Fernando Alcoforado*
This article analyzes the future developments of the war between Russia and Ukraine and the need for world governance to avoid new international conflicts and preserve world peace. In a recent article that we published under the title “The Russia and Ukraine conflict as a new focus of war in the world”, we stated that the war between Russia and Ukraine could happen as a result of the anti-Russia position taken by the far-right government of Ukraine presided over by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was negotiating the country’s accession to the European Union and NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Western military alliance that was formed in 1949 to face the Soviet Union during the Cold War) placing himself as an ally of the United States and the European powers and the position taken by President Wladimir Putin of Russia when considering that Ukraine’s incorporation into NATO would threaten the country’s integrity, given that, since the end of the Soviet Union in 1989, Russia has been encircled with the co-optation of former allies of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe from an economic point of view with their accessions to the European Union and from a military point of view with their accessions to NATO. For Putin, Ukraine’s incorporation into NATO would complete the siege of Russia, making it vulnerable. The causes of the war between Russia and Ukraine are therefore mainly geopolitical and strategic. What is at stake is not, in reality, the pure and simple accession of Ukraine to the European Union and NATO, but the survival of Russia itself, which feels threatened by the incorporation of Ukraine by the Western powers from an economic and military point of view.
Ukraine has become an important piece in international geopolitical chess because, on the one hand, the United States and its allies in the European Union aim to expand the siege of Russia that began after the end of the Soviet Union in 1989 when several countries then allied to it, such as Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and Czech Republic joined NATO. Former socialist countries allied to the Soviet Union, such as Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic joined the European Union. Countries like Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia and Albania are awaiting approval to join the European Union. The siege of Russia would be completed with the incorporation of Ukraine into NATO and the European Union, as desired by the United States and the Ukrainian government (See Figure 1). Faced with this fact, Russia’s military strategy is to avoid at all costs the incorporation of Ukraine into NATO and the European Union.
It is worth noting that NATO’s expansion movement began with the end of the Soviet Union in 1989, starting at the Baltic Sea, crossing Central Europe, Ukraine and Belarus, passing through the intervention in the Balkans (former Yugoslavia) and reaching the Central Asia and Pakistan, expanding NATO’s borders. At the end of the 1990s, the geopolitical distribution of the new US military bases leaves no doubt about the existence of a new “sanitary belt” separating Germany from Russia and Russia from China. The expansion of NATO towards Russian borders is the main external danger to Russia. The arrival of Vladimir Putin to power in Russia radically changed this geopolitical picture, until then very unfavorable for the Russians. Vladimir Putin’s coming to power in Russia in 2000 marked the beginning of Russia’s geopolitical recovery, whose position had been greatly weakened during the Yeltsin government in the 1990s. Putin represents the rise to power of a broad and solid coalition of interests of economic and political groups that united on the need to recompose the minimum bases of operation of a modern capitalist state in Russia that would overcome the wild and predatory phase of “primitive accumulation” in the Russian Federation with Yeltsin in power. The geopolitical recovery of Russia was made possible thanks to Putin’s affirmation of a nationalist project for the recovery of the Russian state.
Figure 1- The siege of Russia by NATO in Europe
It was from the year 2000 that Russia decided to develop a strategic partnership with China. Russia considered that China could help it resist US geopolitical ambitions in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus or Central Asia. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was created in 2001 to establish an alliance between Russia and China in military terms and in the fight against terrorism, religious fundamentalism and separatism in the Asia region. The SCO is a political and military cooperation organization that explicitly sets out to be a counterweight to the United States and NATO’s military forces. The two countries generally defend converging positions at the UN and other international forums, such as the G20.
There are two future scenarios for the war between Russia and Ukraine; 1) The military conflict is restricted to Ukraine; and, 2) The conflict extends across Europe and the world. If the conflict is confined to Ukraine, Russia will be able to militarily occupy the entire country to impose its will on the enemy. The Putin government will try to overthrow President Zelinskyy of Ukraine to install a pro-Russian Ukrainian government. The conflict could initially become widespread in Europe if NATO intervenes militarily alongside the government of Ukraine. This would pave the way for a new world war with the involvement of major military powers with unpredictable consequences with the use of nuclear weapons because Putin has threatened to retaliate against countries that intervene militarily in support of Ukraine. The two scenarios mentioned above will have major consequences, not only geopolitical, but also economic for all countries in the world. From a geopolitical point of view, it may mean a change in the correlation of forces from a military point of view with the strengthening of the military union between Russia and China, both allies in the confrontation with the United States, and the further decline of this country as a world power. From an economic point of view, the destabilization of the world economy may occur.
The destabilization of the world economy will have a strong impact on Russia, Ukraine and several European countries that will suffer a great economic impact. Ukraine is currently commercially and economically dependent on Russia, mainly because it supplies it with natural gas, the country’s primary energy source, and Russia is the main buyer of numerous raw materials produced by the Ukrainian economy. Furthermore, in eastern Ukraine where Russian is still spoken, many companies rely on sales to Russia. Ukraine cannot detach itself from Russia, on which it depends a lot, especially for its gas supply. Not only the Ukrainians will be harmed, but also Russia, which may have its exports of natural gas and oil to Europe compromised, given that it may stop supplying these fuels to several countries in the region. It is important to highlight the fact that gas and oil exports to Europe finance about half of the entire Russian federal annual budget that could be compromised with the end of the supply of oil and natural gas to Europe. Russia will be able to overcome this problem by exporting natural gas in large volume to China to compensate for the end of supply to European countries. As Russia is the world’s largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, it could gain a lot with the likely rise in the price of oil and increasing its exports to China. Europe will also be harmed because it may have the cessation of Russian supplies of oil and natural gas. Europe consumes 70% of the oil and 65% of the natural gas exported by Russia. Several countries in Europe depend on Russian oil and natural gas. Countries like Germany and England are increasingly dependent on Russia for their fuel supply. Countries like Slovakia and Bulgaria depend 100% on Russia for their fuel supply. Finally, the world economy will be impacted by the vertiginous increase in the price of oil and natural gas with Russia’s withdrawal from supply to European countries. Brazil will be one of the countries that will be greatly affected by the war between Russia and Ukraine because fuel prices will increase significantly because they are linked to the price of oil on the international market and the value of the dollar.
The war between Russia and Ukraine means the continuity of the old world order in which conflicts of interests between the great powers have been resolved by “manu-militare”, that is, by military means. For centuries, humanity has faced conflicts between the great powers that are not resolved by diplomatic means but by military means because we live in a world without a world government and international law that be respected by all countries, especially by the great powers that seek to impose their will on the world stage. Without the existence of a world government and a world parliament democratically elected by the world’s population, international law cannot be applied effectively. It is urgent for humanity to equip itself, as urgently as possible, with the necessary instruments to build a world of peace. Throughout human history there have been three attempts to structure instruments aimed at building a world of peace. The first attempt took place in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia that put an end to the “Thirty Years’ War” (1618 – 1648) that marked the 17th century as one of the bloodiest conflicts in European history. The second attempt to structure instruments aimed at building a world of peace took place with the creation of the League of Nations on January 10, 1920 in the rubble of the 1st World War. The third attempt to structure instruments aimed at building a world of peace took place with the creation of the UN (United Nations), which was founded after the 2nd World War and has been inoperative throughout its history, including in the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The UN has been a failure to build a world of peace.
The failure to build world peace with the Treaty of Westphalia, the League of Nations and the UN demonstrate the urgency of restructuring the UN so that it can exercise an effective governance of the international system that makes it possible to mediate international conflicts and ensure world peace. The world government to be exercised by the UN, whose General Assembly would be transformed into a World Parliament, would aim to defend the general interests of the planet, ensure that each national state respects the sovereignty of other countries and prevent the spread of global systemic risks. The restructured UN would avoid the empire of a single country as has happened throughout human history and the anarchy of all countries as it currently occurs. With a world government and a world parliament it will be possible to fight the war and end the bloodbath that has characterized the history of humanity throughout history. With the UN restructured, the Security Council would no longer exist. To be democratic, the world government must be representative of all the peoples of the world. Com a ONU reestruturada, deixaria de existir o exdrúxulo Conselho de Segurança. Humanity’s survival depends on the ability to enter into a Planetary Social Contract that is representative of the will of the majority of the planet’s population. Until that happens, new conflicts like the current one between Russia and Ukraine could happen.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 82, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019) and A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021) .
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