The 21st century has transformed Eurasia into the main “chessboard” where great powers vie for supremacy. Yet Eurasian nations—from Lisbon to Vladivostok, from Ankara to Astana—have failed to recognize a fundamental truth: their collective destiny demands strategic autonomy from Washington, unity against Moscow’s revisionism, and balanced cooperation with Beijing. This triangulation is not just desirable; it is vital.
Security Subcontracted, Sovereignty Ceded
For seven decades, Eurasian security has been outsourced to the United States. The eastward expansion of NATO, the “hub-and-spoke” alliance system in East Asia, and the proliferation of American military bases have created an illusion of stability. However, this arrangement carries a steep, often hidden, cost.
Washington’s strategic interests rarely align perfectly with those of Eurasia. America’s erratic “pivot to Asia,” the weaponization of trade policy, and the tendency to instrumentalize allies in its competition with China reveal a consistent pattern: “America First” is a bipartisan consensus, merely dressed in different rhetorical costumes. The Trump administration, with its transactional aggression, and the Biden administration, with its economic coercion through sanctions and industrial protectionism, both demonstrate that Eurasian nations remain vassals within a system designed in 1945.
The evidence is unmistakable. The arbitrary destruction of Nord Stream 2, the extraterritorial application of sanctions, the weaponization of the SWIFT system, and the capricious nature of CAATSA waivers prove that strategic autonomy from Washington is not a luxury—it is a precondition for sovereign decision-making. European industry withers under exorbitant prices for American LNG while Brussels remains compliant; meanwhile, Asian allies face semiconductor coercion while maintaining a diplomatic silence. The security umbrella has morphed into a mechanism of strategic inhibition, stifling the development of indigenous defense capabilities and subjecting Eurasian economies to the internal political cycles of Washington.
Eurasia must recognize an uncomfortable reality: the United States is a maritime power with Atlantic interests, not a native Eurasian power. The inevitable prioritization of China over European security and Washington’s willingness to sacrifice allied interests for transactional gains demand a fundamental recalibration.
The Russian Challenge: Imperialism Without Ideology
If American hegemony represents a “soft” constraint on Eurasian agency, Russian aggression represents a more immediate territorial threat. The 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine shattered the post-Cold War European security architecture and exposed the Kremlin’s willingness to use maximalist violence to reconstruct a sphere of influence.
Eurasian unity in confronting Russia is not merely a moral posture; it is a matter of strategic survival. Moscow’s strategy relies precisely on fragmentation—using energy blackmail, disinformation, corruption, and the cultivation of sympathetic political actors to prevent a coherent continental response. Hungary’s obstructionism, Germany’s initial hesitation, and the differing threat perceptions between frontline states and “buffer” nations have all been systematically exploited.
Yet, unity must not be confused with uniformity. Central Asian republics, the Caucasus, and Turkey maintain complex relationships with Moscow, rooted in economic interdependence, historical ties, and geographic reality. A sophisticated Eurasian approach requires a resolute defense of territorial integrity combined with a pragmatic engagement that prevents a total continental bifurcation. The objective is not the permanent isolation of Russia—a strategic impossibility given its resources and nuclear arsenal—but the establishment of enforceable limits on its behavior through collective Eurasian resolve.
This requires institutionalized solidarity: mutual defense commitments that extend beyond NATO’s Article 5, coordinated energy independence, joint counter-disinformation capabilities, and unified economic sanctions that cannot be undermined by individual national exceptions. Russia must understand that Eurasian borders are collectively non-negotiable.
The Chinese: Cooperation as a Counterweight
In this contested landscape, China emerges as an indispensable yet complicated partner. Beijing’s economic gravity—dominating global manufacturing and critical supply chains—makes engagement inevitable. However, the terms of this engagement must be carefully calibrated to serve bot Chinese and Eurasian interests.
Cooperation with Beijing offers strategic leverage against both Washington and Moscow. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments, its role as a massive export market, and its potential to provide alternative financial infrastructure create opportunities to reduce dependence on American-dominated systems. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, despite its limitations, represents an Eurasian-led forum that excludes Western dominance—a rare space for continental dialogue on continental terms.
Crucially, China shares Eurasian interests in multipolarity—in preventing unilateral American dominance and Russian territorial revanchism. This convergence creates space for coordination in reforming global governance, climate finance, and development assistance that bypasses Western conditionalities. Eurasia should engage China as a partner in institutional balancing.
Toward an Eurasian Concert: Institutional Innovation
The path forward requires political courage and architectural imagination. The European Union offers a model of pooled sovereignty that could expand eastward through the European Political Community, incorporating Turkey, the Western Balkans, Ukraine, and Moldova, while engaging Central Asia and the Caucasus as partners, not peripheries.
A Eurasian Concert should pursue four strategic objectives:
- Autonomous Defense Capabilities: Developing indigenous military-industrial capacity, joint procurement, and integrated command structures to reduce reliance on American arms and protection. Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) must be expanded and accelerated.
- Financial Sovereignty: Building on the EU’s INSTEX experiment, developing digital currency mechanisms, and creating payment systems insulated from the weaponization of the dollar. The internationalization of the Euro and eventual Eurasian currency arrangements should be actively pursued.
- Energy and Technological Independence: Accelerating the green transition while managing hydrocarbon dependencies, and investing strategically in semiconductors, quantum computing, and AI to prevent technological subordination to either Washington or Beijing.
- Normative Leadership: Promoting international law, multilateralism, and democratic governance as distinct from both American unilateralism and Chinese authoritarianism.
Conclusion: The Urgency of Agency
The alternative to strategic autonomy is “peripherialization”—becoming the playground for US-China competition, the buffer between Russian aggression and Western reluctance, the market for others’ technologies.
Eurasia possesses the population, the economy and the cultural heritage to be a pole in a multipolar world. What it lacks is the political will to act collectively. Building Eurasian strategic autonomy is not a betrayal of alliances or an appeasement of aggressors; it is the mature assumption of responsibility for a continent that has too long delegated its destiny to others.
The moment is ripe. America’s distraction with internal dysfunction, Russia’s overextension in Ukraine, and Beijing’s desire for stable partnerships create a strategic window. Eurasian leaders must seize it—through institutional innovation, mutual solidarity, and the courage to define interests distinct from those dictated by Washington, Moscow, or Beijing.
The 21st century will belong to those who shape it. Eurasia must choose whether to be the architect or the object of the international order. The time to choose is now.