After a lot of speculation and chaos built up over time, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has finally happened, an event which is now considered as the beginning of World War III.
End of Liberal World Order Approaching: Courtesy Biden’s America First Policy
As the cold war wrapped up in 1991, it was considered as the end of history, where liberal political order was established fully.
Thus the struggle which was initiated at the end of World War II with the establishment of the liberal political institutions, predominately the United Nations, was realized fully.
However, power politics and the doctrine of political realism are unfolding yet again, and only within a window of a few years, the liberal democratic system has faced a critical blow.
The return of the Afghan Taliban and the haphazard surrender of the United States to the insurgents; aggressive Chinese posture against Taiwan; military coup in Myanmar, popular uprising in Kazakhstan, and now Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, everything is pointing toward the inefficiency of the political institution that the world created for the sake of the promotion of liberal political agenda, i.e., the United Nations.
The United States is facing a double-ended sort as of now. Joe Biden has to take politically unpopular decisions if he really wants to make Russia accountable.
For instance, Biden announced not to exclude Russia from the SWIFT banking network, a US-based financial banking system mandated with carrying on financial transactions.
Doing so could have impacted Russian oil exports, hence giving Putin a severe blow. However, at the same time, it could have increased oil prices for American consumers before the midterm elections.
This can diminish Democrats’ chances in the midterm elections, where they are already gasping to retain the majority of Congress.
This is yet another example of the realistic world order where Biden is willing to walk on the path of his predecessor Donald Trump’s “America first” policy by defying global interests.
This Russian invasion of Ukraine tells another miserable story that can become true in the forthcoming days. All American intelligence regarding the Russian clandestine military build-up on Ukraine turned out to be true, and even though Putin was persistent in denying any invasion, he did it at the end of the day.
China, which sits on the border of Russia, is also likely to forward its own ambitions against Taiwan now. China is a kind of state which risks everything for the sake of monetary profit, as it believes that economic strongholds always precede diplomatic clout.
This is the reason why it is expanding chains of its infrastructure projects across the globe in the form of the Belt and Road Initiative. So, China wanted the Winter Olympics to conclude as invading Taiwan earlier could have risked hosting the Olympics in China.
Now, as the Olympics are done, China can easily come back to its original posture after seeing that Russia successfully managed to get away with sanctions that the United States put on it.
An ideal time of invasion for China would also be before the November midterm elections of the United States as Biden would not be able to retaliate strongly considering the counter-sanctions by China, which could push American consumers to the wall, hence affecting election results for Biden.
The US withdrawal of Afghanistan did actually pave the way for Russia to invade Ukraine, as it allowed Putin to believe that Americans were no longer interested in the region.
Even though Biden announced the AUKUS strategy, it was hardly perceived as a deterrent by Putin.
Is Russian Invasion the Death of NATO?
Both NATO and the United Nations came into being in the second half of the fifth decade of the last century in 1949 and 1945, respectively.
Earlier it was thought that the United Nations was doing well that it averted any major war since its establishment. However, it was never fed by the western powers, especially America, as a result of which it continued to lose its political clout.
How can the United States think to nourish a political institution when it itself invaded Iraq against the recommendations of the same body?
How can these sorts of institutions prosper when their recommendations regarding climate change and COVID vaccine equity are continuously ignored by presidents of both parties?
Final Thoughts
Thus the unfolding death of the liberal political institution did not come overnight. Instead, it was a long journey when the United States kept fueling the fire, which encouraged the likes of Russia and China to develop a whole system in parallel based on the combination of hard and soft power, which seems to hold too much significance in the times of post-liberal world order created after World War II.
Now it is only a matter of time before China can adopt the same policy, which would ultimately be the last nail in the liberal world order.
Eli is a Political Data Scientist with over thirty years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Eli uses his expertise to give the latest information and distinctive analysis on US Political News, US Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Racial Justice equipping readers with the inequivalent knowledge.