12 Leaders The Economist April 16th 2022
T
he war is firstofallaboutthefateof44mUkrainians.Butin
the shattered ruins of Mariupol and Kharkiv a worldview is
also at stake. Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine to force it to re
nounce the West and to submit to the Kremlin. He believes that
big countries should be free to dominate smaller ones. Ukraine
counters that it will choose its own allies. With Western back
ing, it is affirming the universal principle that all countries are
sovereign. Whoever prevails on the battlefield will win a funda
mental argument about how the world should work.
It matters, therefore, that off the battlefield this is an argu
ment the West is losing. Most of the emerging world either backs
Russia over its invasion or is neutral. Some countries depend on
Russian arms, others feel a misplaced nostalgia for Soviet lar
gesse, but many see the West as decadent, selfserving and hypo
critical. And many more, even if they do not welcome the inva
sion, see it as somebody else’s problem. As America and the rest
of natorally support for action against Russia, that is a stunning
rebuke. It is also taking the world down a dangerous path.
On March 2nd, 141 countries voted in the unto deplore Rus
sia’s invasion. Just five voted against and 35 abstained. But the
real pattern is more complex. Our sister organisation, the Econ
omist Intelligence Unit, has noted that only a third of the world’s
people live in countries that have not only condemned Russia
but also imposed sanctions on it. Most of them
are Western. Another third are in neutral coun
tries. This group includes giants like India and
tricky American allies, such as Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates. The final third are in
countries that are echoing Russia’s rationale for
the invasion. The biggest, China, has repeated
propaganda claiming that Ukraine has hosted
Americanbacked bioweapons laboratories.
In Mr Putin’s world, where might makes right, today’s lack of
support is proof of Western decline. After the Soviet collapse in
1991, when America became the sole superpower, countries
aligned themselves with it not so much out of ideological con
viction but to win its backing. On this reading, America’s sway
over smaller countries has diminished as China has risen.
There is something to this, even if declinism is exaggerated.
The West has also hastened its own loss of influence (see Inter
national section). Until Mr Putin jolted it by invading Ukraine,
the West had seemed to have lost faith in the universal prin
ciples it espoused. Following the Russian attack on Georgia in
2008, America’s president, Barack Obama, rushed to “reset” rela
tions and focus on nationbuilding at home. When Bashar al
Assad used chemical weapons in 2013, Mr Obama backed off.
After annexing Crimea in 2014, Russia got a slap on the wrist.
China and Russia argue that this lack of selfbelief is a sign of
Western decadence. If so, it spread under Donald Trump, who
held America’s allies in contempt and was wholly transactional.
Democracy in America sank further into outrage and conspiracy.
The European Union often seemed hopelessly selfabsorbed.
Brexit, whether you were for or against it, was a fiasco.
Poorer countries also see America and its allies as selfserv
ing, because they demand solidarity when it suits them and turntheirbackswhenitdoesnot.WhileRussiaand China released
covid19 vaccines abroad, the West hoarded huge stocks. Coun
tries that grew rich by burning oil and coal have urged a global
effort to limit climate change, but failed to keep their (limited)
promises to help finance poorer countries’ plans to abandon
fossil fuels and adapt to a warmer world.
And poorer countries see the West as hypocritical. Europe
talks about universal rights, but its laudable welcome for mil
lions of refugees from the war in Ukraine has been undercut by
its rejection of refugees from the war in Syria. America and its
closest allies invaded Iraq in 2003 without unbacking. In West
ern eyes, and The Economist’s, Saddam Hussein was a murderous
dictator who had used nerve gas on his own people and attacked
his neighbours. He could not be more different from Volodymyr
Zelensky, Ukraine’s elected president. Yet the rulers of other
countries worry that if the West is free to act as judge, jury and
executioner, they will get summary justice.
This is a poisonous cocktail of legitimate grievances and ex
aggeration, all laced with a lingering resentment of colonialism.
The pity is that emerging countries are making a grave error. As
sovereign powers, they too have a stake in the war. All the West’s
faults do not outweigh the fact that, in the system Mr Putin is of
fering, their people would suffer terribly.
The reason is that the world Mr Putin desires
would be far more decadent, selfserving and
amoral than the one that exists today. Ukraine
shows how. His extravagant lies about Nazis in
Kyiv and his denial that Russia is even fighting a
war are decadent. His brazen claim that nato
provoked the war, posing an intolerable threat
to Russia by expanding into central and eastern
Europe is selfserving. Those countries were
not swallowed up: they chose to join nato for their own protec
tion after decades of Soviet tyranny. And witness the drowning
of all morality in his armies’ unconscionable use of torture, rape
and mass murder as the routine tools of war.
What is more, Mr Putin’s belief in the dominance of great
powers will not be limited to the battlefield. For he is right that,
ultimately, the successful use of force underpins the structure of
geopolitics. If Russia is allowed to prevail in Ukraine, bullying,
lying and manipulation will further permeate trade, treaties and
international law—the whole panoply of arrangements that are
so easily taken for granted, but which keep the world turning.
That vision may suit China, which is impatient to shape the
world in its own interests and which feels strong enough to
dominate its sphere of influence. It would certainly suit tyrants,
who want free rein to abuse their countries and terrorise their
neighbours. But it cannot be welcome to leaders who want the
best for their people.
Contrast Mr Putin’s brutish vision with Ukraine’s (see Brief
ing). Partly in answer to Russian aggression, the country has
emerged as a beacon of democracy. Like the West, it is imperfect.
But it stands for freedom and hope. Developing countries should
not abandon today’s flawed system. They should defend itfrom
Mr Putin and use their growing influence to help it flourish.nRussia wants to impose its brutal vision on its neighbour. That is everyone’s businessGet off the fence
The war in Ukraine