To understand why, one needs to go back through history. For centuries, large states were dominant and used their dominance to use, invade and extinguish small countries at will. Small countries were at their mercy.
From the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) on, efforts were made to create a body of international rules that granted rights to states. However it wasn't until the late 19th century that a more detailed body of international law regulating the conduct of states emerged. However it had a weakness. States couldn't be forced to sign up, so end up being lured in by the fact that many conventions aren't able to be enforced, but were a kind of gentlemen's agreements that people would obey based on an unenforceable promise.
After World War I, the League of Nation was created to introduce an international structure that would bring countries together in one body. It too however was weak, and crucially the US never joined and the USSR ended up suspended over its behaviour.
The United Nations tried to create a new stronger structure but it too was fundamentally weakened. To lure major powers in. Five major powers were giving indefinite vetoes in the Security Council, which ended up preventing it from functioning as the major enforcer of the rules based order. The major five, Britain, France, the US, the USSR and China (until the 1970s the Republic of China, later on the People's Republic of China) routinely vetoed vital decisions to protect themselves or friends.
A core principle in the conventions, the League, and then the UN, is the central absolute rights of state:
1. The right to sovereignty, and 2. The right to territorial integrity. In other words, a state, whether large or a microstate, had a right to exist based on the will of its people, and no country had a right to extinguish it, and its territorial integrity was sacrosanct - meaning its territory could not be broken up and regions taken by other states. Those principles are written in the UN Charter.
That radically changed international affairs, and severely limited the powers of large states while protecting the rights of small states. It meant a common feature of European history in the past, the conquering and annexing of small states by large ones, to a large extend died out. Not totally. China seized Tibet, for example. But the the constant annexing of small countries, as Prussia did for example to Hanover, died out.
The UN Charter amounted to a dramatic rebalancing of the powers in favour of small countries, making their position more protected. Some large powers, used to throwing their weight around, and seizing smaller countries' territories, were more than miffed about the rules as they developed. They were also miffed at rules limiting what they could do in war, rules on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and human rights granted in international law based on sex, religious belief, on ethnic or cultural minorities, and much else.
The visions of Putin and Trump are the same: a world where all restrictions on big states are swept aside, where they can invade anywhere, annex anywhere, have their military do whatever they want to anyone with no repercussions.
Putin's invasion unambiguously beached all core principles of the UN Charter in Article 2.4.
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
Putin's aim is unambiguously to use force against both the territorial integrity and political independence of Ukraine, through the biggest war in Europe since World War II.
In the war, Putin's military deliberately is breaking every rule in international law on war. It executes prisoners, executives civilians, deliberately bombs civilians, apartment blocks, and kidnapped children - actions that are not merely illegal but war crimes. That is all deliberate. The thinking is that if Russia succeeds in Ukraine, the whole rules-based international order will be dead-in-the-water as it has been broken completely without negative consequences. Putin will have said, yet again, to the world "fuck your rules!"
Seizing land and setting up fake republics, then claiming them as Russian territory is a blatant breach of Ukraine's "territorial integrity" and the UN Charter, and intended to be. That is why the international community has universally refused to recognise Crimea as Russian territory and why legally it remains, and will remain, Ukrainian territory. Even China, no fan of international law, refused to recognise Occupied Crimea as part of Russia. (Territories illegally occupied by a state in breach of the "territorial integrity" and "Political Independence" rules are known as "Occupied Territories" - for example, the "Occupied Territories" held by Israel but not owned by it in international law.)
Trump, to the disgust of the international community, of course wants to recognise Crimea as Russian. It is his way of also helping bring down international law - something he despises. He is also trying to collapse the International Criminal Court for enforcing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide laws on Israel. He has made it clear he wants the US military to be free to commit war crimes without danger of prosecution. It is why he wants to recognise the "Occupied Territories" in Palestine as part of Israel - as another way to give the finger to international law.
Irish people who say "what has the Ukraine War got to Ireland?" don't get it at all. It has everything to do with Ireland and all small countries. Their status is explicitly protected by international law. If Putin and Trump get their way, those protections would collapse as would all protections. It would return to the horror days of "might is right" where big countries could do whatever they wanted, as all protections built up over one hundred years, and indeed right back to the Treaty of Westphalia, would be swept aside.
If Russia was to succeed in capturing and annexing Ukraine (Putin's aim is to capture Ukraine, sweep aside its democratic institutions, impose pro-Russian puppet, Viktor Yanukovych, who had been driven from the presidency by a popular revolution and fled to Russia, and then have Yanukovych in Ukraine's name apply for Ukraine to join Russia), it would mean that it was open season on all other countries for invasion and annexation as the protections in international law for small states have been swept aside and dead-in-the-water.
Russia would then feel free to invade Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, or any other country in Europe. Georgia and Azerbaijan are on the menu. Trump's America is free to seize and annex Greenland, or any other country or territory. China can invade any of its neighbours.
In Africa, large countries would have carte blanche to invade and annex any of their neighbours. The international rules that for one hundred years that have managed, with uneven success rates, to make such invasions and wars relatively rare, and which largely led to the disappearance of annexation post World War II, would be de-facto dead. If Russian could get away with it in Ukraine, then everyone else can too.
That is why for Ireland and all small states, Russia's war in Ukraine is potentially existential. The idea that it doesn't matter to Ireland couldn't be more wrong. The rules that protect Ireland's right to exist and territorial integrity, and which do so for small countries all over, are on the line in this war. Putin intends this war to be the battering ram to collapse the rules based order that protects millions but which he despises. He, and Trump, want to sweep away all rules that get in their way. They are using Ukraine to attack those rules. Ukraine and most governments get that. That is why they are so strongly supportive of Ukraine. They realise how crucial the war is for their interests.
⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.
Just a point I want to pick up regarding "Putin's aims". I have always found this war to be somewhat peculiar. Of course in wartime, there is always going to be propaganda from both sides, it's often difficult to ascertain the truth. People have their own opinions of how they see it, and that's fine, but, if Putin's aims are as this article claims, I find his tactics quite odd. I thought surely I can't be the only one that thinks this, so I did a search, and there are numerous other tacticians that also think the same thing, that is, the tactics are at odds with how some proclaim the aims to be.
ReplyDeleteNATO isn't solely the US though. Article 6 would be invoked by members who remember what happened in the early 1900's. A war in Europe isn't good for anyone, and the remaining NATO countries would declare war on Russia because as you state it's an existential threat to them. But it won't get that far. Russia can barely get over the line against Ukraine and they are a much smaller neighbour. Putin is now involved in a war of attrition for minimal gains. The real test will be when Trump realizes he's being made a fool of and what he orders next. He doesn't need to annex Greenland as they already have a large military presence there and his public soundbites are him just stirring the pot. He DOES want Venezuela to stop Chinese in roads into Latin America so I suspect they'll invade within the next 3 months. When this happens I'll be watching Putin and Beijing to see what they pull in the Ukraine and Taiwan respectfully.
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