(East-West Question) Tian Feilong: How does the Russian-Ukrainian war reflect the dilemma of global security governance?
China News Agency, Beijing, March 6th: How does the Russian-Ukrainian war reflect the dilemma of global security governance?
Author Tian Feilong Associate Professor of Law School of Beihang University, Director of National Hong Kong and Macao Research Association
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues to be a global focus.
From Russia's point of view, the essence of this conflict is a national security crisis brought about by NATO's eastward expansion. Therefore, it is necessary to obtain a negotiating position with NATO and seek a favorable security mechanism by demonstrating its military strength.
From NATO's point of view, Ukraine's pursuit of joining NATO is a sovereign state affair, and Russia should not interfere, and Russia's entry into Ukrainian territory to fight is to change the status of a sovereign state by force, which is unacceptable in international law.
The two positions are diametrically opposed, and the struggle for international law is unprecedentedly fierce.
On February 28, local time, the latest satellite image of Maxar technology company of the United States showed a military convoy assembled near Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.
Ukraine issue is not purely a matter of sovereign decision-making
Sovereignty and security are not simply equivalent legal concepts.
Sovereignty is a product of the nation-state era, and it is also the core principle of international law established by the Westphalian system after the "Thirty Years War" in Europe.
Sovereignty can serve as a shield of national defense against foreign aggression or oppression and requires equal treatment by the international community.
However, the truth of international law has never been a simple history and narrative of sovereign equality, but a complex system and vivid scene of dynamic balance under the coordination of great powers, spheres of influence, alliance systems, and contradictory movements of hegemony in large spaces.
From the "Holy Alliance" in Vienna after the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, to the "Versailles-Washington System" after World War I and the "Yalta System" after World War II, this historical evolution of global security governance has shown limitations of war, national self-determination, The principles of human rights protection and global peace have been institutionalized to a certain extent, but they also include the dynamic balance of the sphere of influence and power of major powers.
In the competition and balance of major powers, the alliance behavior of countries in sensitive geographical areas (such as Ukraine's entry into NATO) is not a matter of pure sovereignty decision-making, nor is it a matter of developing new members of NATO in legal procedures, but the forces between major powers The question of balance and mutual security.
Ukraine's sovereign freedom is objectively restricted and constrained by the fragile security relationship between Russia and NATO, which requires Ukrainian decision-makers to deeply understand their own situation and sensitivity, and fully assess geo-security when considering major national geopolitical choices. risk of struggle.
The decision of the Ukrainian authorities to join NATO and the implementation of political, military, language and cultural measures to suppress "pro-Russian factions" in the country show the imprudence and difficulty of their political choices.
On March 1, in the operating hall of a local bank in Moscow, customers were waiting for business.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Tian Bing
The West just needs a 'broken' Russia
Of course, the rashness of relevant decision-making is related to the influence and interests of Ukraine’s “pro-Western faction” occupying the democratic majority, to the long-term strong penetration and binding of Western forces to Ukraine’s political, cultural and social elites, and to Ukraine’s own Anti-Russian ideology and populization, "democratic majority tyranny" and other factors.
Democratic Ukraine is culturally and politically immature, and its democratization process has not produced the wisdom to survive in the cracks of international politics and the ability to judge and manage geopolitical risks.
Before the war, Russia had requested NATO to issue a legal guarantee document on Russia's security concerns in a manner similar to an "ultimatum". Form a written legal document; on the other hand, Ukraine has a special and extremely sensitive position with regard to Russian national sentiments, geo-security, plans for the Eurasian Economic Union, and strategic balance with NATO, which accepts Ukraine and deploys large-scale deployments on the Russian border Threatening weapon systems are unacceptable to Russia.
But the U.S. and NATO did not substantively address Russia’s security concerns in their response documents.
NATO is trying to force Russia to accept the "new reality" of geopolitics step by step by means of ambiguity, delay, deception and "cutting sausages", and extremely squeezes and empties Russia's strategic security space and its resource elements.
This shows that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the expansion of the "liberal empire" (the core of which is the United States) represented by NATO's eastward expansion was unrestrained and credible, and Russia's "pro-Western" efforts to "de-Cold War" even hoped to integrate into the West were ultimately It was declared a failure, and all the effects of the "shock therapy" had disappeared.
The West does not need a strong Russia, but only a "fragmented" Russia, which must constantly stimulate and strengthen Russian nationalism.
The political logic of the Ukrainian war is essentially Russian nationalism's resistance to the expansionary NATO "Atlantic liberalism".
This kind of resistance has both the historical tradition and traces of the “balance of power among the great powers” within the scope of pan-European politics, as well as the criticism and struggle against American imperial hegemony by civilized powers seeking rejuvenation in the post-Cold War context.
Only a monotonous event analysis based on the Ukrainian sovereignty narrative is obviously unable to reveal the profound historical background and the complexity of the disputes behind the war.
The United States may be the biggest beneficiary of this Ukraine crisis: the Nord Stream 2 project is frozen, high-quality European capital has returned, the EU and other Western allies have been integrated into a tighter alliance system in the name of the "Russian threat", and the legal system of the United Nations The struggle has put Russia in a passive position while launching the toughest sanctions program against Russia, including kicking Russia out of the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) system.
By creating and detonating the Ukraine crisis, the U.S. economic system ushered in a "return of blood" effect, and the U.S. leadership and hegemony in the democratic world was consolidated.
But the Ukraine crisis has not been resolved, and the United States has not offered a constructive, institutionalized solution.
Perhaps, the continuous acquisition of the benefits of the crisis is the real "imperial reason" of the United States.
The United States has no suspense to seek "sanctions" resolutions within the framework of the United Nations, but NATO's over-limited military assistance and the "Foreign Assistance Corps" have already been substantially activated, and the risk and scale of war are expanding.
On March 4, local time, the UN Security Council held an emergency public meeting on the safety of nuclear facilities in Ukraine at the UN headquarters in New York.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liao Pan
Great powers are the source of war and the foundation of peace
The security governance system under the framework of the United Nations has once again exposed its limitations on the Ukraine issue: First, in the Security Council procedure, Russia is one of the five permanent members and has a "one-vote veto" over substantive sanctions resolutions. Russia has resolutely exercised it. With this veto power, the Security Council cannot act, and the NATO coalition cannot be named "United Nations Army"; secondly, the United States adjusts its strategy and pushes the Security Council to pass a procedural resolution to convene an emergency UN General Assembly meeting. It has enforcement power, but it can give some kind of moral legitimacy to the collective security measures taken by the US-led NATO.
The United Nations system and its security governance order established in 1945 have a principled agreement that the governance of global security affairs should be based on the unanimity of the major powers (that is, the five permanent members).
The essence of international law is to regulate war and peace affairs, limit war and promote peace. Therefore, the most important mission and power of the United Nations is also reflected in the right to govern security.
From historical experience, great powers are the source of war and the foundation of peace.
This is the historical rationale behind the Security Council's "great power veto".
Once the major powers are divided, the governance capacity of the Security Council will "peak".
Some people propose to abolish Russia's permanent membership and veto power, which is a rash opinion without understanding the history of international law and the principles of the United Nations system.
No matter where Russia is or how it is treated, it is an objective power. The UN system that excludes Russia will only rapidly shrink into an expanded version of the "new NATO system", and it will be even less able to carry out effective global security governance.
On the issue of Ukraine, the interests of Europe and the United States are not aligned, especially on the energy and refugee issues. If the European Union lacks self-interest and political consciousness, the heavy burden and aftermath of the war will cause serious damage to European development and further aggravate Europe’s concern for the United States. Dependence in the areas of security and energy, thereby consolidating American hegemony within the American alliance system and advancing imperial domination over Europe.
Of course, this may be exactly what the US wants, but not necessarily what the EU leaders want.
On March 3, local time, the Russian and Ukrainian delegations held the second round of negotiations in the Belovezh Forest in Belarus.
The two sides reached an agreement on the establishment of humanitarian channels and agreed to start the next round of negotiations as soon as possible.
It is reported that the second round of negotiations lasted two and a half hours.
The picture shows the meeting site.
Crisis is not without a way out
In short, the war in Ukraine has highlighted the dilemma of global security governance and exceeded the limits of the framework of the United Nations security system, but it does not mean that the crisis has no way out.
The crux of the Ukraine crisis lies in the geo-security crisis brought about by NATO's eastward expansion. The juxtaposition of security and sovereignty is the core issue that must be addressed to resolve the crisis.
Pursuing sanctions resolutions, sanctions actions, military assistance actions and their expansion based solely on sovereign logic may be completely different actions. As a result, one side (the U.S. side) benefits and many parties suffer.
The rational way out is to focus on security concerns, propose targeted institutional solutions, then negotiate and resolve sovereignty issues, restore peace, and establish an indivisible and sustainable security system.
The Ukraine crisis has further exposed NATO’s expansive nature and the source of conflict, how the framework of international law checks and balances NATO’s hegemony, and how to form a “peaceful international law” that prevents the United States from using NATO’s global expansion (especially the Indo-Pacific), which is also the pursuit of stability in the 21st century. The key to peace and order.
Global security governance is the core institutional foundation of permanent peace for mankind, but the Ukraine crisis once again exposed the institutional shortcomings of the existing UN system.
The "international law of peace" in the 21st century still needs to be reviewed and developed normatively, and it is necessary to respect, guide and institutionalize the governance tradition of sovereignty, multi-level security and coordination among major powers.
Whether the war in Ukraine is the modernization and persistence of the traditional European-style conflict between the great powers, or a major opportunity for the normative development of "peaceful international law", and how China plays a constructive, intermediary and institutional development role in it, still requires careful observation, judge and respond.
(over)
About the Author:
Tian Feilong, a native of Lianshui, Jiangsu, is an associate professor at the Advanced Research Institute/School of Law, Beihang University, executive director of the One Country, Two Systems Legal Research Center, a master tutor, and a doctor of law from Peking University.
He was a short-term visiting scholar at the Federal Institute of Fribourg University in Switzerland (2009.8-2009.9) and served as a Leslie Wright Fellow of the Law School of the University of Hong Kong (2014-2015).
The main research directions are Constitutional and Political Theory, Comparative Law and Global Governance, and Basic Law of Hong Kong and Macau.
He is also a director of the National Hong Kong and Macao Research Association and a director of the Law Research Association on Cross-Strait Relations.
He has translated 12 books including "Introduction to Federalism" and "Constitutional Views of the American Revolution".
He is the author of 8 monographs including "The Road to Rule of Law in Modern China", "Observation on Hong Kong Political Reform", "The Chinese Way of Political Constitution" and "Hong Kong New Order".
Young academic representatives, government consultants and public columnists of the domestic "political constitutional science" genre have established good academic interaction with overseas think tanks and authoritative media, and have high academic and social influence at home and abroad.
Selected into the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Youth Top Talent Program (Category A, 2019) and Beijing National Governance Young Talent Program (The Fourth Batch, 2019).