Who prevails, Russia or Ukraine, will largely determine the quality of life around the world in coming years. The outcome will either divide the world into two opposing camps or give the West an opportunity to rebuild a world order based on rules of peace. Continued strong support for Ukraine from the West is vital.
The verdict of history History tells us that who wins in major power struggles along with how they make peace shape postwar worlds and is now shaping ours. Consider the 100 years of peace after the Napoleonic Wars when the major powers, including vanquished France, came together in a pact to ensure a balance of power to keep peace. Or the opposite after the First World War, when the victors imposed a punitive peace treaty on Germany and organized a feeble League of Nations – which the U.S. didn’t even join – to keep peace that lasted less than 20 years.
Then came the opposite when the 1945 peace policies created vibrant democracies in both Germany and Japan and made possible world economic recovery through the Marshall Plan. History declares that peace and prosperity require both vigilance and sacrifice to enforce rules of peace and order. The recent U.S.-led global era, including the Cold War, ended colonialism and kept peace among the great powers for 77 years, creating unparalleled global prosperity.
Division or chaos? Now some nations are beginning to break away from UN postwar norms. This has been abetted by both decreasing confidence in U.S. leadership and China’s development of an opposing world system composed of autocratic countries largely in the Southern Hemisphere. Russian victory would certainly embolden China to expand its sphere of influence, further splitting the world. China and Russia will then tolerate nations using force to change borders, even possibly Taiwan’s. As Martin Wolf has starkly stated recently in the Financial Times of London, a Russian victory “casts the world into either division or chaos.”
Nevertheless, whether China can succeed in such a global endeavor depends on whether Xi Jinping can overcome looming internal problems of low growth, excessive debt, youth unemployment, water shortages and the despoiled environment. This is by no means assured.
View from the Southern Hemisphere Current evidence of Chinese success in dividing the world is the decision by important Southern Hemisphere countries to follow the Chinese line of remaining neutral on Ukraine. This may be a surprise to you, but India, Brazil and South Africa follow China in not condemning Russia for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Understanding why will give us a broader perspective on the current world situation.
Some countries are fed up with being treated as adolescents and told what to do by their rich betters. “Quit bullying us,” they say, even though many of their leaders have acted irresponsibly in governing their people after colonialism. Many developing countries appreciate the status, attention and economic assistance they get from China. They won’t criticize or go against China. Furthermore, many have lost confidence in U.S global leadership because of the self-serving U.S. wars in the Middle East and later the U.S. withdrawal from world leadership under President Trump. They also see a hypocritical U.S. It proclaims rules for world peace – and then violates the sovereignty of other nations by using the CIA to overthrow peaceful and democratic regimes such as Iran under Mossadegh, Allende in Chile and Lumumba in the Congo. Finally, Brazil, India and South Africa say that Ukraine is just a territorial dispute among the Great Powers, not their concern.
If Ukraine wins Alternatively, if Ukraine survives as a sovereign nation thanks to U.S. and Western military assistance, then Russia’s aim to destroy the current norm of “no change of borders by force” will fail. Russia will be humiliated, and China will become less certain that it can become a world hegemon and divide the world.
How this war ends will define both our own future and that of the world. The aggressive Russian and Chinese foreign policies today are designed to take advantage of perceived Western weakness based on their view of a dysfunctional U.S., besotted in comfort, entertainment and drugs.
Thanks to Americans and President Biden and Congress who have supported the valiant Ukrainian people, their brilliant leader Zelensky, and their courageous military. They protect us from a future nightmare with many Putins in a world of division or chaos. Our future is linked to Ukraine. which cannot survive without our continued support. Many years ago, our fight for independence was crucially supported by France. Now it is our turn. It is that simple.
Roy Wehrle of Springfield was a senior official in the U.S. State Department and is a professor emeritus at University of Illinois Springfield.
This article appears in Revitalizing Robin Roberts Stadium.
C’mon, man.
Had the United States met Russia half way in the 1990’s, none of this would have happened. Instead, our triumphal neocons bleated about “the end of history” and the US being the “indispensable nation” that had “won the Cold War.” And the US treated the new, capitalist Russia like a pariah. Worse, the US extended NATO to the borders of Russia, plainly violating promises made to Russia.
Russia drew a line in the sand; the US and its client state Ukraine crossed the line, and Russia invaded.
I’m rooting for Russia.