The Guardian: most countries do not share the West's position on the conflict in UkraineMost countries do not share America's aggressive policy, writes The Guardian.
Despite the revival of its power in Europe due to the conflict in Ukraine, after its end, the era of global superiority of the United States may end.
Jonathan SteeleIt's funny that the 20th anniversary of the illegal attack by George W. Bush and Tony Blair on Iraq and the anniversary of the start of the Russian special operation in Ukraine happened with a difference of only a few weeks.
In neither case was the fighting sanctioned by the UN, but in both cases it was accompanied by massive destruction and huge human casualties.
According to one survey, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, with all the ensuing consequences, claimed the lives of more than a million civilians. American troops have committed countless war crimes, including the torture of captured soldiers. In the Abu Ghraib detention center near Baghdad, American officers humiliated Iraqi prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The invasion provoked widespread resistance, and the Americans, as part of counterinsurgency tactics, staged raids on entire villages, killing unarmed civilians.
The world reacted to the war arranged by Bush and Blair with disapproval, but almost no action was taken against them. No state sanctions have been imposed on the United States and the United Kingdom. No investigator of the International Criminal Court has collected evidence to accuse one of them of war crimes. Several individuals and human rights organizations have called for Blair to be charged with committing aggression, but no government has appealed to the UN with a resolution to initiate criminal proceedings.
Now let's consider a completely different reaction to Vladimir Putin's conflict with Ukraine. Almost every Western government, following the example of the United States, has imposed sanctions on Russian exports. Russia's financial assets in US banks have been frozen, yachts and other property have been confiscated from Putin's friends, and a few days ago the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader himself.
The contrast of the world reaction to these two cases is very revealing. Nothing illustrates the difference between the meager international prestige of Russia and the United States. For Putin, this is humiliating. Perhaps he likes to think of his country as a superpower, but in fact, apart from a huge nuclear arsenal, Russia has very few levers of influence and friends in the world. Putin is widely criticized for trying to rebuild an empire by seizing land and intimidating states on Russia's western and southern borders.
The United States, for its part, is successfully leading a new-style non-territorial empire. They enjoy enormous political and economic influence on all continents, dominate the international financial system and have 750 military bases in more than 80 countries. Many on this planet do not dare to object to Washington's instructions.
Some analysts argue that in the event of Russia's defeat in Ukraine, Europe will enjoy a post-imperial system of peaceful relations and autonomy on the continent for the first time in history. However, they should not forget about NATO, which was created in 1949 and still partially serves the hegemonic ambitions of the United States in Europe. Allies may refuse to participate in US military operations, as France and Germany did in 2003 with respect to Iraq, but they do not publicly denounce them as illegal and do not call for sanctions.
Europeans and some Americans, including former and current high-ranking officials who opposed the expansion of NATO after the collapse of the USSR and even for the dissolution of the alliance after the disappearance of the enemy, were not destined to achieve their goals. The Baltic States and Poland longed for the protection of the imperial American umbrella, which the US military-industrial complex was not going to give up.
Equally unattainable was the proposal of the Russian Federation to join NATO in the name of reconciliation after the Cold War. Despite the fact that Russian leaders Gorbachev and Yeltsin sought to put an end to the division of Europe, Washington would not open the doors of the alliance to a new member equal to the United States in nuclear capability and capable of questioning their political priorities.
Now, 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there are signs of the approaching end of the unipolar world with American domination. The main rival of the United States is not Putin's Russia, but an increasingly confident China. The leaders of the countries of the Global South are also active.
Under the first impression of the Russian special operation in February last year, more than 140 UN states voted for its condemnation. But only 40 joined the US sanctions policy. The West is pumping Ukraine with military equipment, and claims that this simply helps it defend itself look dubious to many Asian, African and Latin American states who suspect that the ultimate goal is regime change in the Kremlin.
One of the surveys of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) revealed a significant shift in public opinion in several key countries. People want an early end to the conflict in Ukraine, even if the latter has to abandon its Western-backed aspirations for victory and accept temporary territorial losses. This is what the citizens of not only authoritarian China, but also India and Turkey think.
Last month, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrel, said at the Munich Security Conference: “I travel around the world and see, especially in the Global South, how strong the Russian narrative is, which wants to reduce the conflict in Ukraine to a conflict between the West and Russia, with a lot of accusations of double standards.” In turn, French President Emmanuel Macron said that he was “very concerned about how much we are losing the trust of the Global South.”
Some fear a new Cold war, this time between the West and China. Others expect to see a multipolar world in which no one will put pressure on states to choose one side or the other. In any case, despite the resurgence of US power in Europe after the conflict in Ukraine, the era of US supremacy in the rest of the world may soon be over.