No more a country committed only to the Western Hemisphere, and almost totally uninterested on Europe, but a global power fully committed to the preservation of the values of the western civilization both in Central Eastern Europe and in the Caucasus. This is the scenario that is likely to occur in the United States after the next presidential election if, as it seems to be more and more probable, candidates who advocate a more assertive role of the United States to the preservation of democracy, liberty and human rights in Europe will run for presidency. 

On Sunday, April 12, Hillary Clinton, a former State Secretary, First Lady and United States Senator from New York, made official her intention to take a shot to the presidency, running in the primaries of the Democratic Party. The race of Ms. Clinton, a centrist democrat who already once, although unsuccessfully, took part in democratic primaries in 2008, is not a news in itself, as voices about her candidacy go around since she left the helm of State Department in 2013.

 Ms. Clinton, the front-runner of the democratic primaries, and the probable winner of next presidential election according to the most important pools, is a representative of an internal stream within the Democratic Party which several times urged the President of the United States Barack Obama, a liberal democrat, to provide a more incisive and muscular foreign policy in Europe and the Middle East, from Iran to Syria, from ISIL to Ukraine.

 In particular, Ms. Clinton declared herself to be seriously worried about the warfare of Russia in Ukraine. She also publicly urged the Presidential Administration to recognize that the behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Central Eastern Europe violates not only the territorial integrity of traditional allied to the United States in the region, such as Ukraine and Georgia, but also endangers the national security of important NATO members, such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Rumania.

 During a public event in Los Angeles, Ms. Clinton stated that the decision of President Putin to occupy the multicultural Ukrainian region of Crimea under the pretext of protecting ethnic Russians, perhaps immediately after in Ukraine a popular move overthrew the autocratic President Viktor Yanukovych -a puppet of Moscow- was similar to the decision of Adolf Hitler to occupy Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland before World War Two.

 Moreover, during a private conversation with the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, Ms. Clinton complained about the weakness the Leaders of the European Union demonstrated toward Putin. During the event, Ms. Clinton expressed full disappointment because of the lack of strong reaction by the European leaders to the warfare of Putin in Central Eastern Europe, in particular after Russian political authorities argued the need of further military interventions to protect Russian minorities in NATO member states such as Latvia.

 Although as the State Secretary of the first Obama Administration she has been partially responsible for the lack of commitment of the United States to Europe wanted by President Obama -the Obama Administration shifted the focus of United States foreign policy from Europe and the Middle East to the Asia/Pacific and the Americas- Ms. Clinton, if elected the next President of the United States, is expected to provide discontinuity within the American foreign policy by relaunching an assertive role of Washington in Europe in order to defend the western civilization from threats such as Putin's Russia and ISIL.

 In addition to Ms. Clinton, the most prominent runner within the primaries of the Republican Party, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, clearly endorsed the need of a renewed assertive role of the United States in Central Eastern Europe.

 Jeb Bush, who had not confirmed yet his intention to run into the republican primaries, issued a speech at the prominent Chicago Council on Global Affairs in which he urged the Presidential Administration to give the Ukrainian Government more armed support in order to oppose the Russian military aggression and preserve its territorial integrity that Russia violated by occupying both Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

 As well as Jeb Bush, also Marco Rubio, a Senator of Florida who made official his run into the republican primaries on Monday, April 13, assumed a strong position toward the Russian military aggression to Ukraine and urged the United States to immediately put an end to the rapprochement with Putin. According to Senator Rubio, the 'restart' with Moscow realized by President Obama since the first months after his election in 2009 is based on the false conviction that Russia could become a faithful and trusty partner of the United States on global issues.

 In particular, Rubio called President Obama to openly recognize the behavior of Putin in Central Eastern Europe as a military invasion of Ukraine. He also invited the President of the United States to understand that it is the muscular confrontation, and not a 'soft' diplomacy, the only way to deal with tyrants as Putin is.

 The position of Senator Rubio, a relative young politician who courageously decided to take a shot to the Presidency by challenging the republican front-runner Jeb Bush, should be considered very attentively. According to the newest electoral pools, Senator Rubio is likely to defeat Jeb Bush in the republican primaries in Florida, the home state of both Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.

 Moreover, in case he will succeed to get the republican nomination, Senator Rubio will probably lead on Ms. Clinton in Florida in the Presidential Election, according to the recent Mason-Dixon Polling & Research survey.

 This survey definitively launched the electoral race of Senator Rubio against Jeb Bush as a probable remake of the one President Obama did in 2008 democratic primaries when, as a Senator of Illinois, succeeded to defeat Hillary Clinton, the front-runner supported by almost the whole democratic establishment.

 Liberal democrats and libertarians to support isolationism

In addition to Clinton, Bush and Rubio, other candidates, or potential ones, of both the democratic and the republican field openly support the need of a greater commitment of the United States in Central Eastern Europe. On the democratic side, Vice President Joe Biden, a liberal democrat from Delaware who is likely to take part in the democratic primary, has been the person to whom President Obama de facto delegated the management of the European policy of the United States.

 In fact, it has always been Vice President Biden, and never President Obama, who flew to Europe to shake hands with Ukrainian representatives and to reassure NATO allies of Central Eastern Europe when Russian warfare in Ukraine and the Caucasus broke out.

 On the republican side, Ted Cruz, a Senator from Texas who already made official his run into the republican primaries, slammed the approach of President Obama to the Ukrainian crisis saying the Presidential Administration should take a more assertive role to shore up the defensive capacity of Ukraine against the military aggression ordered by Putin.

 Moreover, Senator Cruz urged the Obama administration to provide defensive weapons to the Ukrainian Army and give the Ukrainians the opportunity to defend themselves from Russian military aggression in so doing.

 Although the majority of candidates to the presidential primaries agree on the need to put an end to the foreign policy provided by President Obama -who many, both republicans and democrats, consider to be responsible for the weakening of the image of the United States worldwide- several runners within the primaries advocate the need for Washington of an era of isolationism on global issues.

 Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley are potential candidates of the liberal wing within the Democratic Party who envision a lesser commitment of the United States to global issues.

 Ron Paul, a representative of the libertarian Tea Party, an internal faction within the Republican Party, said himself to be a supporter of an anti-interventionist position, whereas representatives of the United States of all parties openly criticized Putin for violating he international rule of law by invading Ukraine.

According to the most recent surveys, the candidates who advocate isolationism, all representatives of the most extreme fields of both the democratic and the republican parties, are unlikely to obtain the nomination of their parties to run for presidency.

In fact, the next presidential election will certainly oppose two candidates committed to getting support from moderate voters, after President Obama had provided a misbalanced policy in favor of the far-left electorate during the last 8 years of his Administration.

Matteo Cazzulani

Analyst of Trans Atlantic, Central Eastern Europe and energy issues