Russia Unhinged? Why the World’s Leaders Must Take a Stand

By W.A. Schmidt

Outbreaks of lethal disease and the spread of extremism are two of the key challenges impacting major parts of the world these days. Combating them is testing the global order’s crisis management capabilities. There is an additional challenge that transcends the mere testing of those coping mechanisms: Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. It represents a direct threat to the building blocks of the global order, namely the rule of law and the effectiveness of the United Nations.

Neither Russia’s violation of its international legal obligations nor its institutional blockade of the U.N. Security Council can possibly be in the interest of the other U.N. member states, least of all in the interest of the less mighty among them. Hence, when the world’s leaders gather for this year’s opening of the United Nations’ 69th General Assembly they would be well-advised to address this dual attack on the foundations of global governance.

Annexation as a Prelude to War

In March 2014 Russia annexed Crimea in an unprovoked act, following a stealthy infiltration and occupation of the Ukrainian peninsula. It was a gross violation of global, regional and bilateral legal commitments to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. 

Given the severity of the situation, the U.N. Security Council would, under normal circumstances, have invoked Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter against the aggressor state. However, circumstances are not normal when the perpetrator is a veto-wielding member. When the annexation of Crimea was taken up in the U.N. Security Council and the U.N. General Assembly, Russia’s isolation was astounding. In the U.N. Security Council Russia’s veto was the only vote against a resolution. In the U.N. General Assembly it found only ten supporters for its opposition to UNGA resolution 68/262 that sharply condemned the annexation.

Two key reasons come to mind as to why not just the victim, Ukraine, but the international order itself should be defended against such a violation of a country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty: One, without the rule of law in international relations and strong international organizations, global disorder will increase. A more anarchic world will benefit no one, not even the world’s most powerful states. Two, only a more orderly world based on strong, healthy international institutions and the rule of law will protect the less powerful against the mighty.

Escalation into War?

Widespread international criticism has so far done nothing to persuade Russia to change course. Instead it has intensified its destabilization and subversion of Ukraine by orchestrating and fueling a secessionist insurgency via proxy forces. The ensuing violence has caused widespread death, the displacements of hundreds of thousands of civilians and other hardships. It also led to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that killed almost 300 people. (Incidentally, of the eleven countries that lost nationals in this tragedy, ten had voted in favor of the resolution, and one had abstained.)

Several U.N. human rights reports have deplored the “egregious human rights abuses” in the territory under control of Russia’s proxies. The parading of captured Ukrainian soldiers — publicly condoned by Russia’s foreign minister — is just the latest in a series of violations of the Geneva Conventions. However, Russia’s latest — and so far gravest — transgression consists of sending an invasion force across Ukraine’s southeastern border.

Not since the late 1930s and 1940s has the world seen such hostile moves by a major power on the European continent and such unashamed deceit over its actions.

Vulnerabilities and the National Interest

In March 2014 one hundred countries voted in favor of UNGA resolution 68/262 condemning the illegality of Russia’s land grab. Fifty-eight countries abstained, and 24 countries did not vote. Some of those 58 have likely been influenced by Russian propaganda about an alleged lack of legitimacy of the interim government of Ukraine. Leaving aside that this would have been an internal affair, the issue has been settled by the international recognition of the results of the presidential elections of May 2014.

Given the current state of the crisis in Ukraine, the leaders of the abstaining countries, as well as those who did not vote, have every reason to join the stance of the hundred that approved the resolution. An unwarranted attack on a sovereign country ought to be justification enough to do so. A sense of solidarity may be lacking, but countries are usually well aware of their own vulnerabilities. One would expect countries falling into any one — let alone several — of the following five categories of vulnerability to be at the forefront of defending the rule of law and the effectiveness of the U.N.

• Countries with actual or potentially unsettled borders. Boundaries of numerous countries were created with little regard to local conditions — e.g., by their former colonial masters, as is the case in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. This category also includes countries that have border disputes with their neighbors. It is no coincidence, then, that the African Union, and the OAU before it, places such great emphasis on the inviolability of borders since changing them would open a Pandora’s Box. The same applies to Asia, Europe and the Western Hemisphere (with the exception of North America). Among the 58 there are at least 33 such countries.
• Countries that have experienced foreign domination and/or are small and/or are dwarfed by a more powerful neighbor. All of the 58 countries have, at least at one point in their history, been dominated by a foreign power or been the object of direct meddling by mightier, outside forces. This even applies to those within the group of 58 that have become major powers themselves, such as Brazil, China and India. Their historical experiences seem to inform their attitudes towards the issue of non-interference to quite a great extent. Of the 58 countries there are also 44 countries that are small and/or dwarfed by a more powerful neighbor. Both subgroups ought to be predisposed to understanding Ukraine’s present predicament.
• Countries with minorities and/or potential or actual secessionism issues. Among the 58 there are at minimum 41 that have ethnic and linguistic minorities. Those societies would hardly welcome it if internal differences were to be exploited from abroad so as to divide the country. This would be all the more intolerable if domestic divisiveness were to be sowed and fueled by a much more powerful neighbor. The situation would be worse yet if that neighbor were at the same time eyeing parts of the country for potential annexation. In the case of Ukraine, Russia already has a name for the (minimum of) Ukrainian territory it would like to take over next: “New Russia,” stretching all the way from its border to Crimea and beyond, to its vassal state of Transnistria. 
• Countries that adhere to non-proliferation. Of the 58 abstaining countries, 56 countries subscribe to the principle of non-proliferation and 55 are party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Ukraine belongs to a very small number of countries that voluntarily gave up its nuclear arsenal and acceded to the NPT in exchange for international security guarantees. Russia committed itself to such guarantees in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. In this treaty it gave the following explicit bilateral guarantees, namely “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine,” “to reaffirm [its] obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine” and “to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to [its] own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.” It would bode ill for the future of the global non-proliferation regime and the nuclear have-nots if such guarantees by nuclear-weapon states were allowed to amount to nothing.
• Countries that depend on external financial transfers. This is not an issue of international law but of economics. Should the world community not succeed in persuading Russia to de-escalate the conflict and curtail its neo-imperialist ambitions, a new arms race in the Euro-Atlantic space, and maybe beyond, seems unavoidable. If this happens defense spending will be rising again after declining in most of those countries for quite some time. It will inevitably compete with official development assistance (ODA) in countries where budgets are already tight. Reaching the 0.7 percent of GDP goal for ODA would become even more elusive, directly impacting the chances of reaching the U.N.’s present Millennium and future Sustainable Development Goals. Of the 58 countries at least 53 were recipients of ODA in 2013. A wider war in Europe would send the whole world into a tailspin, especially those states most dependent on these external financial transfers.

No Time for Acquiescence

Unconventional and clandestine as its invasion may be in fooling the world, Russia has unleashed war against Ukraine. Acquiescence in the face of such aggression might be understandable if a country felt particularly vulnerable to Russian retaliation. But in the case of those that are free from such constraints, continuing to stand aside is short-sighted at best, opportunistic at worst.

Some countries may rejoice over the unexpected business opportunities that the existing sanctions against and by Russia might afford them. But they should think twice. Should their trade with Russia exceed the customary level of pre-war business — the so-called “courant normal” — they would not be impartial but in contravention of neutrality’s most elementary rule. By increasing trade they would, in other words, be siding with the offending party against the victim. Such war profiteering would only encourage additional escalation now and bellicose behavior in the future, further weakening the law-based world order upon which they ultimately depend.

The international sanctions against Russia by well over 30 countries are a necessary but poor substitute for a global sanctions regime that the U.N. Security Council should have instituted. The leaders convening for the U.N. General Assembly should therefore send a stronger signal that this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated. Absent a change of policy on Russia’s part or a more promising way to influence its fateful course, member states should at least join the existing international sanctions regime.

W.A. Schmidt, a former chair of the Governor’s Commission on the United Nations in Madison, Wisconsin, is an international affairs consultant and a member of the board of the Foreign Policy Association.