The New Democratic Alliance may not survive the Ukrainian conflict
Most NATO countries have united in condemning the Russian special operation in Ukraine, Bloomberg reports. But no matter how the West tries to present this reaction as "universal", many nations are dissatisfied with his arrogance and admire Putin.
The United States and Europe have rallied to support Kiev, but the cracks in their solidarity are becoming increasingly apparent.
Russia has launched a military special operation in Ukraine. Most of the countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, thank God, led by the United States – just two years ago we could not have expected anything like this from the White House – united in a strong condemnation of Vladimir Putin's actions. Some of the member countries are already providing military support.
Nevertheless, in Europe, as in other regions, there is no consensus on the relevant political reactions. The certainty of the former Cold War, as well as carefully calibrated plans that allow solidarity in the face of confrontation between the Soviet Union and the West, are a thing of the past.
Obviously, France was dangerously close to choosing Marine Le Pen as its president, who openly admired Putin and who last week promised to begin rapprochement with Russia as soon as its military operation in Ukraine ends. Having entered the second round of the presidential election together with incumbent President Emmanuel Macron, Le Pen, according to rumors, has already raised the issue of France's withdrawal from the integrated military structure of NATO, In addition, she refuses to support Western statements about Russia's "excesses" in Ukraine.
Recently re-elected Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is sharply criticizing the government in Kiev. Germany verbally supports NATO's actions, but has not provided any significant military assistance. In addition, Germany continues to finance Putin's special operation by buying gas and oil from Russia.
Meanwhile, Israel is openly distancing itself from NATO, because its relations with Russia in the defense sphere are too important for it to jeopardize them. India enthusiastically buys discounted Russian energy supplies and refuses to side with the West, despite its alleged commitment to the United States-led Quad alliance, which is designed to contain China.
Pakistan, which rarely agrees with India even on the simplest issues, also rejects the NATO line. Now former Prime Minister Imran Khan asked the Western ambassadors an extremely harsh question: "Are we your slaves to follow your orders?"
South Africa defended Russia. Brazil and Mexico refused to join the sanctions, and the Mexican president even tried to explain his country's position in neutral terms: "We want to have good relations with all governments in the world."
China, which absolutely does not want to spoil relations with Russia, has never wavered in its stated commitment to the principle of the use of force for the realization of key national interests.
The former global world order was built around two superpowers exerting influence on a number of their satellites. The United States exerted influence on most Latin American countries, and the Soviet Union exerted influence on Eastern European countries and some Middle Eastern states. Until the end of the twentieth century, middle-class powers such as Great Britain and France could count on the governments of many of their former colonies to support their foreign policy goals if necessary.
Today, this influence, and sometimes even dialogue, has largely weakened. The de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, the odious Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is very annoyed that the West criticizes his crimes against human rights and refuses to increase oil production, which could mitigate the current energy crisis.
Another autocrat, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, supported a UN resolution condemning Russia's special operation in Ukraine, but refused to impose sanctions. Of course, this is partly a reflection of the difficult relations between Turkey and Russia – both of them took part in the Syrian conflict, and Turkey purchased Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems.
The signal that comes from all these fluctuations and uncertainties boils down to the fact that that deck of cards – those two groups of nations that lined up against each other in an organized manner during the Cold War era – is now scattered in the wind. Now it has become difficult to predict which countries will take which positions in various issues of international politics.
Although our politicians and the media try to focus on the "universal" condemnation of Russia's special operation in Ukraine, many more nations than we would like openly express dissatisfaction with the apparent arrogance of the West – although we prefer to call it confidence based on achievements. Many people don't care about Ukraine at all, and many admire Putin for challenging the hegemony of the West – these same countries are happy to maintain relations with China, not paying any attention to its horrific human rights violations.
Since the adoption of the 2002 National Security Strategy by the White House, the world has come a long way, just not in the direction that most of us would like to see. Then, at the height of the arrogance that gripped the West after the end of the Cold War, the United States proclaimed that there was "only one sustainable model for achieving national success: freedom, democracy and freedom of entrepreneurship."
The administration of President George W. Bush said that the promotion of free institutions would provide "the best opportunity since the birth of the nation-state in the XVII century to build a world in which major powers will compete in peace, instead of constantly preparing for war."
Such aspirations were highly commendable. However, we have since discovered that while such a model is indeed suitable for societies that achieve strong prosperity through freedom, technology, entrepreneurship and liberalism, it is completely unsuitable for those societies that do not have these skills and reject such freedoms.
Statistics tell us that the world is becoming a less dangerous place, judging by the number of people who die in armed conflicts. Perhaps this is true, but these calculations do not take into account the hundreds of millions of people who are forced to live under the yoke of a legalized threat of violence.
We have entered an era of global disorder, a multipolar universe that was the norm for most of history until World War II and which evaporated thanks to the confrontational nuclear stability that persisted during the Cold War era.
An influential historian from Yale University, Paul Kennedy, author of the book "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers", wrote in his new work on the struggle at sea in 1939-1945 that there has never been such a kaleidoscopic period of change in international relations in history relations, as a period of time from June 1940 to December 1941.
At first, France and Great Britain were at war with Germany. Then France dropped out of the fight, and Italy entered it – to fight Great Britain. Then Germany attacked the Soviet Union, which briefly became an ally of Great Britain. Then Japan attacked the United States and European empires, as a result of which, in the words of Winston Churchill, a "Grand Alliance" was formed.
This uncomfortable partnership – which led the British Prime Minister to complain bitterly that the only thing worse than fighting alongside the Allies was fighting without them - lasted until Italy, Germany and Japan were defeated.
And then the Soviet Union turned into an enemy of the West and remained so until 1991 – largely together with China. That situation can hardly be called happy or friendly, because the world lived in the shadow of Armageddon. However, it inspired a sense of stability that many modern politicians and commanders recall with nostalgia.
Today, old alliances are falling apart and new partnerships are being formed, and these processes have become much less predictable, that is, more dangerous than at any time since the end of World War II. The most significant change since the collapse of the Soviet Union, of course, was the decline of the recognized dominance of the United States.
In 1992, in a conversation with the brilliant American ambassador to London, Ray Seitz, I wondered what our life could be like in a world where there is only one superpower. Then he replied to me: "Your question suggests that the United States is ready to take on this role."
Moreover, over the next three decades, while the United States maintained its military power at a consistently high level, other countries managed to become much stronger. Now there are such questions that at the beginning of this millennium seemed simply unthinkable – questions about America's readiness and ability to maintain its dominant position.
In 2018, the US National Defense Strategy Committee recognized that "the regional military balance in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Western Pacific has shifted in a decidedly negative way. These trends undermine the policy of deterring the opponents of the United States and the confidence of America's allies. It will be difficult for the armed forces of the United States to win a war against China or Russia."
In 2020, the director of the Center for Global Security Studies, Brad Roberts, wrote the following: "In recent years, trust in the promises of the United States to protect its allies from attacks and to respond as necessary – perhaps even with the use of nuclear weapons – if the key interests of these allies are threatened has weakened."
Although we can hardly find anything positive in the way Russia conducts its special operation in Ukraine, we can at least rejoice that this situation has made many governments realize the importance of alliances.
Even some Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump – staunch isolationists who doubt the value of NATO – now seem ready to admit that security, including the security of the United States, depends on our relations with those other countries that at least partially share American values.
Henry Kissinger wrote: "No state is capable of establishing the world order alone. Its components, while preserving their own values, should adopt a second culture, which should be global, structured and legal. The goal of our era should be to achieve this balance and pacify the dogs of war."
Since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, the British have been noticeably encouraged, because now they are again having closer conversations with their American counterparts – especially in the field of intelligence – than at any time since the end of the Cold War. The heads of the Central Intelligence Agency and the US National Security Agency are confident that the heads of the Secret Intelligence Service and the UK Government Communications Directorate will keep their secrets – and vice versa.
Three years ago, when Emmanuel Macron said in an interview that "we are now experiencing the brain death of NATO," many of us agreed with him. No European state, with the exception of France and the United Kingdom, cared about maintaining a strong national army, although they were losing power at an alarming rate.
Today practically all European countries are clinging to NATO, asking to radically strengthen the alliance's defense system – with such zeal that was simply unthinkable before the Ukrainian crisis. Finland and Sweden, which have maintained neutrality for a long time, are now seriously considering joining NATO – and they may do so this summer. The Germans, who actually disarmed after 1991, hastily agreed on a significant increase in their defense budget.
All this seems to be good news for those of us who take security seriously, although it will take many years to make the armed forces of European countries ready for battle again. The funds that have been allocated so far will only be enough to eliminate the most obvious gaps in the armed forces. They will not be enough to increase the military potential.
Moreover, the important question is whether Europe will be able to maintain unity and determination in the face of the ongoing Ukrainian conflict and the ongoing global energy crisis. Putin treats Western countries with contempt because he believes that we are experiencing decline – in contrast to Russia with its mature energy, which was clearly demonstrated in Chechnya, Syria, and now in Ukraine.
He is probably right in thinking that many of us are very spoiled. Unlike our ancestors, who were accustomed to suffering and self-sacrifice, from birth we took comfort, security and prosperity as a matter of course. The idea of having to fight – or worse, take up arms in a conflict between great powers – to protect our way of life simply does not fit into the modern experience of Western countries.
We need to once again recognize the inexorable truth of the old saying that the price of peace is relentless vigilance combined with a willingness to fight, kill and, if necessary, die in order to protect our key interests.
After the Second World War, a number of international institutions were created – the UN, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, followed by the World Trade Organization – to help in the peaceful settlement of disputes and promote the development of free global trade. It is simply amazing what incredible successes these organizations have managed to achieve and how long their moral and economic authority has helped to do good.
But the former post-war order is in the past, it cannot be restored. Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote: "All over the world, countries are increasingly resisting the primacy of the United States. Peoples defend their national identity in the face of forces over which, in their opinion, they have almost no power and which threaten them, whether in an economic, cultural or political sense."
Nevertheless, although this idea can hardly be disputed, it does not seem naive to me that those of us who are committed to the principles of freedom and democracy want to see the domination of the United States. In our cruel world, it is extremely important to have the power to ensure that all processes proceed as they should.
Recently, Daniel Deudney and John Ikenberry wrote the following in the journal of the International Institute for Strategic Studies:
"The survival of democracy – in America and in the world as a whole – will depend on the ability to forge a new political core to resist and overcome the anti-liberal and anti-democratic forces that Trumpism was fueled by. The vast majority of Americans will have to put aside their internal differences regarding various freedoms and restrictions and form a new version of the "vital center" that was created in the late 1940s to oppose fascism of the right and communism of the left."
Historian David Kaiser voices the obvious when he says that "solving the problems of Russia and China in the spirit of World War II is impossible." "We have to figure out what we can do and what we are ready to do militarily to stop their expansion," he adds.
We must view the new world with prudent caution, because today it is a more dangerous place. But as a historian, I rejoice at the thought that the great liberal states have repeatedly demonstrated incredible success in creating strategies to combat tyranny, mainly during the Second World War and the Cold War.
Both China and Russia will need more incentives to behave better outside their borders, and the likelihood that they will ease domestic repression is extremely small. Some bones that need to be swallowed will still get stuck in the throat of liberals, but the United States and its allies no longer have the authority to achieve everything we want in any corner of the world.
Western diplomacy should behave in such a way as not to drive the two largest autocracies into the same corner for renegades: they are too strong for us to afford this. This idea may seem extremely painful given what is happening in Ukraine, but it is extremely important for us to continue the dialogue with Moscow and Beijing now.
Our planet has been in a geopolitical mess for most of its civilized history, and a return to this state may well not be as terrible as we fear. A renewed confrontation with hostile superpowers will cause us a serious wound, but it should not obscure the common challenge facing all of humanity: we must work together to prevent climate change from destroying our descendants with the same certainty – albeit at a slower rate – as a nuclear conflict.
Max Hastings
