From Izvestia, Jan. 14, 2026, p. 3. Complete text:
“There is no defense against a crowbar except another crowbar.” [Russian President] Vladimir Putin used this common old expression at a recent plenary meeting of the Valdai [International Discussion] Club on Oct. 2, 2025, to describe the West’s ongoing attempts to maintain hegemony in today’s world. As everyone knows, an iron crowbar is typically used as a tool of destruction, not creation. And unlike, say, the aristocratic rapier or the more widely distributed halberd, the crowbar is a heavy and crude weapon. It clearly does not befit a gentleman to make use of a weighty metal rod with sharply pointed or flattened ends.
However, the crowbar has once again turned out to be the US’s all-purpose foreign policy tool at the beginning of 2026. [US President] Donald Trump seems to have been using this tool very creatively and even masterfully. And the confused international community has no choice but to retreat in disarray under the US leader’s pressure, looking around in search of another suitable crowbar.
This is what is happening to Venezuela, where, following the abduction of legitimately elected President Nicolás Maduro [see the first feature of this issue], the US leader entrusted control of that country to the US led by himself and also demanded that Caracas immediately cut off all ties with its traditional partners and establish an exclusive oil partnership with Washington.
This is happening to Greenland, which, according to Trump, will “in one way or another” inevitably become part of the US in the very near future, even if US military power has to be used and transatlantic unity conclusively destroyed to that end [see the second feature of this issue].
This is happening to Iran, which the White House is threatening with new missile strikes if the domestic political situation escalates and pressure against the street activity of the radical opposition intensifies [see the third feature of this issue]. Countries that continue to cooperate with the Islamic Republic are subject to immediate punishment in the form of new 25% tariffs on trade with the US.
The 47th US president is working his crowbar with enviable energy and genuine enthusiasm, breaking the melting ice of the old world order. Fragments of that ice are scattering all over the world, causing insecurity, concern, discontent and anxiety for everyone, except for a narrow group of fervent admirers willing to applaud any new surprise coming from Washington. By all indications, however, Donald Trump couldn’t care less about a possible backlash from either [his] allies or opponents.
No matter how many diplomatic protests come from Moscow, Beijing or the capitals of various Latin American countries, Nicolás Maduro will not be returned to Caracas, but will remain in the Brooklyn jail for a long time – possibly even forever. No matter how European NATO member countries try to scare the Americans with the prospect of the complete disintegration of the North Atlantic alliance, these threats will most likely have no effect on [Trump’s] annexation plans for Greenland. Whatever politicians and experts may say about the catastrophic consequences of Iran’s destabilization for the entire Middle East, US pressure on Tehran will continue.
Total license and impunity are intoxicating, creating a false sense of omnipotence. At the height of absolutism, European monarchs cited the “divine right of kings,” asserting that they derived authority directly from God. Accountable only to God, they were exempt from obeying earthly authorities. Donald Trump has gone even further, declaring that his freedom of action in international affairs is limited not even by some divine will, but only by the US president’s “own morality.”
Some might say that actions by the current US administration to destroy the old world order that has long outlived its usefulness are to a certain extent rational and even justified. At least, Trump cannot be accused of duplicity and hypocrisy, which are so characteristic of many other statesmen today. If it is indeed “a time to cast away stones” in global politics, then the 47th US president is coping with this task better than anyone else.
Nevertheless, any action in politics, as well as in life in general, produces a reaction. So the other crowbar that Vladimir Putin talked about will turn up sooner or later. A country that accounts for only a quarter of nominal global gross domestic product and 15% of global GDP in purchasing power parity cannot unilaterally set the rules of the game in the international system. This means that, confronted with the US crowbar, Moscow will work even more actively and consistently to strengthen its strategic partnership with Beijing. The Europeans will be forced to revisit the much withered but still alive idea of “strategic autonomy” from the US and step up efforts to create their own military capability. Iran’s leadership will continue to harshly suppress domestic protests and try to consolidate society in the face of a growing external threat.
The current manifestations of outright international thuggery – even on the part of the world’s only superpower – will eventually be brought to an end. Not even the world’s strongest country can emerge as the winner from a crowbar fencing duel with the rest of the world.
Still, it would be wrong to reduce global politics to a dispute about whose crowbar is heavier and more adroit. To reiterate, the crowbar is a weapon of destruction, not creation. It is far from the only tool at the international community’s disposal. It is not so much a crowbar as a stone mason’s trowel that is needed to build a new world order. This is why new forms of international cooperation – not necessarily aimed against the US, but designed to make up for the lack of the international system’s manageability caused by Donald Trump – are so important today.
These include multilateral formats, such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, new financial settlement mechanisms, alternative investment and financial institutions, coordinated parameters of international control over artificial intelligence, and many other things. Trump could at best clear a site for new construction, but he is clearly not capable of completing even the first construction cycle. And of course, [we] would like the final price of that clearing operation to be not too high.