Consequences of US-Russia geopolitical war in Ukraine threaten world peace
According to IRNA, Richard Falk wrote in a note titled “Why Ukraine” for the online magazine Counter Punch: “There is no doubt that the crimes committed in Ukraine were apparently committed by Russian invading forces, and in a whole world, those who did so.” Have been held responsible. But when it comes to accountability for international crimes, the world is very incomplete.
He said that when the International Criminal Court ruled in 2020 that it had the authority to investigate alleged crimes committed by Israel in occupied Palestine, the decision was called “pure anti-Semitism” by the Israeli prime minister. Similarly, when the International Criminal Court authorized the investigation of US crimes in Afghanistan, this decision was annulled because the United States was not a party to the Rome Statute. Trump’s presidency went so far as to impose personal sanctions on the International Criminal Court prosecutor, despite the fact that his action was purely professional.
Falk then stated; There is a dilemma when we face overt crime on the one hand and pure geopolitical hypocrisy on the other. Was it appropriate for post-World War II German and Japanese political leaders and commanders to be tried at the cost of ignoring their crimes, as there was no inclination to investigate the dropping of atomic bombs on Japanese cities or the strategic bombing of civilian settlements in Germany and Japan? did not have?
“I am not sure what is better in terms of developing the rule of law or respecting the limitations of the law,” he said. .
According to him, the justice of the “victors” places the responsibility on the defeated party, but remains silent in the face of the crimes of the geopolitical winners. Furthermore, the Charter of the United Nations was drafted in such a way as to grant geopolitical immunity by granting unconditional veto power to the victors of World War II.
The university professor continued; For this reason, liberalism surrenders to geopolitical realism and celebrates the unilateral imposition of legalism, with the naive hope that the situation will be different in the future. But post-Nuremberg records show that geopolitical actors view restrictions on war as a matter of discretion rather than a commitment. The same discourse he called American liberals over the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 was called “electoral wars.” Referring to “the execution of Saddam Hussein for war crimes after the aggression against Iraq,” Falk noted; When it comes to accountability, double standards still exist.
“Another enduring question is, ‘Why Ukraine?’ There have been other horrific events in the post-Cold War period in the early 1990s, including Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Palestine, but there is no comparable noise for punitive action.
The political analyst went on to say that part of the explanation is certainly that the victims are Ukrainians, whites and Europeans, and that the world media was effectively mobilized by the West to make the Ukrainian president an influential figure in world public opinion.
He clarified; This does not mean that empathy with Ukraine or support for the Zelinsky national resistance is out of place, but that the situation seems to be organized in such a way that other developments do not seem so significant, and this raises suspicions.
According to this political analyst, the Ukraine war has been exaggerated to hide the geopolitical war between the United States and Russia, which poses a deeper threat to world peace. He said US President Joe Biden had repeatedly made provocative remarks and portrayed Putin as evil, while neglecting diplomacy as a way to stop the killings in Ukraine. Accordingly, Falk concludes that in this geopolitical war, the United States is as aggressive as Russia.
“The geopolitical war in Ukraine has been waged as an ideological aggression, backed by arms resources and sanctions designed as a major crippling effect against Russia,” he said. This tactic has led Putin to reciprocal threats, including warnings about Russia’s willingness to resort to nuclear weapons under certain conditions. Falk warned that this normalization of nuclear danger is itself a threatening development that has been ignored.
He said the United States was avoiding direct military intervention from Ukraine and was in no hurry to end the conflict because it believed that Russia would eventually be “humiliatingly defeated” in the face of Ukrainian resistance and that China would side with Moscow. Gives up.
According to him, the western architects of this geopolitical war evaluate the gains and losses from a military perspective and are “indifferent to the catastrophic economic effects, especially in terms of food security in the very stressful conditions of the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.” “As Bergston argues, the overall stability of the global economy is also at great risk, unless the United States and China realize that their cooperation is the only way to prevent a deep, costly and long-term collapse of the global economy.”
He added that the geopolitical war has also diverted attention from the immediate agenda of climate change and removed other global issues of concern, including migration, biodiversity, poverty and apartheid.
Falk concludes by repeating the question, “Why Ukraine?” He wrote that reverse racism and Western moral hypocrisy is not the wrong answer to this question, but it is not a complete proposition if it does not include geopolitical warfare, which may not currently be directly responsible for Ukraine’s suffering but is far more dangerous and destructive than traditional warfare.
Richard Falk is a retired professor of international law at Princeton University and a visiting professor of global and international studies at the University of California.