Jeffrey Sommers^a and Vasily Koltashov ^b

^a Institute of World Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA;

^b Department of Political Economy, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow, Russia

ABSTRACT

The ingredients for conflict in Ukraine and a New Cold War were stirred in with the preparation of the post-Soviet order. More Treaty of Versailles than Bretton Woods, Russia was treated as the loser of the Cold War rather than strategic partner by the United States. This outcome was pre-configured by the global long economic crisis that began in the 1970s, along with the related challenges to the United States’ short-lived hegemony. Attempts to resolve these crises were in part handled through a “spatial fix” to further incorporate the post-USSR’s natural materials into global trade circuits in order to depress their prices. This model met with temporary success in the 1990s, but did not result in long-term solutions for the global economy and US attempts to create a unipolar world. This process has been in part inspected through the frameworks of Nikolai Kondratiev and Robert Brenner and concludes with a developmental-state proposal for Russia and Ukraine.

KEYWORDS

Ukraine; Russia; United States; Kondratiev; economic crisis; developmental state

From: International Critical Thought 2016 6 (4)

Editor: Wang Yi