Ukraine

World order §3: The current disorder

/ Dan Smith / 4 Comments

The world order is under pressure. For world peace and stability, the core security tasks of the key international organisations such as, above all, the UN and regional organizations such as the African Union (AU) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) are to manage and reduce conflict and to establish and build peace.

The problem is that for the past decade and more, the overall number and longevity of armed conflicts have increased along with their intractability. These armed conflicts that international mediation or conflict management seem unable to reach or influence are, alongside confrontation between the great powers and generally toxic geopolitics, key markers of the current disorder.  

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War in Ukraine: some of the many issues it raises

/ Dan Smith / Leave a comment

In February 2022, Russia escalated its war on Ukraine with a full scale invasion. Within weeks, Russia increased by more than fourfold the territory it occupied in Ukraine. Then Ukrainian forces pushed it back, retaking half the ground Russia had taken.

The core consequence of the war has been largescale loss of life, suffering and physical destruction in Ukraine. But the war has also had further consequences and repercussions in the ecological, energy, financial, food, geopolitical and humanitarian domains. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has offered assessments of some of the wider implications of the war, summarised and linked below.

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Ukraine, 1 year on: China’s peace plan is not a plan

/ Dan Smith / 1 Comment

A year after the renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine, China has come forward with a 12-point statement of its position on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. That, at least, is what is called by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It is widely reported in the international news media as a peace plan. See, among others, AlJazeera, AP, BBC, CNN, DW, Guardian, New York Times, Reuters, Sky, Time (though it calls it a proposal).

But it is not a plan and China does not say it’s a plan – it’s a position according to the government and to CGTN, Beijing’s state-run English-language news channel (though, to be fair, CGTN joined the crowd and called it a plan on the second day of coverage). Further, it does not outline either what a peace settlement could consist of or a pathway for getting there. It is a statement of opinion that stays away from specifics about what its support for dialogue and negotiation could mean in practice.

And I think that in ramping up a statement of position into a peace plan that can then be criticised for lacking specifics, the news media are missing something.

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Putin’s 6-sided box in Ukraine

/ Dan Smith / 2 Comments

Western commentators on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing war are frequently using the term, ‘quagmire’ – a bog, swamp or morass, from which, once you have entered, it is between hard and impossible to get out, as every move you make to free yourself sucks you deeper in. The term was widely used in the 1960s about the USA’s war in Vietnam.

As Lawrence Freedman has pointed out in one of his commentaries on the war, the term has a closely related partner – escalation, which might seem to a state stuck in a quagmire like the only way out. Both terms have a history and have considerable currency when analysing the problems and risks big states face in wars with smaller states.

But there is another metaphor from the time of the Vietnam War and all those arguments and debates, which I find even richer – the six-sided box. By invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has taken his country into a box from which it is hard to see the way out. And that is bad news for everyone.

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Is peace possible in Ukraine?

/ Dan Smith / 3 Comments

Well, yes, of course it is. All that is needed to start the process is that Russia, which started the war with its invasion, decides not to continue and pulls back.

That’s all that’s needed to start a peace process. But much more will be needed to sustain it and generate a real peace in Ukraine and between Russia and Ukraine. Much more and many years and the process will always be fragile.

I had the pleasure (or perhaps the pressure) of being questioned about this by Alexander Wolf as part of the 17 Academy project (titled after the 17th UN Sustainable Development Goal on partnerships to change the world) of the AusserGewöhnlich Foundation in Berlin.

You can link to the podcast using Spotify or Apple.

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