November 7, 2024
Hanna Notte
The following is an excerpt from Foreign Affairs.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was an event of global magnitude. The scale of the invasion, commensurate with its goal of eliminating Ukrainian statehood, was massive. Millions of refugees fled Ukraine into the rest of Europe. Fuel and fertilizer prices shot up, stimulating inflation worldwide. The war disrupted the production and distribution of grain, generating concerns about supply far afield from Russia and Ukraine. And as the conflict stretched into its second and third years, its international repercussions have expanded in scope.
In the war’s early stages, countries outside Europe tried mostly just to manage its effects. For those that chose not to directly back Ukraine—not to provide Kyiv with weapons or to sanction Russia—two priorities predominated. Seeing that there were deals to be made, some countries sought to benefit from Russia’s loss of European and U.S. markets for gas, oil, and other commodities. Others offered themselves as mediators in the sincere (or insincere) hope of minimizing the war’s direct and ancillary costs or even of ending it altogether. Their diplomacy was motivated in part by the prestige that comes from adjudicating a large-scale conflict.
As the war drags on, however, non-European countries are becoming more and more involved. Some are giving Russia the means to prolong the war—men and munitions. By using Ukraine as a testing ground, they hope that they will be better prepared for wars they themselves may fight in the future. North Korea’s decision to deploy thousands of troops to help Russia reclaim the embattled Kursk region is just the latest example. Other non-Western states are trying to shape the course of the war or positioning themselves to be present at the creation of a postwar Europe—that is, to be at the table for the negotiations that will end the conflict, however distant that prospect may be. Amid this terrible war, non-European states are turning Europe into an object of their foreign policy. Many commentators have said that the precedent set by a Russian victory in Ukraine—a nuclear power seizing another country’s territory at will—would transform the global order. The deep involvement of powers outside Europe adds another layer to the war’s transformative potential. Europe, having projected its power outward for centuries, is becoming a theater for the projection of non-European power. Brussels, Kyiv, and Washington will have to come to terms with this new reality.
Continue reading at Foreign Affairs.
