The second was economic supremacy, which remains, but which was severely weakened by the 2008 financial crash and the longstanding failure of the US model to deliver a sustained rise in real wages.
Demanding half of all the revenues – not simply profit – flowing from Ukraine’s minerals, oil, gas and infrastructure, worth a staggering £400bn, sounds like the behaviour of a bully defined by swagger and brawn.
Donald Trump’s attempt to seize Ukraine’s natural resources is another morbid symptom of the decline of US power.
This was shattered by the calamities of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, which associated the US military with atrocities, violent chaos and humiliating strategic defeat.
It has rightly been described as reducing Ukraine to the status of an economic colony of the US.
