Ukraine crisis and fragmented world order

(Mains GS 2 : Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and Agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.)

Context:

• Russia’s attack on Ukraine has worried many nations specially on the impact the Ukraine crisis is having on the global world order, which is fragmenting in every respect of global interconnectedness i.e. in terms of international cooperation, security, military use, economic order, and even cultural ties.

Ineffectiveness of Security Council:

• The global order has broken down and events in Ukraine have exposed the United Nations and the Security Council for their ineffectiveness.
• Russia’s actions in Ukraine may, in terms of refusing to seek an international mandate, seem no different from the war by the United States in Iraq in 2003, Israel’s bombing of Lebanon in 2006 and the Saudi-coalition’s attacks of Yemen in 2015.
• But Ukraine is in fact a bigger blow to the post-World War order than any other as the direct missile strikes and bombing of Ukrainian cities every day, exacting both military and civilian casualties, and the creation of millions of refugees, run counter to every line of the UN Charter preamble.

Global nuclear order:

• The Russian recklessness with regard to nuclear safety in a country that has suffered the worst impacts of poor safety and planning following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is a challenge to the global nuclear order. 
• Russian military’s moves to target areas near Chernobyl and shell buildings near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant show an alarming nonchalance towards safeguards in place over several decades, after the U.S.’s detonation of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 led to the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1956.
• The world must also consider the cost to the nuclear non-proliferation regime’s credibility as Ukraine and Libya willingly gave up nuclear programmes and have been invaded, while regimes such as Iran and North Korea can defy the global order because they have held onto their nuclear deterrents.

Joining a foreign war:

• There are also the covenants agreed upon during the global war on terrorism, which have been degraded, with the use of non-state actors in the Ukraine crisis.
• With the arrival of Russian troops, the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has invited all foreign fighters who are volunteering to support his forces to the country.
• This seeks to mirror the “International Brigades” in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, comprising foreign volunteers from about 50 countries against forces of Spanish military ruler Francisco Franco.
• It is hoped that other countries around the world, including India, make firm efforts towards preventing such “non-state actors” from joining a foreign war.

Arbitrary and unilateral:

• Economic sanctions by the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union (EU) also point to a fragmentation of the global financial order.
• While analysts have pointed out that the sanctions announced so far do not include some of Russia’s biggest banks such as Sberbank and Gazprombank in order to avoid the disruption of oil and gas from Russia.
• From the eviction of Russia from SWIFT payments, to the cancellation of Mastercard, Visa, American Express and Paypal, to the sanctioning of specific Russian businesses and oligarchs and pressure on Western businesses operating in Russia to shut down shows the arbitrary and unilateral nature of western sanctions rub against the international financial order set up under the World Trade Organization.

Isolation by culture

• Further, there is the western objective, to “isolate” Russia, socially and culturally, that rails against the global liberal order.
• While several governments including the U.S., the U.K. and Germany have persistently said that their quarrel is not with Russian citizens but with their leadership, it is clear that most of their actions will hurt the average Russian citizen. 
• The EU’s ban of all Russian-owned, Russian-controlled or Russian-registered planes from EU airspace, and Aeroflot’s cancellation of international routes, will ensure that travel to and from Russia is severely curtailed. 

Impact on India:

• The cost of the Russian war on Ukraine to India is still to be counted as many believe that India’s refusal to criticise Russia’s actions, and the string of abstentions at the United Nations, would affect its relations with the West and its Quad partners (the United States, Australia and Japan).
• The economic costs of the unprecedented sanctions of the U.S. and the European Union on Russia will have an impact on Indian trade, energy and defence purchases. 

Conclusion:

• India is in a difficult position as on the one hand, there is the growing relationship with the United States and on the other hand, there is Russia with whom we have a long-standing history of friendship.
• Thus, under the circumstances, the Government had done well by maintaining a kind of neutral position by demonstrating the classical Nehruvian policy of non-alignment.