The conflict in Ukraine is burning out. Despite the US sending over US$75 billion – or 0.33 per cent of its gross domestic product – to Ukraine since the war began, convincing allies such as Germany to hand over advanced armour, and submitting Russia to unprecedented economic sanctions, the front line has not moved significantly in months.
Russian forces have repelled waves of Nato-trained battalions. And, as videos of burning Leopard tanks and Bradley vehicles pile up, the global media is coming to grips with a slipping narrative. This is not a bad thing. Political settlement has gone from being a fantasy to an inevitability.
A similarly bloody and sectarian conflict, the Thirty Years’ War, exhausted Europe into accepting the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. That treaty led to today’s concept of the nation-state. It changed the architecture of international relations.
The conflict in Ukraine is at a similarly pivotal point. The Global South is gaining economic and political weight, increasingly joining the world’s superpowers at the negotiating table. The coming settlement promises to be just as momentous, a shift in the architecture of international relations of the same magnitude as the Westphalian pact.
The Ukraine war has affected countries across the world. From spiking energy prices to the looming threat of famine in Africa, the global system has moved too far from the pre-war status quo to simply fall back into it.
But there are three factors that must be reconciled before Westphalia 2.0 can be achieved, namely the West’s desire to turn back time, the rise of a new arbiter and the exhaustion of warmongers and hawks.
Since the reignition of conflict in Ukraine in February 2022, the United States and its allies have been pressuring the Global South to take sides. The non-alignment of most economies was a plebiscite on the rules-based order that the West lost.
Since then, few nations outside the West have joined the anti-Russia coalition. Major economies prefer continued growth over a conflict on behalf of the so-called rules-based order. Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has, for example, repeatedly said that the Association of Southeast Asian nations can’t be any party’s proxy. And, as India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said last year: “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.”
This turn of events is not surprising. By proposing the arbitrary confiscation of sovereign property, forcing the Swift financial messaging system to pull Russia’s access to international payments, and abetting the petty renaming of paintings or unsportsmanlike behaviour, the West has lost trust with the rest.
Before the war, the West dominated with its soft power, economic strength and military force. Now, its soft power is being ignored by an increasingly illiberal Global South, its economic strength has yet to crush what the late US senator John McCain dismissed as “a gas station masquerading as a country”, and Nato-trained troops have achieved little two months into the counteroffensive.
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China and Russia hold call after Saudi peace talks over Ukraine exclude Moscow
China and Russia hold call after Saudi peace talks over Ukraine exclude Moscow
The recent conference in Saudi Arabia to discuss peace in Ukraine is illustrative of the global trend, despite ending without a joint statement. Summits are no longer limited to the classic destinations of Switzerland and New York. And, in a major shift, it is the US pursuing shuttle diplomacy to convince countries to join its cause, rather than states queuing up to join the US side.
Yet, the new era will require an arbiter. Western, Russian and Global South commentators agree – China should take this role.
China is an attractive chair. First, it is the one major power outside the Ukraine conflict to develop a reasonable peace plan. Second, unlike the West’s divisive values, Beijing offers economic development with civilisational diversity, which resonates with rising countries.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping offers Palestinian leader a ‘lasting solution’ to conflict with Israel
Chinese President Xi Jinping offers Palestinian leader a ‘lasting solution’ to conflict with Israel
Indeed, platforms such as Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and Asean may also form nodal points in deciding future international architecture. Importantly, these are consensus-driven, with Russia and China taken into account, and devoid of diktat.
Despite the global shift away from the West, and although Washington and London believe they can “win” by defeating Russia by proxy – the US is set to supply Ukraine with Abrams tanks soon – the war in Ukraine will drag on. Russia has no reason to back down. The front line is stable, and economically, Russia is set to grow this year.
Amid the stalemate, it seems only exhaustion, both economic and military, can end the bloodshed.
The Global South demands a settlement. The recent visits by the African peace delegation to Kyiv and Moscow, braving Western pressure, is a clear sign. But while Moscow is coming around to the proposals, the Ukrainian authorities remain dismissive.
Historians will look back and ask why the so-called rules-based order imploded. The answer may be that, fundamentally, rules are only rules if everyone agrees to follow them. The West is throwing away the liberal order, deeming itself above the rules when it denied Russia’s security concerns, threw its military might behind a proxy, and applied unprecedented economic sanctions in an act of desperation.
It’s not Russia that China should be talking into de-escalation. It’s to the West that the Global South should be saying: enough is enough, there is no going back – but there can be much to look forward to if we move on from this bloody war.
Oleg Yanovsky is a lecturer in the Department of Political Theory at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). His research focuses on the history of political thought and how political theory informs strategic policy decisions
