Ukraine 's Tragic Theatre: "End of Post -Cold War Era"?

                      Ukraine 's Tragic Theatre: "End of Post -Cold War Era?"
 
Major summits  across the globe continue to denounce the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to increasingly support Ukraine's sovereignty . These include the  UN General Assembly;  President Biden’s  State of the Union address to the US Congress; the Emergency  EU  parliament and parliamentary  sessions of the EU, Germany, UK;  the consolidation of NATO’s unity including Finland and Sweden, and in partnership with the US focusing on deterrence and defense without conditions;  and  the Regional groups of  the CARICOM Community and the African Union, among others.  At the time of writing,  there are planned meetings of  the UN Foreign Affairs Council and the  G7  with the likely announcements of  additional sanctions against Russia as well as Belarus. 
 
Ukraine’s display of strength of its nationalism  and the defiant war leadership of its President Zelenksy are among the amazing features of the country’s resilience against Putin’s nuclear threat and intent to take control of all Ukraine.  The  preoccupation from the summits across the globe  is finding the formula to stop Russia  from further aggression and countering  Putin’s   insistence on the need to “denazify  Ukraine” which is a illegitimate attempt to undermine  the sovereign rights of a state with implications for the survival of democracy  worldwide.  Among the questions: Does Russia’s  brutal assault  now raging  on Kyiv and Kherson signal the end of the post Cold War era?  With widespread calls for investigations of war crimes by  the International Court of Justice in The Hague  materialize?  What will it take to abate the indiscriminate bombing of civilians and aggression by the Russian state to create genocide?.
 
There has been a wide array of reports on 'the Ukraine tragic theatre'. This   Blog has identified some that    provide informed lessons learned from the history of wars  and future prospects of  reforms to global governance. Among them is an excellent analysis by Bruce Golding,  former Prime  Minister of Jamaica, now a resident scholar at UWI.  He refers to the  frightening parallels of mindsets between Hitler  and Putin  as well as between Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “Both were preceded by the bloodless invasion and annexation of adjoining territory — Austria by Hitler in 1938 and Crimea by Putin in 2014. Both were claimed to be justified in order to counter what was perceived to be a security threat — the “encirclement policy” by Britain, according to Hitler, and the presence of NATO forces in central and Eastern Europe, according to Putin” See Beyond Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - 
 https://guyanatimesgy.com/beyond-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/


Putin’s speeches prior to the invasion clearly help to place in perspective  that  the invasion of Ukraine constitutes the most serious challenge to global peace and security since Hitler’s campaign to conquer Europe in the late 1930s.  In this regard,  Golding’s conclusions are pertinent.   Putin's obsession with Russia restoring the power and influence formerly held by the Soviet Union;  he cares little about being branded a pariah;  and has total disregard for international law. His haunting question is worth much consideration "Could this be a  signal to other countries that seek to assert claims on other sovereign territory.  China’s eyes on Taiwan and those of Venezuela on Guyana come quickly to mind.” 
 
Putin,  Miscalculating?
 
In the Atlantic, February 19, 2002, Tom McTague   revealed the possibility that Putin’s next steps in Ukraine may be predicated on the assumption  of slippage in America’s global leadership, especially after the debacle in Afghanistan.  He  graphically describes how the  West today, is trapped between an old world that no longer exists and a new one that has yet to fully take shape. “This realization of how little has changed in terms of the fundamental anchor of European security applies to Europe’s “big three” as well. Each of these powers—Germany, France, and Britain—is playing a role coordinated by Washington.  Germany as economic leverage, France as diplomatic lead, Britain as the intelligence and military hawk. "Although each might have minor quibbles with the American approach, they have all largely stuck to their script.”  But there is a difference.  In an extraordinary statement to the Special Session of the German Parliament, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a one time increase of 100 billion euros ($113 billion) for defense spending of more than 2 percent of Germany’s economic output annually on defense.    See what the Ukraine Crisis reveals about American Power.  
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/02/russia-ukraine-invasion-american-role/622864/622864/
 
Putin’s miscalculation is evident in the thrust of  Biden’s State of the union address and the sequence of more recent events in NATO ,  EU  and most of the Global community.  They  have  so clearly demonstrated USA’s  pivotal role in  Europe  and a more global unified position on Ukraine through ‘careful and conciliatory diplomacy’. The  biting and widespread  nature of economic  sanctions including  coordinated fiscal policies, export controls and planned high tech takeaways  for a  post fossil future development are major signals for the reemergence of vibrant multilateralism that even includes Switzerland and Monaco.     Putin’s isolation is like a self inflicting wound. But there are several ironies.
 
UN Security Council in need of Radical Change 
 
One irony is the United Nations General Assembly  rare emergency session to discuss Russia's invasion of Ukraine while members of the UN Security Council met to discuss the humanitarian effects of the crisis after Russia vetoed a resolution deploring its actions. This situation highlights once again that the  veto power of the Security Council’s five permanent members—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States — is a major stumbling block to peace. It means in this case, the U.S. and its allies can impose sanctions only through a “coalition of the willing.”  A Brookings op ed March 3 by Kendal Dervish and  Jose Da Campo, aptly justifies the need to change the system:  “the fact that an increasingly illegitimate and ineffective Security Council lies at the heart of today’s multilateral system is all the more unfortunate given the growing range of threats to peace and security.  These include not only conventional acts of aggression of the sort the world is witnessing in Ukraine—and which could yet escalate to nuclear exchanges—but also other security threats posed by new technologies”.  This means  advocating radically for changing the way the Security Council operates,  by adding a clause to Article 27 that would allow a large double majority—representing, for example, at least two-thirds of member countries and two-thirds of the world’s population—to override a veto. 
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/will-ukraines-tragedy-spur-un-security-council-reform/

The Possibility of a China-Russia Alliance
 
Another  irony is,  that by tacitly backing Putin, Xi has all but confirmed Western hawks’ greatest fears about an authoritarian arc stretching from St. Petersburg to Shanghai, harking back to the Sino-Soviet alliance of the 1950s.  Stronger Beijing-Moscow ties, simply provide democratic rivals— US and Europe —  a rallying point together with a consolidated and coordinated NATO.  Foremost in Xi’s mind might be what the Ukraine crisis means for his desire to recapture Taiwan, the self-ruling island that broke from the mainland following China’s 1945-49 civil war, and whose unification he has repeatedly called “the great trend of history.”

Russia and the Pervasive pursuit of Domination 
 
Ironically, one of   the most philosophically poignant evaluation of the Russia-Ukraine issue was presented by  Martin Kimani, the Kenyan Ambassador to the United Nations.  He explicitly linked the colonial history of his own country to that of Ukraine in a speech to the Security Council on February 7.  He drew a parallel  between Africa and Ukraine locating deep historical, cultural and linguistic bonds of people across their borders that they had no role in drawing. “The Ukrainians as with many families, including my own, have been split across the Russia-Ukraine border. “These separations are largely accidents of history, one of the lasting effects of the collapse the Soviet Union. But this sense of kinship, cannot justify invasion: “We must complete our recovery from the embers of dead empires in a way that does not plunge us back into new forms of domination and oppression.”
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2022/02/27/exp-gps-0227-kenyas-kimani-on-ukraine.cnn’
 
Conclusion: Zelensky  rising star in  the Global Theatre 
 
War in Ukraine  escalated by the  Russian leader in an unacceptable manner has led  to an estimated one million of refugees from Ukraine escaping  especially to  Poland, Romania, Slovakia,  Hungary, Moldova. But the  people of Ukraine are showing that principles of freedom and democracy are  worth fighting for  and its  national anthem “Ukraine has not yet Perished” is at the top of the charts in Europe and elsewhere.  Putin is no doubt  enraged by Ukraine’s affirmation of the liberal democratic project.  Yet,   of all the ironies is President Volodymyr Zelensky astutely honing  his skills as an actor and comedian and  communications savvy to galvanize  the national Ukraine spirit and  sway global audiences.  With  unprecedented grit and determination he has  transformed the imagery of his leadership into an unlikely champion for Ukrainians and the World.  
 
 
Eddie  Greene