Kosachev stressed that at the time Russia was the only country to realize that the "Cold War became a thing of the past" and tried to "get rid of the standoff logic."
"Obama’s desperate attempts to write off his failures on Russian President [Vladimir Putin] are more than just score-settling. The point is that Americanism has suffered a more serious defeat. Moreover, there are considerable shifts in global politics," Kosachev wrote.
Europe Divided
According to the lawmaker, the West continued to follow the old logic and then committed three "fatal mistakes" on that path.
"The first one is dividing international security, including privileges for the West and its allies, military and political support for loyal regimes, and the lack of support and assistance for the rest. The West decided not to rely on collective security mechanisms, but on NATO and its eastward expansion," the article read.
"They began imposing their anti-Russian phobias both on NATO and the European Union," he added.
At the same time, according to the author, traditional European leaders, including Germany, France and Italy, could not withstand that strategy. As a result, the EU has lost "sovereignty" and become a "prisoner of prejudices and false decisions."
"The sphere of security and cooperation was torn apart. Now, global powers cannot work together," Kosachev wrote.
The second mistake is interference with domestic affairs of other countries "under the banners of global and national security," he added.
Collapse of Legal Norms
The third mistake is denigration of the role of global institutions, first of all the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
As a result, the world has plunged into unprecedented instability and faces increased terrorist threats, migrant crises and threats to the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.
"This is not only Obama to blame. Its predecessors – George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – could not resist the temptation to promote American leadership and impose Washington’s will on the rest of the world while there were different ways to cooperate with its former adversaries," the article read.
The World Still Has a Chance
According to Kosachev, Washington and its allies has repeatedly made these "fatal mistakes," resulting in an increasing number of "dangerous global scenarios."
"But the world cannot be forever a prisoner of American mistakes. The American conception of Western leadership has ended up in a fiasco. In this context, Obama is not just a president who lost. He symbolizes the end of a two-and-a-half decade-long post-Cold War epoch," Kosachev wrote.
The lawmaker noted that "another era of confrontation is nearing its end, but it could have been not like that."
"We hope that [US President-elect Donald] Trump understands that the logic of winners and losers makes no sense. The world still has a chance to make collective decisions in the interests of all. Neither the US and Europe nor Russia should miss that chance," he concluded.
