By: Yusa Djuyandi, Lecturer and Researcher in Politics and Security Studies, Universitas Padjadjaran, Indonesia
One of the most significant shifts in international politics and society in the twenty-first century has been the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Rumor had it that the war between Russia and Ukraine started because of the Ukrainian political movement’s desire to join NATO. Given that Ukraine was one of the previous members of the USSR-created Warsaw Pact, this is a contentious issue.
Russia was incensed by this as, to the communist nation, it was akin to inviting an enemy in through the front door. The United States, the nation that opposes Russia the most and has a long-standing hatred against it, supports NATO.
Because of Ukraine’s sudden change to joining NATO, Russia sees the movement from Ukraine as a threat for the country because of the long rivalry between both countries as the main powerhouses of international powers. As for the war itself, this has affected a lot of countries outside of the conflicting countries. An International crisis rose during the war, this has been predicted due to Russia will make a more close and tight international policy may it be economic or political during the war.
If we saw through a realism theory, this war happened for Russia being rational as the Ukraine joining NATO will endanger their position to be invaded by the west. This way of seeing is due to the anarchical system of the global world itself. There is no evidence or claims that are strong enough to back up Russia if they were not being threatened by the presence of NATO close to the Russian border. With Ukraine joining NATO, Russia were becoming more exposed against their opponents to attack whether it was a cyber threat or even an armed threat.
In the Realism Theory itself, every nation and country was seen as a rational being. Due to its rationality, they will act rationally while looking at the possibility and situation in the international community (Crawford, 2001). If Ukraine was to join NATO, the US and its allies would be able to spy on Russia more flexibly and thus put Russia in a more vulnerable position. This clearly will put Russia in a disadvantage and also endanger Russia as a whole itself. After through a diplomatic way to convince Ukraine not to join NATO, Ukraine did not bulge and still being consistent with their policy to join NATO. This triggers Russia to Invade Ukraine and thus creating an armed conflict to force Ukraine to stop their intention to join NATO. What Russia was doing was realistic and rational in theory,
because it was to ensure their own safety and peace in an anarchical international community which has no higher authority or entity to guarantee peace and safety to Russia (Murphy & Gleek, 2016). In realism theory, every country in the international system is being anarchical to one another. There is no higher authority that will be able to intervene and create international safety and create an international peace because there is no single country or entity that would be able to establish full dominance over other countries and the international community. (Heywood, 2011) All of the countries that were in the international society were living in an anarchical system. As for Russia’s armed invasion of Ukraine, Russia is rational to their choices to invade the country. It was because there was no higher authority that could give Russia a guarantee that if Ukraine joined NATO, Russia wouldn’t be intervened by the West. So the most rational choice against a situation like that was to prevent Ukraine joining NATO, and then the armed invasion and the war began.
This sequence of phenomena was similar to the Republic of Cuba being invaded by the United States when they declared their independence and the use of the communist ideology in their country. According to the Cuban Missile Crisis, The United States sees this as an act of violation and puts The United States in the disadvantage as the USSR is easier to intervene against the United States through Cuba. This has made The United States do several following actions in response to Fidel Castro’s regime in Cuba. Several military operations have been initiated to prevent the crisis, the final operation happened when the invasion in the bay of pigs happened and then The United States was able to overthrow the Cuban Army along with Castro and its regime (Miller & McAuliffe, 1994). Although the situation in the moment was different, as in the Republic of Cuba during the cold war, this could have the same reason why the invasion happened.
In today’s international political situation, The United States and Russia are seen as the biggest powerhouses that keep struggling against each other. This was reflected with both being the Veto holder respectively in the United Nations. Both are still struggling with conflict of interest in the international conflicts and affairs. Their struggles for power have been for ages to date now, as the United States and Russia keep intervening each other even without a straight conflict. The two have always seemed to be involved in a lot of proxy war since the cold war even to today’s modern and contemporary era. A lot of today’s conflicts were supported by one another to gain domination against each other.
If the international system was anarchical, it would always be possible for war and conflict. Because every country was seen as an egoistic entity that always had eyes for more power and authority. (Heywood, 2011) There is no single higher authority that could
guarantee their safety and peace. Every country will do the most rational way possible to keep their sovereignty and peace. What Russia has done is rational, although even it was quite controversial and possibly creating a bigger threat of world war happening again. For the time being, both Ukraine and Russia have suffered losses from the conflict. But for Russia, this was seen as a symbol of nationalism and sovereignty of their country. This proves that Russia is still one of the biggest powerhouses along with other countries. As for Ukraine, this being a symbol of their freedom to choose for their international policy. Although it cannot be mistaken that international policy in the international system does not affect Ukraine alone. Their movement and policy will bring massive changes to the current international politics and thus, creating a conflict of interest that results in a war.
The Russian and Ukraine conflict is one of the massive political changes, and proves that in the realism theory that the international system was still anarchical. Even if there was a United Nations (UN), there is still no guarantee over the peacekeeping of the international society. The United Nations position is still a question even to time being, is it really functional or just being a symbol of meaningless unification. It was the same question for the League of Nations after World War 1, which brought no effect due to World War 2 still happening along the way.
Although there is still a big effect for the international society, The United Nations seems to be powerless when brought to peacekeeping and preventing a war from happening. This was also proven by the lack of effort and evidence that there is a true movement or things that the United Nations do against the rising conflict in Russia and Ukraine. The United Nations also seemed powerless most of the time because there is not just Russia and Ukraine conflict that are happening, there is also Israel and Palestine and a lot of other international conflict and affairs that are going but United Nations seems to being silent for the moment with no true actions or policy to really solve conflicts in the International and global world. This is due to the fact that even the United Nations is still being controlled by the dominant countries to follow their agenda and seems to move when it is giving an advantage to those dominant countries with their agenda. If there was really a need and will to create a single higher authority in the international society, it needs to be neutral and objective. It needs to be that their agenda was not driven by those who had the supreme power of other countries. Until this modern day, the single authority that could do all of the peacekeeping, safekeeping and ensuring the safety of all of the nations did not exist.
All conflicts, including the one between Russia and Ukraine, might be permanently avoided if it were to exist at some point in time. It is likely that the realism theory will be disrupted and new theories and paradigms will emerge if the countries, who are the international actors, ultimately agree to create the higher authority institution.
REFERENCE
Crawford. R.M.A. (2001). Idealism and realism in international relations beyond the discipline. Routledge.
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Realism. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved December 15, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/realism-political-and-social-science
Heywood, A. (2011). Global politics. Palgrave Macmillan.
Korab-Karpowicz, W. J. (2017, May 24). Political realism in international relations. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved December 15, 2022, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-intl-relations/
Russia’s Coming Great Power Struggle. Russia’s Coming Great Power Struggle | Center for Strategic and International Studies. (2022, December 13). Retrieved December 15, 2022, from https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-coming-great-power-struggle
Miller, L. K., & McAuliffe, M. (1994). The Cuban Missile Crisis. OAH Magazine of History, 8(2), 24–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25162944
