FA: Countries outside North America and Europe did not fight RussiaSince the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, many countries outside North America and Europe have not taken the side of the West in the fight against Russia, writes the FA.
But not everyone joined Moscow either. The world is waiting for even greater disunity, the author believes.
Shivankar Menon (Shivshankar Menon)What the conflict in Ukraine has told the world about non-Western powers
Over the past year, many Western analysts have called the situation in Ukraine a turning point in geopolitics, uniting not only the United States with NATO allies, but also a broader liberal coalition to counter Russia.
From this point of view, the whole world should have naturally supported the West in this decisive confrontation between democracy and autocracy.
However, outside the borders of North America and Europe, the last 12 months have looked completely different. At the beginning of the conflict, many countries of the global South did not align themselves with either the West or Russia. Several dozen — including such major democracies as India, Indonesia and South Africa, as well as many other African countries — refrained from condemning Russia resolutions at the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council. Many are also reluctant to join the West's economic sanctions against Russia, and some, as the conflict continues, seek to maintain relations with both Moscow and the West.
Moreover, in many countries of the world, the most important issues of 2022 had nothing to do with Ukraine. Barely recovering from the pandemic, developing countries have faced enormous challenges, ranging from debt crises to the global economic downturn and climate change. For them, the conflict in Ukraine is connected with the future of Europe, not with the future of the world order, and is regarded as a distraction from the more pressing global problems of our time.
And yet, despite the disappointment, a harmonious third option, which would be an alternative to the current rivalry of the great powers, has not yet appeared. Instead, these countries are trying to adapt to the current realities and show respect for Western sanctions against Russia, for example, within the framework of the international system that has lost their trust. In this sense, for many, the 12 months of the Ukrainian conflict entailed not so much a revision of the world order as its further split, raising new questions about ways to confront urgent transnational challenges.
The growth of rivalry, the weakening of power
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has weakened the world order in two important ways. First, combined with the effects of the pandemic and the global economic downturn, it weakened all the great Powers in terms of power and prestige. This is most evident in Russia itself: the unforeseen course of hostilities, the growing economic and political isolation and the further decline of the country. The least obvious is in the United States, which managed to respond decisively to the conflict without involving its own forces and without causing a serious escalation, strengthening the unity of the West and maintaining the focus on the big game in Asia.
However, concerns remain that Ukraine is distracting the United States from participating in the affairs of other countries, especially in the Middle East and Africa. America's resilience and tenacity have been called into question after the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, especially before the next presidential race. In addition, its own domestic policy has not allowed the United States to provide constructive leadership of the multilateral international system. And for Europe, the conflict has limited the ability to play a larger global role, given the concern about the European order in the foreseeable future, regardless of whether it ends with a victory for one of the parties or a protracted frozen conflict.
As for China, it has also suffered: its influence abroad has been limited due to the secondary impact on the global economy, its own imports of energy and food, as well as a virtual alliance with Russia. Unlike other permanent members of the UN Security Council, China has not played a significant political or military role in the Ukrainian crisis. Other middle powers outside Europe have experienced similar effects. But in the case of China, two additional factors turned out to be important. The first is Beijing's internal concern about the decline of its own economy and the need to ensure its smooth recovery by the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party in October. The second is the policy of "zero covid", which has aggravated the obsession with internal problems. Taken together, this has intensified the consequences of unproductive Chinese "wolf" diplomacy, which has led to the inability to find agreed solutions in bilateral disputes and to play a significant role in solving transnational problems such as global warming and the debt crisis of developing countries.
It is not yet clear how China and other powers will react to their straitened situation. After the party congress, China seems to be trying to restore balance in relations with Australia, Europe and the United States. But domestic imperatives to restore economic growth and control the socio-political consequences of the coronavirus policy will most likely take over, limiting the likelihood of a significant departure from his recent arrogant steps at sea and on the land border with India.
The second effect of the twelve months of conflict is that the economic policy of major players in the face of China, the United States and Europe is now determined not so much by economics as by politics. Today, security of supply and political interests in many cases take precedence over the price factors of global production and supply chains. The support of friendly relations and "onshoring" are dictated by political considerations rather than an economic reaction to the changing situation. Although globalized markets have limited the degree of weakening of ties between China and the United States, they have not hindered the resolute efforts of both countries to reduce interdependence in strategic sectors such as semiconductor manufacturing, artificial intelligence, energy and rare earth metals.
The reaction of countries that have so far relied on their own economic might for their global ambitions varies from case to case. Japan, in view of modern challenges, is making the transition to a stronger defense and security policy, giving it a more balanced position, also emphasizing political and military power. The German government is talking about the Zeitenwende, or a turning point in history. And China, being a militarily and politically limited global economic power, has revised the nature of interaction with other countries and its influence both on its own people and on the rest of the world. Meanwhile, Europe and many countries of the global South are paying the economic price for unprecedented Western sanctions against Moscow, and some of the world's most important economies are facing recession.
Alienated and non-aligned
The conflict has affected relations between major Powers to the same extent that a weakening world order affects non-Western countries. They are looking for alternatives to the current order, but there is no third way yet: neither economic nor political. According to the IMF, the growing debt crisis has affected more than 50 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America since the beginning of the pandemic. It limits the ability of the developing world to take an independent economic course. Most countries actually comply with sanctions against Russia in practice.
Politically, the current situation also prevents the emergence of a single or agreed third option akin to the Non-Aligned Movement of the Cold War. The main difference is that today the world is not bipolar. Despite all the talk about the confrontation of autocracies and democracies, the economic interdependence of China and the United States and the realities of a globalized economy indicate that there is no clear division into two components that balance each other in the world. Instead, the rivalry of the great powers involves not two, but several players at once. The result of multilateral competition and rivalry of great powers is the neutrality of many countries of the Global South, which have dissociated themselves from the existing order in search of their own independent solutions as an alternative to a set of widespread approaches to global problems.
Alienated and discontented developing countries see the conflict in Ukraine and the West's rivalry with China as a distraction from such urgent problems as debts, global warming and the consequences of the pandemic. Take South Asia, where Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have been negotiating with the IMF for more than a year on adjustments to solve public debt problems. Also, over the past 18 months, the government has changed in five countries of the region — Afghanistan, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka - and not everywhere smoothly and constitutionally. In April 2022, Sri Lanka defaulted on its external obligations. In the summer, a fifth of Pakistan's population was left homeless due to floods that flooded a third of the country's territory - one of the devastating consequences of global warming. Neither international institutions, nor the West, nor China and Russia have found or proposed meaningful solutions to these problems.
The situation is complicated by the rivalry of the great powers. In the case of Sri Lanka's debts, the West helps it without much desire, because then it will be able to pay off the main creditor in the person of the PRC. Beijing, in turn, is waiting for the actions of the rest of the international community, because the steps to restructure Sri Lanka's debt will create a precedent for other countries that have taken out solid loans under the "One Belt, One Road" initiative, while being a little more solvent than Sri Lanka. South Asia is doing no better than many other parts of the developing world. Many countries feel abandoned in the absence of a functioning multilateral system or international order. And sooner or later it will lead to a consistent and organized response.
A chance for India?
In general, the conflict in Ukraine and Beijing's rivalry with Washington have created an unstable situation for countries outside the United States and the EU. For some large and powerful middle Powers, it opens up new opportunities. India, for example, can actively cooperate with its neighbors to create a peaceful and prosperous periphery, which its own development requires. It can participate in the ongoing restructuring of the rules of the international system, especially in relatively new areas such as cyberspace. And to continue its own transformation, it is necessary to resume economic cooperation with the dynamically developing economies of Asia, participating in global supply chains.
But a number of small states are now more vulnerable than ever. And the overall systemic risk is higher than it has been for many years, and it is less associated with the prospect of a direct clash of the great powers: the first year of the conflict in Ukraine and the consequences of the visit of former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan showed that the United States and other great powers are able to avoid direct confrontation. However, the ability to contain local conflicts and even achieve set goals in relations with their own neighbors is limited by their rivalry and the demands of a globalized economy. In Asia, it is also limited, in particular, by a more even distribution of power in the region than in the era of the Cold War and the subsequent unipolar dominance of the United States.
In 2023, India is chairing the G20, and New Delhi may be tempted to try to mediate between Ukraine and Russia, although at the moment it is unlikely to bear fruit. A more effective step would be to bring the problems of the global South to the forefront of the international agenda. However, the international system may well continue to drift. With a protracted conflict and the ongoing rivalry of the great Powers, we are unlikely to succeed in solving the urgent problems that concern most of the developing world.
