Gerard Araud has claimed that Kiev’s backers have been unable to accept the shift in the global balance of power
The Ukraine conflict has highlighted a gradual shift in the global balance of power and has signaled the end of Western supremacy, former French Ambassador to the US Gerard Araud has claimed.
“We are experiencing the end of an era,” Araud wrote in the French magazine Le Point on Sunday, adding that the collapse of the order inherited from the end of WWII means the West no longer dominates international affairs.
He argued that the Ukraine conflict has shown that Western leaders are unable to accept this change, describing it as revealing “to the point of caricature the incomprehension and rejection of the world to come by European leaders.”
Araud, who also served as Director General for Political and Security Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and France’s permanent representative to the United Nations, suggested that one of the main reasons behind the shift is that the US, under President Donald Trump, no longer wishes to serve as the world’s “policeman,” leader, and “protector.”
Trump has scaled down Washington’s involvement in Ukraine, urged European NATO members to take greater responsibility for their own defense, and prioritized domestic issues.
While lamenting the decline of Western power, Araud admitted that global affairs have always been defined by “power relations” in which “the strong imposed their law on the weak.”
Moscow has also repeatedly insisted that Western hegemony has ended and that a multipolar world is emerging, with interests increasingly represented by BRICS and the Global South. Russian officials have argued that the Ukraine conflict confirms this transition.
In May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a high-level security forum in Moscow that the “tectonic shift” in world politics reflects the redistribution of power toward Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America.
He also dismissed Western claims that multipolarity would lead to “chaos and anarchy,” stating instead that unipolar dominance, characterized by sanctions, interventions, and economic coercion, had triggered the major crises of recent decades.
Russia has consistently described the Ukraine conflict as a proxy war waged by the West and maintained that any settlement must address Moscow’s security concerns and the root causes of the crisis, including NATO’s continued eastward expansion.
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