As the Russia-Ukraine War continues on, the pertinent question of what this war means for the future of global politics rises. In this Debate, we will explore the question of whether the war has led to strengthening the unity of traditional power, or exposed their hubris? Do the united criticisms toward the brutality serve as a message for future tensions, or is there any reason for us to be more optimistic about the future?
In his seminal book, The End of History and the Last Man, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, mankind has reached the end-point of ideological evolution. Western liberal democracy will become universal as the final form of human government.
Thirty years after publication, Fukuyama’s prediction appears to have been far off. Putin’s Russia has invaded Ukraine with imperialist ambition, amplifying fears we may regress back to the Cold War-like era that is not a distant memory for many. The increasing tensions between the United States and China — which, contrary to expectations, has not become more liberal — reminds us that we live in an era of powerful countries competing for dominance. As Timothy Stanley and Alexander Lee of The Atlantic noted: “History isn’t over and neither liberalism nor democracy is ascendent.”
After the Cold War, Western leaders were hopeful for a peaceful world under a new democratic order. However, peace turned out to be much more fragile than expected. Sidelined by internal conflicts and failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US and European countries retreated from the world stage, and countries like China and Russia are now seeking opportunities to fill the void. Still, belief in the supremacy of US liberal hegemony is held strong by many scholars and politicians. Such rhetoric is well-represented in Fukuyama’s analysis of the current state of affairs. He wrote: “Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine… A Russian defeat will make possible a ‘new birth of freedom’, and get us out of our funk about the declining state of global democracy.”
The Russia-Ukraine War has been popularly framed as a battle between democracy and autocracy by politicians and media outlets. On March 1, US president Joe Biden also highlighted the point in his State of the Union address. “In the battle between democracy and autocracy, democracies are rising to the moment, and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security,” he remarked. The irony is that the only battle the United States is actively engaged in Ukraine currently is an economic one, and its success will depend upon cooperation of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and China, all of which hardly fit the definition of liberal democracy. Even within the supposedly liberal democratic countries, there seems to be differences in stances as some countries in the European Union have been reluctant in placing sanctions on oil and gas imports from Russia. Overall, it seems that the international response to the war seems to be influenced by realpolitik rather than ideological principles, contrary to popular belief.
Furthermore, reducing the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as a battle of ideologies understates the complex historical and political context behind the war. To Ukrainians on the front lines, the enemy is not an abstract political system. It is a specific aggressor in a real territorial dispute. In between vague words of ideologies, the devastating realities of the war become glorified. Lives were lost and livelihoods have been ravaged. This war never should have happened.
The Russia-Ukraine War makes it clear that we have not yet reached the end of history. NATO and its allies’ united response against Russian aggression will not serve as a sufficient deterrent for future conflicts. To think so points towards the very reason we still live in a conflict-ridden world in 2022 — blind faith in liberal democracy that has not been fully realized nor even well-defined anywhere. World War I was once considered the war to end all wars. The prediction turned out to be dead wrong, with another catastrophic world war rising only two decades later. No war can be expected to function as an inhibitor of future conflicts. The statement itself is paradoxical. Fukuyama said in his book, “the twentieth century, it is safe to say, has made all of us into deep historical pessimists.” Unfortunately, the turn of events in the twenty-first century thus far, gives us no reason to be any more optimistic.