As the Cold War ended, the United States became for a very short period of time the unchallenged power in the world, with a global optimism for a foreign new liberal order. Soon after, this was challenged by Samuel P. Huntington in his book “The Clash of Civilizations” in 1996, originally based on a 1993 essay which was supposed to confute the optimism of a new American-led world order.
Huntington was prompted to write the essay after he saw the unfolding of the civil war in Yugoslavia that saw the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia unravel over the birth of the nationalism of the component units of the Yugoslav federation, namely the Catholic states of Croatia and Slovenia, Orthodox states of Serbia and Montenegro, Islamic states of Bosnia, Herzegovina and eventually Kosovo. These international events and where the contending parties were being supported by new power blocks that were rooted in civilizational, religious, historical national experiences. Mr. Huntington’s vision saw a Western, Orthodox, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, African, Latin American, Sinic, and Japanese divisional order where these civilizations allied themselves against potential enemies and ideological opponents.
Basically, Huntington went beyond the conventional explanations about conflict as being economic or structural, but rather reflected as an issue of cultural conflicts. Twenty odd years after his book, a pervasive and superficial globalization saw cultural clashes in Africa, the Middle East, India, the Caucuses, central Asia, which added strain to the Huntingtonian model. When Medvedev himself and Putin mention the West, they were focusing on the idea that Europe and North America were declining power centers. Both in North America and Europe, there were writers, intellectuals and pundits who noticed that cultural trends in Europe and North America saw in the European case a marked increase in the Africanization and the Islamization of European Nation states and the United States, the rise of a Latin-American and Hispanic component, and immigration from many parts of the world that seemed to change the configuration of what Americans call the American Identity into politically correct racial classifications, to be construed as the opening chapter for the destruction of the Euro-American civilization.
The collapse of the Mexican-American border, the rise of Leftist, Communist, Socialist parties in Latin America strengthened the critical perception of the coming world order that challenged Euro-American expectations and norms and their Liberal Order, that in its evolution saw a shift from individual freedom to collective identities and gender. Trends in the world did not bespeak of a homogenous liberal world order, but of constant conflicts between different visions, such as the Gran Colombia- returning Latin America to the historical republic which was once composed of Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador[1]. The Communist vision of Gran Colombia repeats the Cuban revolutionary experience and conflicts directly with the North American ideals on personal freedoms and underlines Huntington’s model- the cultural makeup and beliefs of a region have a much greater impact than traditional borders.
Two decades later, the Ukrainian war seemed to match the world order that Huntington envisioned. In his model of international relations, the United States, European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada had denounced the February 24th 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine regardless of some UN positions, China, India, South Africa, and Latin American countries. Regardless of the anti-Russian pronouncements and policies of the NATO countries in North America and Japan, the Islamic world principally Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and the Arab block, India, China, and Latin America, especially Brazil, they backed Moscow or refused punish Russia with economic or trade sanctions. As Europe and North America called for a boycott of Russian energy supplies with the consequent damage for European economic growth, it escaped Washington, Brussels and London the fact that much of the world did not care about Russian actions. Huntington’s vision of civilizational conflict seemed to be confirmed by the events as they evolved on the battlefields of Ukraine. Western European and British arms supplies helped Ukraine to stop Russian advances, but as it was, Moscow was slowly moving into areas of Ukraine that came to be eventually, slowly annexed into the Russian Federation. As the war started, the President of Brazil, Bolsonaro, and Imran Han, the Prime Minister of Pakistan visited Moscow, the Western press and visual medias were giving their audiences the idea that the world was condemning Moscow, as it was, that did not seem to be the case. If anything, the conflict disrupted the international economic order that saw economic damage to Western Europe and a boost towards the inflationary cycle caused by high energy prices and post-Covid challenges in supply and demand in the world.
As the war evolved, two European, ostensibly neutral countries, Finland and Sweden, saw their Parliaments call for joining NATO. Turkey opposed their membership and blocked it on the contention that Sweden and Finland had engaged in policies that supported terrorism in Erdogan’s state. Medvedev’s arguments were not new, in that Russian nationalists and intellectuals, the West was considered degenerative and decaying. These arguments have been put forward for some time, not only in the Russian Federation, but also in the Islamic world.
The Russian confrontation with the West today sees echoes of 19th century pan-Slavic nationalism that saw Moscow as the third Rome and also underlined the idea of hierarchy, order, national identity and Christianity. Dostoyevsky’s story of the Grand Inquisitor within his 1880 novel, The Brothers Karamazov, is a guiding light to approach the decadence of the West as interpreted by Russians and arguably Latin Americans, Islamists, and Asians. The story told by Ivan to Alexi focuses on the fact that man has problems in handling freedom, and therefore, you need order, because the consequence of freedom is such that individuals are unhappy and uneasy in a society. The premise can be seen also in Nietzsche’s idea of the Death of God.
The liberal view of human nature has a very superficial understanding of human psychology and human behavior. Modern liberalism accepts conditions in the name of individual freedom, which Russian and Muslim critics see as elements of decadency, degeneracy, immorality, and a fundamental breakdown of traditional order. From gay marriage to surrogacy, concepts of gender fluidity, the denial of Judeo-Christian and Islamic values and the belief in God and the afterlife, the Dostoyevskian and Nietzschian construct adds even more substance to the Huntingtonian arguments. The spread of American social values and behavior through Western social media, Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, strengthens the argument that some Russians see in terms of an Anglo-American attempt to destroy the Russian Federation, seemingly confirmed by American Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin’s statement to reporters following a trip to Kyiv in 2022, “…we want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”[2]
These words ostensibly challenged Putin’s imperial civilization and vision of Russia.
In the study of International Relations, there are two basic approaches that have influenced the discipline and its history: one is Realism and the other is Idealism. Though methodologically and historically they have often overlapped, ever since the formation of a new world order formulated by Britain and the United States after World War I. An order that was reassessed after the failure of confronting the rise Germany, Japan, and Italy which lead to the disasters of World War II. Memories of such diplomatic debacles still inform Western and American leaders when now confronting the Russian military moves into Ukraine, and a challenge to American and British driven notions of European and international security today. On the other hand, the current conflict sees a NATO which now includes two previously neutral countries, Finland and Sweden, and an ever-greater inclination by neutral Switzerland to work with NATO. Moscow’s perception of American and European moves into Eastern Europe, goes back to the end of the Cold War when the Russians understood their withdrawal from Germany and Eastern Europe as a quid pro quo that could not see an expanding NATO[3], yet as it was, all of Eastern Europe joined NATO and saw a series of color revolutions and the decline of Russian influence in Ukraine and Georgia.
Unlike the post-war period, today the international system sees the rise of a seemingly imperial China, a possible challenge in the Indian state and lesser powers such as Iran and Turkey that are now shaping the configuration of power in the Eurasian land mass. As is, Britain, the US and Japan are naval powers with military and diplomatic preeminence complimented by Australia, Canada, and arguably Israel. The United States is also challenged by Fundamental demographic political shifts in South America which echo again the Cold War with the rise of Socialist anti-capitalist, anti-American, anti-European governments. The existence of Cuba today is a testimony to the appeals of Communism among Leftist radical movements in countries such as Columbia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, and Central America. The Latin American case sees also a rising China that is economically evermore present and interested in Latin America. Countries such as Brazil export beef to China, making up 40% of their beef imports, while Argentina has become the biggest exporter of soybeans to the Celestial Empire. Last year alone, they were worth 17 billion dollars. European and American attempts to penalize Russia for its invasion of Ukraine in terms of natural gas exports and oil has only meant that China, followed by India, have become ever bigger importers of Russian hydrocarbons.
The new world order that is evolving in the eyes of Moscow, Beijing, and Delhi sees a Europe swamped by African, North African, and Middle Eastern populations, that some Europeans perceive as barbarians intent on replacing native European populations. Critical observers can affirm that the same processes are taking place on the American southern borders, as immigrants from Latin America, Africa and the Middle East try to move to America through Latin America and Mexico, while camping on the Mexican-American border. All of these population and political shifts are seemingly compounded by climate change and food shortages, economic dislocation, inflationary spirals, and in some Western countries, forms of cultural angst and self-doubt. These trends are interpreted by Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Ankara, and Delhi as indicators of the breakdown of Western hegemony in the international system. The attempt to replace the dollar as a standard indicator of value in international economics and trade is now being challenged, especially by China, in the attempt to develop a new financial system beyond the institutional confines created after 1945 through the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, European Union and World Trade Organization.
The current war in Ukraine and the Anglo-American and NATO confrontation with Russia sees also the looming presence of China in the background as the Washington and NATO fear a Chinese support for a Russia that might have problems in terms of arms production and damage by Western boycotts. The ever-increasing economic preeminence of China in the international system and its systematic appropriation of Western technologies gives Beijing an ever-increasing ability to torpedo anti-Russian plans in the West, and of course the fact that Africa and the Islamic world as well as India maintain economic and diplomatic relations with Moscow weakens Euro-American positions. Russia is an eminent arms supplier to India and a lot of its arms technology has been adopted by Beijing. Russia’s basic weakness centers on the fact that in the last decade, Moscow came to rely on Western technologies for its industrial base. While this is true, it might give comfort to Brussels, Washington, Paris and London, it is easy to forget that Russia has the intellectual and organizational resources, as demonstrated during the Cold War, to compete with the West. Increasing reservations in Europe and among some American observers about the Ukraine war and its evolution give comfort to the Russian position that relies on economic and inflationary spirals and energy costs in Europe and North America. As is, any attempt to forecast the future developments in the international system in terms of possible outcomes of the conflict in Ukraine might be far-fetched, because in the final analysis, events will be influenced by the battlefield outcomes. Historically, the Russian state has shown a great resilience between Tsars and Communist leaders, in confronting Europeans and Americans. In Moscow’s attempt to be a great power and influence International relations to its strategic advantage, the great strength of Russia lies in the fact that it has energy, food, raw materials, and a population which accepts authoritarian leadership as being part of the Russian Identity and Russian prestige.
Often forgotten in the West is the fact that international conflicts come often to overlap in the mercurial, procrustean and shifting evolution of international dynamics. The Ukrainian conflict should be understood as overlapping with the Arab-Israeli confrontation, Iranian subversion of the Sunni world, the Indo-Pakistani-Kashmir confrontation, Afghanistan and the Caucuses, and Libya and North Africa, to mention only a few. What stands out and is noticed by many observers and critics of the war in Ukraine, the final winner might be Beijing. There is an Italian saying which is very appropriate in this context, roughly translated as ‘Between two warring partners, the third enjoy the outcome’. Past confrontations with Russia show that diplomatic compromises can appeal to Moscow as it has been the case from the Cuban Missile Crisis, to Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Any attempt to avoid an expansion of the Ukrainian War into the rest of Europe and the Mediterranean should be influenced by a Metternichian perspective. The rhetoric of climate change, food security, and yes, peace, could be a good starting point for diplomats and specialists seeking a solution to the confrontation with Moscow and indeed, Russian fears of Western Hegemony. A European world that would see Ukrainian neutrality, territorial adjustments acceptable to Russia, and a massive program of reconstruction.
[1] Skidmore, Thomas E., Peter H. Smith, and James Naylor Green. Modern Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
[2] Bertrand, Natasha, Kylie Atwood, Kevin Liptak, and Alex Marquardt. “Austin’s Assertion That US Wants to ‘Weaken’ Russia Underlines Biden Strategy Shift.” CNN. Cable News Network, April 26, 2022. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/25/politics/biden-administration-russia-strategy/index.html.
[3] Eckel, Mike. “Did the West Promise Moscow That NATO Would Not Expand? Well, It’s Complicated.” RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Did The West Promise Moscow That NATO Would Not Expand? Well, It’s Complicated., May 20, 2021. https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-expansion-russia-mislead/31263602.html.
Dr. Morris Mottale 
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