The Global South is not Slipping Away from the West
The Finger Wagging Is Counterproductive
This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to separately host a delegation of African leaders from six countries. The leaders of South Africa, Egypt, Zambia, Senegal, Uganda, and the Republic of the Congo will visit Russia and Ukraine at an unspecified time soon to discuss a potential peace agreement.
Peace in the Russo-Ukrainian war is likely still a long way off, but the gesture is important. It highlights the engagement of countries in the so-called “Global South” in a conflict where they have been seen as ambivalent at best. But this perception might just be what allows them to broker a final settlement once Ukraine recaptures its territory.
Overreacting to Ambivalence
The idea that these countries are somehow on Russia’s side, is more the product of Western insecurity regarding its perceived decline in relative power. Due to this supposedly tepid response, some analysts say the United States is “losing” developing nations in its quest to build a durable coalition to defend Ukraine and the so-called “rules-based international order”.
Essentially, these country’s silence on an issue that has little strategic bearing for them is framed as a strategic problem.
The facts of the case do not bear this out. Just two months ago, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine. 141 of 193 UN members voted for this resolution, including two of the nations in the African peace delegation, Egypt and Zambia. The other four countries, including South Africa, abstained. Only seven countries in total voted against the resolution.
Shouldn’t this be considered a victory? In my opinion, it’s a resounding one. But, in a bid to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, many have taken to finger-wagging towards developing countries for insufficient enthusiasm. The West gets perceptions of the so-called “Global South” very wrong in this instance. Just because it’s not following the Western line lock-stock-and-barrel doesn’t mean we are “losing them”. This inflexible thinking could become a self-fulfilling prophecy if we aren’t careful.
The Developing World Looks Out for Number One
Why might these countries be less than enthusiastic? Many of them import raw materials, oil, food, and weapons from Russia. Higher commodity prices can cause major problems for developing economies, not to mention the hardship it can create for their populations. They have also not joined the sanctions regime, again due to commodities imports, but also a rational fear that sanctions could be used to coerce them.
Not even the EU cut ties with Russia immediately after the Ukraine invasion. They tapered oil and gas imports in a way that made sense for them. Ukraine has received help from countries that haven’t cut off all ties to Moscow (Detsch, 2023). Turkey hasn’t sanctioned Russia, but it has sent weapons to Ukraine, and it continues to broker the Black Sea Grain Initiative to maintain Ukrainian agricultural exports (Duran et al, 2023).
Some of these countries have historically favorable views of Moscow backing their anti-colonial wars of independence. They also see Western self-centeredness in how vaccines were hoarded, IP protections kept in place, and missteps in North Africa. The West also has not acknowledged the global impact of commodity price increases or provided economic assistance on this account.
Also, there are other, just as destructive global conflicts that get a fraction of the attention. The Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar are still displaced, a third Congo War is brewing in East Africa, Sudan is in a civil war, and Yemen is still being devastated by a proxy war. Even in America’s neighborhood, the Haitians suffer under anarchic gang rule.
The strategy developing countries are following is to pursue their own strategic interests and resist anything resembling imperialism or coercion by the great powers. This means hedging their bets over the Ukraine war to some extent, offering Ukraine some support without fundamentally rupturing their ties with Russia.
Defeating The Neo-Colonial Mindset
Even more pernicious are concerns about “democratic backsliding” in these same countries. Many analysts, while decrying the Biden Administration’s focus on “Democracies vs. Autocracies” also express concern about so-called “democratic backsliding” around the world.
The message this sends is developing countries cannot be expected to handle concerns about autocracy easily, and that we also must hold their hands and ensure they do not select leaders that question Western liberalism. It seems that in the quest to avoid alienating the Global South, we are infantilizing them.
What this reflects is an inability to shed a colonial mentality towards the developing world. These countries are not seen as independent actors pursuing their own self-interests but as chess pieces in a geopolitical contest between the traditional great powers. It’s the attitude Russia expresses towards Ukraine, and that China expresses towards Taiwan and the South China Sea.
This is the realist trap. It places a premium on the interests of established powers and treats the existing balance of power almost as a fixed reality. The pure version of this approach cannot acknowledge any changes to the existing order, as this would upset a carefully constructed analytical framework. The result is any deviations are ignored or dismissed as irrelevant, and it leads to the persistence of outdated views in the foreign policy community.
This is not to say that the developing world is entirely blameless in its approach. The so-called “great powers” still have legitimate security concerns that are often global in scope. In the rush to seem “neutral” and secure sovereignty in the face of colonial impositions, these countries have often been too dismissive. We need humility to engage these other countries that are not directly party to the conflict but feel its negative aspects.
Ultimately, the West needs to do a better job explaining its position and developing a theory that accommodates the security of these other countries in the long term and acknowledges their role as independent players in the global system.
How would this look? We can see it emerging with the Biden Administration’s treatment of its relationship with Brazil. In a recent meeting between President Biden and Brazilian President Lula da Silva, they primarily discussed the two countries’ mutual economic and geopolitical interests, with a. brief aside about Ukraine.
“They deplored the violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine by Russia and the annexation of parts of its territory as flagrant violations of international law and called for a just and durable peace.” (White House, 2023).
The subtext of this statement is, that while Brazil acknowledges America’s position on Ukraine, the focus of the Brazil-U.S. relationship is on shared interests and not moral imperatives as America defines them. In this instance, America is respecting the interests of a nation outside the Western alliance system and treating it as an independent partner.
America needs genuine bilateral relationships in the developing world, not a collection of junior partners to lecture. Particularly in Africa, it may be difficult for American strategists to reorient their views of the world to accommodate this viewpoint, but it’s essential as the relative power of the Global South increases.
Russia and China have already pursued this approach by providing economic and security assistance upfront without further demands (Lyngaas, 2023). It’s time for America to catch up and help build a truly global order of independent nations treated as equal partners.
Sources
“Russia, Ukraine Seek Path to Peace in Africa-Hosted Talks.” AP News. Accessed May 18, 2023. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-peace-africa-putin-zelenskyy-2e082ce281d405d94451cab9dad4212f.
Detsch, Jack, and Robbie Gramer. “Turkey’s Cold War-Era Cluster Bombs Are Back on the Battlefield in Ukraine.” Foreign Policy. January 10, 2023. Accessed May 18, 2023. https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/10/turkey-cold-war-cluster-bombs-ukraine/.
Duran, Rafael et al. “Who Are the Winners of the Black Sea Grain Deal?” International Crisis Group. Accessed May 18, 2023. https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/eastern-europe/ukraine/who-are-winners-black-sea-grain-deal.
“Joint Statement Following the Meeting Between President Biden and President Lula.” The White House. February 10, 2023. Accessed May 18, 2023. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/02/10/joint-statement-following-the-meeting-between-president-biden-and-president-lula/.
Lyngaas, Sean. “Classified Leaks in the Pentagon: China, Russia, Africa.” CNN Politics. April 13, 2023. Accessed May 18, 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/13/politics/classified-leaks-pentagon-china-russia-africa/index.html.