Tytti Tuppurainen
Member of Parliament,
Chair of the Soc. Dem. Parliamentary Group, Member of the Foreign
Affairs Committee
Eduskunta, Parliament
of Finland
Finland
Since 2014 Ukraine has been fighting for her sovereignty and since February 2022 for her existence. Ukrainians’ will to fight has astounded many outsiders. The country is, after all, one of the poorest in Europe. And its political system is unstable, and it is, by Ukrainians own admission, badly corrupted. Yet, Ukrainians are determined to fight, because whatever flaws their country has, it’s citizens think it is still better alternative than to be sucked in the vortex of oppression and violence that is the Muscovite Russia.
Despite the fact that the war is about Ukraine, it has wider implications. Both Russia and Ukraine present it to outsiders as a war of the worldviews, two visions of the future. From the European Union’s perspective this big picture of events is easy to accept. Indeed, for most Europeans the Russian aggression is seen as a historical landmark: it is the first time since the WWII when an aggressor’s obvious goal is to conquer its neighbour completely or for the most part. (Iraqi dictator Saddam’s hapless efforts in 1980’s and 90’s notwithstanding.) Also, seen from the West, Russia represents an authoritarian model of society forcing itself to its liberal neighbour.
The silence of the non-western world is for Europeans hard to understand. Yes, most of the world voted in the UN General Assembly to condemn Russian aggression. But after that gesture, nothing has happened: no political action, not to mention participating in sanctions against Russia. To the contrary, many countries buy Russian oil, naturally at a discount, and by doing that finance the Russian war machine. Moreover, the so-called BRICS block of which Russia is a founding party attracts more members and is about become a serious international organisation. Between the fight between good and evil, is it a draw?
The reason, or reasoning, behind many African, Asian, and Latin American political leaders’ fence-sitting is said to be rooted in Europeans’ past sins of colonisation. Ever since the 2014 Maidan revolution Ukrainians have declared that membership in European Union will anchor their country to the free world. Thus Ukraine is striving to become part of the Global West and sharing that moral burden. And Russia as a successor state of Soviet Union is remembered as a supporter of anti-colonial struggle.
For some the above-mentioned narrative is somewhat convincing, but in fact it has serious flaws. Firstly, the dismantling of Western European colonisation in Africa and Asia was to a large part peaceful and happened without Soviet Russian involvement. The second, and more serious flaw is that it is completely blind to Russian role in colonialism. Soviet Union was a colonial empire. Its successor state Russia is a prime example of neo-colonialism in its relationship with Central Asian and Caucasian states. And Russia’s ambition vis-a-vis Ukraine is a classic example of old-school colonialism including restoration of past empire, emphasis on natural (agricultural) resources. Even the ideological component of colonialism is there: Russians concocting mythical history, seeing Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian people less valuable.
If one takes anti-colonialism as its face value, it does not begin to explain the so-called Global South’s opinion regarding Russia’s aggression. Simple and cynical calculations are a somewhat better explanation. Some countries may reap economic benefits as they can buy Russian energy or Russian raw materials at a discount price or smuggle western technology to Russia cutting their share of the sales. And, in the case of China, there may even be a future prospect of having war-weary Russia as a tributary state.
Yet these calculations are only a partial explanation. There are countries that may have some short-term benefits from continuation of the conflict. But then there are others that are clearly paying the price of war and even among those there is some aversion to Ukrainians’ fight for freedom. In explaining these policies, one has to take the role different world views and ideologies into consideration: perhaps the Moscow’s autocratic worldview has some resonance.
Thinking that ideologies have some influence in statecraft goes against the so-called realist approach to international politics. As the saying goes, states have no ideologies, only interests. Yes, perhaps, but then one has to see all existing state entities as being ideal polities, i.e., seeing that in these countries political leaders mostly represent the interests of their people. If instead there are states where interests of the political elites are not aligned with the interests of the general population, the state interest loses explanatory power. The case in point: is it really in the interest of an average Russian to close the borders with the Western Europe, to use the Russian industrial capacity for armament production, and risking being drafted into bloody war in Ukraine?
Taking ideologies as factors in states decision-making helps us to understand the significance of ongoing war in Ukraine. Parties of that war do represent opposite worldviews. Muscovite Russia does represent an autocracy, a system where nations leadership, and eventually its sole leader, guides the nations with a strategic vision. And Ukraine in turn is really an example of the opposite. It is a country whose political leadership has changed quite unexpectedly and whose national strategies have made a few 180 degree turns. Moreover, the grandiloquent position of the current US government, and equally noble EU’s political declarations have a merit.
It is actually quite obvious that the autocratic model of government and autocratic ideologies appeal political elites around the world. In turn democratic systems and liberal values are labelled as “Western”, idiosyncratically Euro-Atlanticist. Especially the Chinese government is consistent in its message: the democratic system of government may or may not fit Europe, but it does not help developing countries. The Chinese leadership is not alone, instead there is growing disbelief that idea of democracy is truly universal.
While Ukrainians fight for themselves their struggle has outsized geopolitical influence. If the political elites across the world find out that despite the overwhelming economic and technological superiority of the democratic nations, they are not able to support Ukraine, these elites surely draw conclusions. The only viable explanation must lie in the weakness of democratic political system: if really the attention span of democracies is just few months or few years, then autocrats do look like visionaries.
Blaming the whole of the Global South of their peoples’ indifference only strengthens the position of antidemocratic leaders. It is most important to emphasize that democracy is not a western system of government and liberal values are not western values. They are universal. They are universal formally because they have been accepted by United Nations’ decisions and documents. They are universal in substance: the silent women and men around the world are more likely than not to embrace a political system giving them right to decide their fate.
In the recent past the rivalry between liberal and autocratic systems was seen in the arena of the world economy. Today the battle between these worldviews is unfortunately very real. It is being fought on the plains and skies of European Ukraine.