Ukraine Crisis – What Are Its Global Repurcussions?

Table of Contents

The News

1.India’s refusal to criticise Russia’s actions, and the string of abstentions at UN might affect its relations with the West and Quad partners.
2.Economic sanctions on Russia might cripple Indo-Russia trade, energy and defence relations.
3.Russia is looking for assistance from China which puts India in a precarious position.

Where is United Nations?
- Russia’s actions in Ukraine has seen no intervention from UN. Russia is a part of UNSC blocking any action.
- But if we look closely, Russian actions in Ukraine & lack of international mandate seem no different from the war by the US in Iraq in 2003, Israel’s bombing of Lebanon in 2006 and the Saudi-coalition’s attacks of Yemen in 2015.
- Perhaps Ukrainian conflict is a bigger blow to the post-World War order.
Is UN headed League of nations way?

Neo Economic Cold War
- Economic sanctions by the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union (EU) also point to a fragmentation of the global financial order.
- The obvious fallout of this “economic cancel culture” of West will, without doubt, be a pushback from Russia and an exploration of alternative trading arrangements with countries such as China, India etc.
It will be Western Hemisphere v. Eastern Hemisphere financial order.

Isolate rather than negotiate
- The western objective, to “isolate” Russia, socially and culturally, runs against the global liberal order.
- Isolation of Russian citizens will work in the favour of an increasingly authoritarian Kremlin rule.
Is the world ready to suffer the consequences another Cold War for another half a century?

India’s abstention from UN & not taking any sides against big powers might keep it safe in the short term.
But in the long run, India should move proactively to uphold, strengthen and reinvent the global order that will make the world a safer place. A start here can be a stronger push for UN reforms.