Caring for the World Order is Caring for Yourself
The Russian Invasion of Ukraine is not just some territorial dispute on the other side of the world
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently opined that protecting Ukraine’s borders “is not a vital U.S. interest and policymakers should instead focus attention at home.” Of course, he said that on the Tucker Carlson show, where peddling outrageous falsehoods is part of the shtick. So we don’t know if Mr. DeSantis was serious or just “pulling a Tucker Carlson” for ratings. But, assuming he was serious, then thankfully he wasn’t the U.S. President during the early 1940s or we would be facing a nuclear-armed Fascist Europe today.
The Challenge to the World Order
Ron DeSantis’ hogwash aside, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is by far the biggest threat to the world order since World War II. Not only is it a massive humanitarian crisis, but Russia’s actions also challenge the viability of a system that has largely kept the peace and promoted prosperity on the planet for the last 80 years.
The world order refers to the set of arrangements and institutions that govern international relations between countries. It encompasses the political, economic, and social systems that shape the interactions between states and other international actors. The current world order is often described as the "liberal world order," which emerged after World War II and is characterized by a commitment to democracy, free trade, human rights, and multilateralism.
This world order has had many achievements, including:
Preventing major global conflicts—The spread of democracy and the establishment of international institutions like the United Nations have created a framework for peaceful conflict resolution and diplomacy.
Promoting economic growth and prosperity—Free trade, investment, and market-oriented policies have helped spur a higher standard of living around the world.
Advancing human rights and democracy—International norms and standards for human rights have been established through treaties and conventions; international organizations have provided support for democratic transitions from authoritarian regimes.
Unfortunately, for various reasons, some countries have not been as successful as others in the current world order. In particular, Putin’s leadership of Russia has not restored the former power and status of the Soviet Union. Rather than being the #1 or #2 player, they are now about #9 in terms of GDP, as shown in the graph below.
Furthermore, “eastern bloc” countries that joined NATO have generally fared better economically. The graph below, based on data from the World Bank, shows the NATO members versus non-NATO eastern bloc countries that were formerly with Russia.
Clearly, eastern bloc countries that joined NATO (and more importantly also integrated with the Wester economic system) experienced generally better growth, based on GDP per capita. Another view of this, based on the 2020 standings, is shown below.
Given the declining influence of Russia, Putin has chosen to use force to break up world order to remake it to his own advantage. To that end, he’s invaded multiple countries over the last 20 years with little repercussions from the international community. For example,
Georgia (1992-1993): Russian troops intervened in the Georgian region of Abkhazia to support separatist rebels, resulting in the de facto independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Moldova (1992): Russian troops intervened in the Transnistria region of Moldova to support separatist rebels, resulting in the de facto independence of Transnistria.
Chechnya (1994): Russian forces intervened in Chechnya in an attempt to regain control over the region, which had declared independence from Russia.
Crimea (2014): Russian troops annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported separatist rebels in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, resulting in an ongoing conflict.
Given that Putin was able to steamroll those places with only minor grumbling from the West, he probably was shocked by the vigorous backlash to his invasion of Ukraine. Now clearly outmatched on the battlefield and in a jam, Putin is almost certainly banking on being able to grind it out by throwing overwhelming waves of bodies and outdated equipment against the Ukrainians until the West tires of fighting and is willing to let him keep at least part of Ukraine. Then, he can recoup, rebuild, and continue to pursue his imperialist goals.
And guess what? Ron DeSantis is playing right into Putin’s hand. In fact, lately, there has been evidence that Americans—far and away the largest providers of support to Ukraine—are getting tired of the war. This was highlighted by some recent surveys like this one from AP-NORC and the results of the Pew Research poll shown below.
The poll results show that declining support is mostly among the Republican and Leaning Republican groups. Likely DeSantis knows this and is purposelbased onupport from people on the basis of their limited view of the world, rather than telling them what makes sense for a better future.
Who Cares about the World Order?
Ron DeSantis is implying that Americans need not care about the world order because Ukraine is way over there on the other side of the world, and we have our own problems here. But that is a huge misunderstanding about today’s interconnected world. Think simply about gas prices or wheat prices—whatever happens in Ukraine almost immediately affects the prices we pay here in the United States. Examples like those are plentiful, which means effectively Ukraine is much closer than you think and what DeSantis is implying could not be further from the truth.
Keeping our interconnected world running smoothly means being able to make agreements with other countries and have them followed, especially when it comes to not invading each other. It means following the rule of law. If you think prices are high, they would be far higher if the whole world economy was not working together to provide you with gas, food, TV shows, building materials, and numerous other things.
The liberal world order will collapse if the system agreements cannot be followed and consistently enforced when necessary. This would probably then have dramatically negative impacts on global stability, economic growth, human rights, and democratic governance. Instead of the rule of law, outcomes would result from the rule of force. Now you might think, “ok, great, since America is the most powerful country on the planet, this will be good.” But this is not going to happen because the clash of powerful nations is going to destroy the very system that delivers you food, gas, and most of the other things you like.
Since the U.S. doesn’t want to bear the responsibility of being the world’s policeman, the role of enforcement must fall to nations. Organizations like NATO and the United Nations must work together to uphold and strengthen the world order. But democratic governments are not going to do this if their voters don’t support it.
So who cares about the world order? We all do—or we should—because the world order is what makes the lifestyle we now enjoy possible.
To Be Fair…
Russia’s incursions in Georgia, Chechnya, and even Crimea were heinous and really should have been stopped by the international community when they occurred—since those countries were all members of the United Nations and therefore obligated to respect each other’s borders. Those conquests likely emboldened Putin and enabled him to get strong enough to think about taking over Ukraine.
Although most of Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine is patently false, Putin does have a point that NATO and the United States have not always followed the rules. While NATO's military actions are generally conducted with the approval of the United Nations or other international organizations, there have been some instances where the United States and NATO have taken military action without United Nations’ approval. Two primary examples include the following:
The NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999 was conducted without the explicit authorization of the United Nations Security Council. NATO took military action in response to the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo, where Serbian forces were accused of committing atrocities against ethnic Albanians. NATO launched a 78-day air campaign against Serbian forces, which ultimately led to a withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo and the deployment of a NATO-led peacekeeping force in the region. However, it should be noted this force eventually left Kosovo and did not conquer the country or install a puppet government.
The 2003 Invasion of Iraq was conducted by the United States along with some NATO members, without approval from the United Nations, for the purpose of stopping Iraq from developing weapons of mass destruction. The lack of approval was clearly stated by then Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, who said, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal." Moreover, it later turned out that the alleged weapons of mass destruction did not exist.
Possibly, people in the U.S. government—including the President—should have been held accountable for any past transgressions. Yet, despite those questionable actions by the U.S., Russia cannot justify attacking Ukraine by saying “well you did it first.” That is a logical fallacy called tu quoque, which we can all understand as simply “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
The key point here is that not only do citizens need to support enforcing the rules, but they also need to be willing to hold their own government accountable to the rules.
Summation
Ukraine is a member of the United Nations, as is Russia, so Ukraine deserves the protection of all United Nations members. Moreover, this protection is essential to maintaining the rule-based world order that helps us all.
The invasion of Ukraine would probably have been averted if the world powers had responded to Russia’s invasions of Georgia, Chechnya, and Crimea. Unlike Ron DeSantis’s “don’t look that way” approach, we need to stop Russia before it’s too late and demonstrate that the rules of the world order are important. Many people want Ukraine to just let Putin keep what he has conquered, but what if we had done that in World War II? All of Europe would be part of the Third Reich.
Certainly, there are many valid complaints that the current world order has not benefitted everyone evenly or fairly. But, for now, I’m just going to assert that fixing the world order is a lot easier than building a new one from ashes and ruins.
Thanks for reading to this point. Please feel leave a comment if you would like me to discuss further any of the points made in this article.