastructure, and resilience. AUKUS is narrower and harder-edged — especially around defense technology(mea.gov.in)sically, these are coalition tools, not full-spectrum bloc architecture. (state.gov) ### Where does Europe fit? Europe is powerful, but not unified enough to act like a single pole in the same way the United States or China can. It has money, technology, and military weight, but it still depends heavily on U.S. power for deterrence at the sharp end. That leaves Europe in an awkward middle position — too large to ignore, too fragmented to set the whole Eurasian balance by itself. (csis.org) ### Is Russia a pole or a spoiler? More spoiler than full pole. Russia still has nuclear parity with the United States and enormous capacity to disrupt Europe, energy markets, and regional security. But the Ukraine war exposed the limits of Russia’s conventional power and deepened Moscow’s dependence on partners, especially China, and on support from states willing to help it evade isolation. That is influence, but it is not primacy. (brookings.edu) ### What does “multipolar” really mean here? It does not mean every major player is equally strong. It means more states can veto outcomes, complicate coalitions, and force tradeoffs. Think less like two rival teams and more like a crowded auction — the U.S. still has the biggest wallet, but more bidders (brookings.edu)ss theaters. (foreignaffairs.com) ### Bottom line U.S. primacy in Eurasia is not over, but it is contested in a more connected and more fragmented system. Washington still has the strongest alliance network. But the era when one center could organize the whole supercontinent on its own looks gone. (foreignaffairs.com)