Western Goals In Ukraine Fall Into Question
Dr. Patrick D. Huff
Executive Research Director ★ Scientist & Organizational Developer ★ Author & Speaker ★ Influencer & LION
Original article by?Trita Parsi, MSNBC Opinion Columnist, April 11, 2022; Eds. review and commentary by Dr. Patrick D. Huff, Ed.D., Woodland Hills, CA.
Background. My research focus lies in the areas of global organizational behavior and economics along with other topics that from time to time emerge as dominant influencing factors on these themes. I discovered Ms. Trita Parsi's article while conducting some casual research this morning. I elected to take the time to repost her work as I found it to be a refreshing summary of the evidence and analysis in this case as she reflects on the unfolding nature and characterization of the Ukraine and Russian conflict.
In Parsi's article, she argues that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy?has been nothing short of brilliant in his?outreach to Western audiences. The overwhelming Western support for Ukraine is due not only to the brutality of Russia’s illegal invasion but also to the astuteness and charisma with which Zelenskyy has made Ukraine’s case for aid.
Huff argues, that perhaps another way to view the efforts of Zelenskyy's messaging campaign is to view it in terms of following the advice of outside interests in an attempt to win the psychological war and gain financial support from those that would gain from his country's effort to rally resistance and support against what could be characterized as a global power struggle for survival of the fittest. The outcome of this contest will likely result in strong implications as to who the next world order leader will be and what new ideologies (economic and monetary) principles will apply.
Zelenskyy's Progranda Program. But as effective as Zelenskyy has been in drumming up Western support, Ukraine’s message has been far less compelling to audiences in the Global South, where many countries have declined to join Western campaigns to sanction Russia’s economy and isolate it diplomatically. This was vividly clear at the Doha Forum last month in Qatar, where Zelenskyy and Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova were given a big platform. A powerful communicator in her own right, Dzhaparova — a Muslim Tatar from Crimea — played on themes favored by Western leaders: This war is ultimately not about Ukraine but about the survival of the “international rules-based order.”?President Joe Biden?and?European leaders?have repeatedly framed the conflict in these terms, as well.
The West's messaging on Ukraine has taken its tone-deafness to a whole new level.
Other Competing Progranda Programs. A problem arises when Zelenskyy's message receives counter-traffic which serves to disconnect the messages being delivered by what Parsi argues represents that of the Global South.
Parsi states, that in conversations with diplomats and analysts from across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, it was evident these countries largely sympathize with the plight of the Ukrainian people and view Russia as the aggressor. Interesting, however, when the West demands they make costly sacrifices by cutting off economic ties with Russia to uphold a “rules-based order” they show a "begotten an allergic reaction." That order hasn’t been rules-based; instead, it has allowed the U.S. to violate international law with impunity. The West’s messaging on Ukraine has taken its tone-deafness to a whole new level, and it is unlikely to win over the support of countries that have often experienced the worse sides of the international order.
Influenced by More Forceful Message and Economic Influencers. The countries that have bucked Western calls for aid and diplomatic unity that have received the most attention are Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In a sharp break from Washington,?they have furthered their economic and political embrace of Russia while rebuffing Biden’s request to lower oil prices by pumping more oil. The UAE refused to denounce Russia’s invasion at the U.N. Security Council, and while its de facto leader, Mohammed bin Zayed,?refused a phone call with Biden, he ordered his foreign minister to?travel to Russia to strengthen their ties. The concerns of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi differ sharply from those of most of the broader Global South and are rooted primarily in their deteriorating ties with Washington over the U.S. disinclination to go to war on their behalf against Iran and its allies. One Saudi diplomat has described Saudi-U.S. tensions as “the end of the road for us and Biden, but maybe the U.S. also.”
Other International Reactions
For the rest of the Global South, various local and broader structural factors have contributed to a hesitance to support the isolation of Russia. South American powers such as Brazil and Mexico, African heavyweights South Africa and Ethiopia, and Asian rising power India are all?in the majority in their regions in their refusal to sanction Russia.
India’s relations with Russia go back to the Cold War when the Soviet Union?vetoed numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions about Kashmir in India’s behalf. Russia remains one of India’s leading arms suppliers to this day. The same is true for many African countries. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute,?18 percent of all Russian arms sales went to Africa from 2016 to 2020. African dependence on Russian and Ukrainian wheat and fertilizers is even greater — a quarter of African countries get a third of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine. Egypt knows the significance of this all too well. Rising Russian and Ukrainian grain prices in the months before the Arab spring in 2011 played a crucial role in setting the stage for the regionwide protests.
But the broader Global South’s dependence on or vulnerability to Russia doesn’t tell the whole story. Many of these states also see flagrant hypocrisy in framing the Ukraine war in terms of the survival of the rules-based order. From their vantage point, no other country or bloc has undermined international law, norms, or the rules-based order more than the U.S. and the West.
There is no scarcity of examples. In recent years, America undercut the rules-based order when Donald Trump?withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council?over its criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and the?World Health Organization?amid the Covid pandemic, and he?sanctioned senior officials of the International Criminal Court?for seeking to investigate American war crimes in Afghanistan. (The Biden administration is calling for the court?to investigate Russian war crimes in Ukraine.)
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It doesn't help that many of these countries perceive themselves as having been at the receiving end of American unilateralism and recklessness.
There is also the blatant?illegality?of the George W. Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, the Obama administration’s?regime-change intervention in Libya, the U.S. and the U.K.’s ongoing support for the Saudi war in Yemen (which has left 13 million people at risk of starvation) and the celebration of armed Ukrainian resistance against Russian invaders while not only condemning Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation but also outlawing nonviolent economic opposition to that decadeslong occupation. And then there is the “global war on terror,” which has destabilized much of the Middle East and North Africa while killing more than?twice as many people?as?the terrorists themselves?have murdered since the Sept. 11 attacks.
In fact, even though the U.S. played an instrumental role in establishing the rules and norms of the post-World War II order, it?almost immediately began breaking them. During his two terms, President Dwight D. Eisenhower?authorized?no fewer than 104 covert operations, which included overthrowing governments and arming regional revolts.
But now the U.S. is demanding that countries in the Global South make massive and costly sacrifices — with little regard for their vulnerabilities and security needs — to save an order the U.S. itself has been at the forefront of eroding. To return to an order in which the U.S. can continue to act outside international law is equivalent to asking the Global South to make unbearable sacrifices to uphold American exceptionalism.
Moreover, it doesn’t help that many of these countries perceive themselves as having been on the receiving end of American unilateralism and recklessness. NATO, for instance, isn’t held in high regard in large parts of Africa because of its military intervention in Libya,?which left a path of death and destruction in the Sahel. Defending his country’s neutral stance, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni?told reporters?last month that the West “destroyed” Libya while spreading terrorism beyond its border. Huff would add, that the U.S. and its allies have in the past and have continued up until quick and disconcerting departure from the failed intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, which add to the trail of misdeeds, strategies, and betrayals by the Western hegemony as they continue in their hubris to convenience other world powers that this time the outcome and their total commitment to sustained resources and support will be different.
American Interventionism. The damaging consequences of American interventionism play a significant role in the calculations of countries across the Global South. Most of them seek close relations with the U.S. But because of U.S. unilateralism, they desire options to find counterweights against U.S. power when needed. The emergence of a multipolar system provides countries of the Global South with a degree of protection against American adventurism, while they largely see Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine as a?European?affair that doesn’t change the larger global picture, in which balancing options against the U.S. rather than Russia are sought after.
As former Indian national security adviser Shivshankar Menon writes, most Asian capitals regard the conflict as a war “over the European security order — not an epochal global conflagration.” Getting entangled in that regional conflict makes little sense for many in the Global South — and certainly not for the sake of restoring a flawed order that gave undue advantage to the West. Indeed, the glee with which some Western analysts view the Ukrainian war as a “strategic opportunity” to reignite a Cold War between democracies and autocracies — scholars Michael Beckley and Hal Brands?went so far as to say?that Putin has “inadvertently done the United States and its allies a tremendous favor” by creating this window — appears to only further push away the broader Global South.
American Trust and Confidence Have Been Lost. Huff and his global research team argue this phenomenon started shortly after the U.S. entered into World War I, and has continued ever since with a sharp escalation of American imperialism that commenced shortly after the end of World War II.[1] As with many international leaders that are no longer willing to blindly follow or trust the states-craft, policies, or ideologies of those represented by the West (the United States and the U.K.), they have increasingly found higher reason and benefits for individual growth and independence prospects to be associated with Eastern economic, monetary, trade and governance.[2]
Does losing this economic (financial, monetary) and strategic geographical war in the Ukraine portend a significant shift in global power, authority, and economics? Huff argues, that it is highly likely and that this conflict is an expression of a pivotal battle to secure a final milestone as a tipping point that will reshape global leadership, resources, and economic controls in favor of the East.[1,2]
For Ukraine, the support of the Global South may ultimately not be a high priority. But for the U.S., there’s an important lesson here. Had it pursued a more restrained foreign policy in the past few decades, it might have found it far easier to rally the global community to its side against the aggression of another nuclear power.
Summary
As Huff observes, perhaps this war (conflict) which has lacked the full and unmitigated force and fury of Russia's military might and nuclear arsenal (for obvious reasons) the outcome of this intervention or incursion may serve to indicate which culture or set of governing ideologies, monetary, and economic rules will prevail in the near to long term over global powers. Should the Western bloc powers lose the economic battle in the Ukraine, the next foot to fall will be the demise of the present dominating currency of the West and its economic allies. To be sure, all the Western allies are hedging their financial reserves (bets) on the side that potentially represents the emerging victor in this regional power play.
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