“The relationship between the United States, China and Russia is more dysfunctional than ever,” said a pessimistic UN Secretary General in 2020, on the anniversary of the United Nations amid the Covid-19 pandemic.This statement anticipated an increasingly tense international order, where emerging powers such as China demanded a greater role, the United States tried to balance its troubled domestic politics with its global influence, and Russia became a pariah for the West. Different “tectonic plates” in motion that express the rivalry among the great powers.
The illegitimate military action of Russia in Ukraine, unexpected due to its intensity and duration over time, raises many questions, but one of them is rather a verification of reality: the international system, as we know it, has no responses to the current conflicts. The limited relevance of the UN in the war, whose Security Council is paralyzed, coupled with difficulties in the past to other organizations such as the WTO in the face of the trade war and the recently questioned (and today revitalized) NATO, where Trump and Macron themselves came to describe it as “obsolete” or “brain dead”, demonstrate that the international multilateral system needs to be re-thinking.
The impotence of the international system – clear in the current war – has made it incapable of controlling the Russian impetus, as in the past it was unable to contain the Sino-American trade confrontation and the US invasion of Iraq. The harsh reality is that the rule-based international order is unable of curbing the will of a power: only another power or a group of them can do it. The loss of relevance of the international order is also manifested in the way the allied powers act against Russia: a collective action, even coordinated at the level of economic sanctions and military support for Kyev, but without further communication with international organizations such as the UN. This form of action, where organizations and international law become a sort of mere spectators, involves risks, especially for small and medium-sized nations that remain at the mercy of “the law of the strongest”.
How to combat this growing incapacity of the international multilateral system? First, we must start with the self-criticism of the organizations themselves. Excessive bureaucracy to manage budgets, accountability problems in international cooperation, lack of political diversity and an agenda that is often distant from citizens. International organizations continue to operate under a cold war logic, but little connected with the new geopolitical scenario.The second, and fundamental, responds to the powers themselves. At the end of the day, a new architecture in the international order will be the result of whatever the powers want it to be. International organizations are relevant to the extent that they have the commitment of the powers and international law will be revitalized if the big ones start by leading by example. This will mean concessions on both sides, acknowledging the rebalancing of power in recent decades, but drawing clearer lines in terms of security, democracy and defense of human rights.
The current dysfunctionality makes the task more difficult to undertake. But there is no other alternative. Not only the current woes of war, the pandemic and a fragile economy will require global coordination. It will also be the humanitarian crisis, the new strategies for food and energy security, climate change or the fight against new forms of terrorism. None of these tasks can be successfully addressed in the dysfunctionality of these times. And while the world continues to move towards its fragmentation and the perception of disorder continues to increase, the containment of war risks will be increasingly difficult. Let the current tragedy in Ukraine serves as a lesson.
Fuente: SACRU