Introduction to translation
Since the end of World War II, the expansionist invasions aimed at annexing lands have receded significantly, and it seemed that waging a war to annex a new land was a page turned from history and a kind of outdated conflict.
But this established principle is now being severely tested with the Russian war in Ukraine, especially if Russia intends to swallow Ukraine whole, which will tempt many countries to return to the use of force to expand their borders.
translation text
Russian President Vladimir Putin has long argued that Ukraine never existed as an independent country, as he put it in 2008. In a speech in February of this year, Putin elaborated on his position, saying that “modern Ukraine Made entirely by Russia.
Several days after that speech, the Russian president ordered the Russian forces to invade Ukraine, and while Russian tanks rolled out and crossed the Ukrainian border, the Russian president may be carrying out an old goal, which is to wipe Ukraine as we know it off the map.
The Russian invasion seems to be contrary to the nature of the era in which we live. Decades ago, this type of invasion for the sake of annexing lands was viewed as a thing of the past, and the truth is that the last similar expansionist invasion took place more than thirty years ago, when the country (Iraq) tried to completely seize the Another internationally recognized country (Kuwait).
We have distanced ourselves from the expansionist invasions a long time ago, and this constituted a basis of the current international system, which considers international borders sacred.
(Despite the continuation of other forms of wars in order to overthrow political regimes, such as the invasion of Iraq or interference in the paths of civil wars, they did not aim to change the map or annex lands to the invading country)*.
Commitment to the custom of respecting the sovereignty of states over their own territory was not, in fact, complete, but states tried to sanctify international borders, or at least to show that appearance.
Despite the many dangers nations faced, the attempt to invade them by another country in order to redraw their borders was probably not one of those dangers (in recent decades)*.
The causes of wars were many, but waging a war to annex a new land seemed like a page turned from history and an outdated form of conflict.
Now, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, this custom appears frighteningly tested for the first time since World War II.
The war in Ukraine takes us back to ancient times, more violent than ours, and if the international community allows Russia to swallow Ukraine (or part of it), other countries will follow the same path and begin to use force to change international borders, wars will break out, and former empires will seek to regain their glory, and more and more countries will face the threat of being wiped off the map as we know them today.
border guards
"The death of the state", this is how this phenomenon was called, which is the loss of control by a state over its foreign policy in favor of another state, or in other words, that state's voluntary relinquishment of acting as an independent state on the international political scene.
At the beginning of the era of modern states, one of the reasons for the "death of states" and its spread was the collapse in front of the use of explicit combative force.
On average, a state disappeared every three years between 1816-1945, a period during which a quarter of the world’s countries suffered a violent death at some point in their history, as the armies of their enemies invaded their capitals, and their lands were annexed to the command of the invading countries, and the “dead” states did not seek “Then they should act as independent states in the international system.
Countries sandwiched between rival nations in particular suffered from the threat of capture.
Austria, Prussia (later Germany)* and Russia divided Poland between 1772-1795, and Poland disappeared from the map of Europe completely for more than a century.
Paraguay met a similar fate in 1870 when it lost its war against Argentina and Brazil, as well as Korea, which was invaded by Japan at the beginning of the twentieth century after a series of wars between China and Russia within the Korean territories.
In addition to the poor location, the absence of diplomatic relations with the colonial powers was one of the risk factors for fragile states.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, African and Asian countries that concluded trade agreements with imperial powers such as France and Britain were more likely to die than others in Latin America and the Middle East, because the latter had strong official ties by hosting consulates and embassies from the major powers, while they were not Trade relations with major powers are sufficient for other countries (to distance themselves from the possibility of their invasion)*.
In other words, the international system was based on a hierarchy of "political recognition" that effectively involved deciding which country was considered legitimate and which country was a little better off not in the wind.
For example, Britain signed agreements with countries in the pre-colonial Indian continent, such as Sindh, Punjab and Nakpur, so that the Indian leaders of those countries believed that the agreements amounted to official recognition.
However, the British never took the step of inaugurating diplomatic relations with them, a policy that actually constituted a prelude to the invasion.
Little by little, the leaders began to resist the then usual doctrine of conquest.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, US President Woodrow Wilson spearheaded these efforts in support of the principle of respect for the territorial integrity of each country.
The last point came from Wilson's famous Fourteen Points, proclaimed during the First World War, which emphasized the need to protect the member states of the League of Nations, as Wilson believed that League states could give "mutual guarantees to one another for their political independence and territorial integrity Both the major and the minor.
Indeed, Wilson helped advance a new doctrine in international politics that repudiated conquest, and his successors have followed suit.
It is certain that Wilson's commitment to the principle of self-determination was limited to the European nations at the time, as the man decided to grant the Poles their independence, but he did not respond to similar demands that came to him from the Egyptians and the Indians (and Egypt after the First World War witnessed the 1919 revolution and the accompanying demands for independence and the expulsion of the British occupation )*.
Moreover, it was easy for Wilson to adhere to the principle of national territorial integrity because he became president of the United States after completing its own conquests, including expansion westward and control of indigenous lands, and thus had no ambitions to expand further.
In any case, Wilson did advance a new doctrine in international politics that repudiated expansionist conquest, and his successors, such as Franklin Roosevelt, who opposed Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, followed him.
The end of World War II heralded a new era, and over the following decades, the expansionist invasions receded, although they did not completely disappear, as was demonstrated by Israel's occupation of several areas in its vicinity, and Argentina's attempt to possess the Falkland Islands, the countries in general are interfering in each other's affairs without The desire to change international borders, not to mention swallow up entire internationally recognized states in one sentence.
For example, when the Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956, they did not want to possess its land, but rather to prevent its exit from the Warsaw Pact, and to install a new regime loyal to them.
Although there are types of occupation effectively equivalent to the "violent death" of countries, such as the United States' invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan two decades ago, Washington did not plan to annex the territories of either of them to it, but only toppled the two ruling regimes, while preserving their international borders.
The truth is that the absence of expansionist motives does not make the violation of the sovereignty of a state a lighter matter, but it constitutes an important difference in understanding the current international system.
For all the disadvantages of most wars after World War II, the maps in most of them remained the same.
Emergence of the principle of "national territorial integrity"
What led to the sudden decline of the expansionist invasion after the end of World War II?
It is the principles that actually set the standards for acceptable behavior of international players of a certain kind, say political science professors Martha Finnermore and Catherine Sikkink, and in our case today, those players are nation-states.
The leaders who crystallized the principle rejecting the expansionist invasion realized that most conflicts, including the Second World War, erupted for the sake of land, and therefore their inauguration of a principle against the appropriation of a state on another state’s land came as part of their broader project for international peace after 1945.
Countries adhere to international principles for many reasons.
Some adhere because they simply do not have expansionist ambitions, and some adhere because the principles have become part of his vision of the world in a way that is difficult to imagine violating, and some fear international sanctions or be deterred by a stronger party.
There are also some countries who are committed, despite their enormous power, because they know with certainty that the conflict on the ground was one of the major causes of wars, and therefore those countries viewed the stability of the international system as part of their interest as major powers.
Despite its many benefits, the principle of "national territorial integrity" and the rejection of the expansionist invasion had unintended consequences, one of which was the consolidation of international borders in a way that created favorable conditions for failed states and their collapse, according to politics professor "Boaz Atzeli", as "the stability of borders" as he calls it freed Leaders of weak states from the burden of attention to their borders.
For example, the famous dictator of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) Mobutu Seko succeeded in focusing his efforts on extracting natural resources for his personal benefit, without paying attention to the need to build a strong army to protect his country, simply because he did not feel a threat to its borders despite their weakness .
Mobutu Seko succeeded in focusing his efforts on extracting natural resources for his own benefit, without paying attention to the need to build a strong army to protect his country.
The decline of conquest also contributed to the growth of “endless wars,” as sociology professor Ann Hironaka pointed out. Instead of resolving disputes for territorial control by acquiring land directly, opportunistic leaders tend to intervene in the civil wars of weak states to prolong the conflict in them. and undermining their unstable governments (given the difficulty of seizing their lands in a single sentence in the current international system)*, which is what South Africa did in Angola in the eighties, for example, (as well as Iran in Iraq, Pakistan in Afghanistan, and others)*.
It is not a coincidence, then, that the principle of renouncing the expansionist invasion appeared to the light after the Second World War, as the atrocities of that war, with the advent of the era of nuclear power, motivated the major powers to avoid any future wars between them.
Moreover, globalization has diminished the economic advantages of expansionist conquest, as increased trade between nations has given them free access to their resources without resorting to force.
It was not just securing the borders, but the nation-state itself had become a valuable commodity, partly because the leaders of the newly independent states after the war trusted the new principle, and that their nascent states were safe from falling.
However, it is the citizens of these nascent countries, many of whom are in the former Soviet Union, that they are most worried today about the future of their countries as they watch what is happening in Ukraine.
fragile maps
The Russian invasion of Ukraine highlights today the fallibility of the principle of renunciation of the expansionist invasion, whose fate lies in part in the course of the current war, and the extent to which Putin will violate this principle in Ukraine.
If Putin succeeded in overthrowing the Ukrainian regime and replacing it with a regime loyal to it, he would have carried out a blatant change of the political system in the country, and dealt a severe blow to the Ukrainian people, but without posing a challenge to the principle of rejecting the expansionist invasion, as Ukraine will remain as we used to, but under Indirect effective control of Russia.
Likewise, if Putin tried to annex Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk while the world turned a blind eye, he would have weakened but not completely undermined the principle of national territorial integrity, since most of Ukraine would remain united under Kyiv's authority.
Putin
But there are reasonable grounds to worry that Putin's ambitions go beyond these limited goals. The man is looking forward to more than installing a pro-regime in a former Soviet republic or acquiring parts of the country, as his skeptical statements suggest The legitimacy of Ukraine's existence as an independent state.
He may eventually seek to redraw the map of Europe and restore part of the glory of the Russian Empire.
And if Putin goes that far, the fate of the principle of national territorial integrity will depend to a large extent on the world's reaction.
Fortunately, the reactions of the various countries of the world to the Russian invasion indicate that there is often an agreement to protect that principle (the major Western countries are now hostile to Russia, while the smaller countries fear the fate of Ukraine)*, and this agreement has been embodied in the torrent of unprecedented sanctions On Russia, campaigns for donations for support and relief, as well as the supply of arms to Ukraine by European countries.
If this support wanes, Ukraine's neighbors, such as Moldova, Poland, and Romania, might, and indeed are, worried about their national sovereignty.
Protecting Ukraine's sovereignty is probably not worth igniting a third world war, especially as it may escalate into a nuclear confrontation. It is not necessary for the world to pay such a heavy price in order to adhere to the principle of renouncing expansionist invasion only.
However, we must not lose sight of the bloody cost of completely turning a blind eye to what is happening, while Western countries are now trying to strike a balance between a resolute response to the Russian invasion and disassociation from exacerbating the conflict to the unfortunate consequences.
What is striking here is what happened to the accusations leveled at Russia of committing the crime of aggression against another country.
The fact that Russia - a permanent member of the Security Council - can use its veto to overturn the decision to refer it to the International Criminal Court reveals to us a disturbing fragility in the principle of rejecting the expansionist invasion, which is that it is difficult to preserve international principles when the major powers insist on breaking them.
If the international community fails to uphold that principle, the states on the periphery of the great powers will face the most danger of annihilation, and one of the most worrisome aspects if we return to the world of “the violent death of states” are the effects of the invasion campaigns on civilians.
Forces wishing to seize a land usually wage a ferocious targeting campaign, similar to what is happening now in "Kharkiv" and "Mariopol", in order to repel the resistance and empty the cities of their inhabitants.
However, if the international community fails in this task, then the hope for Ukraine (and other countries like it) will not abate, as history tells us that half of the countries that died by violence since 1816 have come back to life again, and one of the important indicators of the possibility of a return to life. A state after its death is that a national resistance movement will emerge from it, movements whose strength it is difficult for invading countries to predict, as only a few campaigns of invasion and occupation have succeeded in achieving their distant political goals in the end.
However, the countries that aspire to invade one of their neighbors today at the level of the world may have learned a lesson from what is happening, which is that it is possible to escape with impunity from an expansionary invasion process.
Does history take a step back?
It seems convenient for us to think that principles last after they have been laid down, but in fact they do not last forever.
Let us consider, for example, how many international principles and norms have receded and disappeared throughout our recent history.
People do not resolve their differences today by fighting duels as they did in the past, governments no longer issue official statements to wage war as in the past, and the public assassinations of leaders of countries that dominated international politics in Machiavelli’s life, for example, were completely abandoned by the seventeenth century (though secret assassinations continued).
If the principle of rejecting the expansionist invasion met its fate, like its predecessors, to the cemeteries of ancient customs;
History, then, will have taken a step backwards, and the world will be on a date with a return to a cruel era, the era of violent death for nations.
This does not mean - again - that the principle inaugurated a world of peace in the first place. Countless wars have broken out since 1945, but a certain type of war between states to resolve disputes over land and control has actually receded since the end of World War II.
If this pattern of conflict returns, civilians will eventually suffer the consequences of such a transformation.
Let's look at the dozens of disputes over the land that exists today. Armenia and Azerbaijan are parties to a frozen conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The fate of Taiwan in particular is a matter of concern to decision-makers in the major countries. What Putin said about the legitimacy of Ukraine's existence as a state resembles China's claims It and Taiwan are one country.
If it becomes acceptable overnight to seize the land by force, the leaders of countries that have long been stuck in conflicts over the land may use force to resolve conflicts, and may try to swallow up sovereign peoples.
International principles and existing legal institutions have helped us to prevent conflicts over land from escalating and to offer nonviolent paths to managing and resolving them.
For example, the International Court of Justice resolved a dispute between the countries of El Salvador and Honduras in 1986, and another dispute between Bahrain and Qatar in the 1990s, and the United Nations and the Organization of American States resolved a short dispute between Ecuador and Peru in 1998. (And those small countries in the latter were motivated by their small size and cost The war for it and the hegemony of the major powers over it in bringing it to the dialogue table, while the conflicts between the larger countries, and in light of the decline in the hegemony of the Western major powers in some regions of the world, seem too difficult to be resolved in the halls of international courts.*
The Russian war in Ukraine has its aftermath, and that will go far beyond both Russia and Ukraine per se.
If the principle of national territorial integrity recedes, the cover will expose the existing territorial disputes across the globe and make millions of citizens more vulnerable than ever before.
At the present moment, the consequences of the war seem to be confined to Ukraine, Russia and the countries that have received Ukrainian refugees. However, the path paved by the war may lead to the principle of national territorial integrity and the renunciation of the expansionist invasion to become one of the victims of the ongoing war, and the countries will then have to prepare to defend their borders.
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Margin: (*) Translator's notes
Translation: Noor Khairy
This report has been translated from Foreign Affairs and does not necessarily reflect the website of Meydan.