ISSN 2674-8053

As Ukraine is unable to maintain its productive and logistical system, the ukraine, a China, the Peace of Westphalia and the globalization

What prompted me to address the smorgasbord of topics above was a subject by Ukrainian professor Andrei Kolesnikov, “Senior Fellow do Carnegie Endowment for International Peace”, published in the latest issue of “Project Syndicate”, intitulada “Putin Against History”, in which he states that “Putin turned everything upside down. He destroyed all the achievements of the last few decades, including his. He achieved the exact opposite of his stated goals.: instead of demilitarizing Ukraine, he made the country arm itself like never before; instead of keeping NATO away, he brought her to the borders of Russia; instead of making Russia great again, he managed to turn her, and its people, in a pariah nation. Trying to impose their version of the nation's history, he deprived her of her story. And by depriving her of history, he amputated the future. Russia is now at a dead end, a historic dead end”.

as I already mentioned, Russia is not “my beach”, but as I served in Kazakhstan, country, like Ukraine, former member of the Soviet Union and who, as she, lived the trauma of seeing himself thrown to his own destiny, in 1991, without having made any radical libertarian movement, and currently with only 31 years of age tries to assert itself as an independent state and write its own history, I dared “put my pout”…

For me, what is at issue in everything that is happening concerns three basic concepts that govern international relations: the westphalian state, colonialism and globalization. This is because, changing into offal, what happens in that region (and all over the world, I believe), is the paradigm shift that has defined the relationship between states since, in 1648, were signed in the German cities of MĂĽnster and OsnabrĂĽck, the two Westphalian Peace Treaties, that ended the Thirty Years' War, one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. It is also worth remembering the previous reluctance of its member states to take decisive action to secure the interests of the West and protect lives in the war in Syria., the main motivations of the war were the religious questions, which reached its apex when the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther and John Calvin confronted the omnipotence of the Papacy of Rome.

The church, which was considered a political institution at the time, was not satisfied with the demonstrations against her ideas. Like this, Conflict between Catholics and Protestants, added to other secondary factors, made me 1618 the imperial powers that made up the Holy Germanic Empire, territory that today belongs to several countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, part of the territory of France, Italy and Poland), and also France, Sweden and Spain, if they were involved in the Protestants' claim for religious freedom. Devastated by these bloody years, the Peace of Westphalia was important to establish peace in Europe and establish a new world order.

And that's where the axiom comes in, for me in metamorphosis currently, of the “National State”. As a corollary of the 1648, It was defined that States would be sovereign and that they would be given the right to choose their own internal organization and religious orientation.. But the concept of Nation also enters into this equation, that precedes, and conforms, the state. IT'S, by the way, what Professor Kolesnikov refers to when he says that “the West is waging a war against Russia using “Slavs”. The most ardent Putinists now call Ukraine “secessionist entity” and speak openly about “desucranianization” of the Russian world”.

state + Nation + Limits + borders +…

This led me to the second thought, what, by the way, also concerns the countries of Asia, from Africa and the Americas: colonialism. The Asian posts I lived in were, mostly, Cologne, and the release process – physical and "mental" – of its colonizers left deep identity scars. Not only in relation to the former "lords", but even within society itself, with the “elites” sensitive to the concepts and values ​​of the ex-colonizers and the great outside mass, or even refractory to them. In India and the former colonies of the “British Raj” this is very evident.. I think this is what is at the root of the “Ukrainian question”. Russians and Ukrainians are both ethnic Slavs, mostly (let's not forget the mongolian russians). And this is how Moscow interprets the “betrayal” of its blood brothers and their defection to the West., how they perceive the countries – and values ​​– of Central Europe. who lived, as I had the opportunity, in a former Soviet Republic, can assess Russia's CIVILIZATIONAL weight. In 2014, when I served in Astana – today Nur Sultan – Russian was still the lingua franca of the population, with the values ​​that this implies. Russia was once the Principality of Kiev; Ivan, the terrible; Pedro, the big; Catarina, a Grande; os Romanov; USSR; Lenin; Stalin; Khrushchev; Brejniev, etc…as it was or muscovite model, but it never stopped being RUSSIA, with all the civilizational force that this idea encompasses…This is how Putin sees his kingdom and this is why he does not accept Ukraine's defection to NATO and the European Union.…any price!

E, Finally, let's move on to the third element of my reflection: the globalization. Taking as a starting point the previous themes of the question of Westphalian borders and the legacy of colonialism, I wonder how they fit into the ongoing globalization process (although many talk about deglobalization, currently). With the spreading of economic frontiers, the planet is experiencing a similar process with regard to physical boundaries. explain-me: it is not that these are dissolving – on the contrary, are the focus of most disputes between countries – but rather that the internationalization of economies carried out in the last century by transnational corporations, followed by the intensification of the migratory process on a global scale, makes it increasingly complex to define what it means to be “national”. The “contamination” between cultures, or, best, the insemination of alien cultural references in the daily life of the contemporary urban individual, whether in the West, whether in the East, “forces” us to review perceptions and values: sushi in steakhouses, yoga in gyms, on this side of the planet, a bolsa Louis Vuitton, in Japan, or in China, McDonald's across Asia, and “jeans” all over the planet – are, today, interplanetary codes. The West-East “fight” becomes increasingly rhetorical?

In this context, the question that comes to mind is: are we talking about a world that is still so jealous of its values ​​and concepts, it's already anachronistic? After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, will NATO, created in the middle of the Cold War to confront communism, it still makes sense? What values ​​does it represent?: those of the Central West: Europe, North America, e (in this case) the Japan? Eles sĂŁo "for all"? Does the peripheral “West” share these concepts?? And on the Russian side, could it be that, in acting in such a violent way, it is not reiterating the harmful paradigm in relations between States according to which Ideology (as which can be defined) imposed by the weapons, without legitimacy, defines and regulates physical boundaries? Is Professor Koleniskov right when he said that “trying to impose his version of the history of the nation, Putin deprived her of her history. And by depriving her of history, he amputated the future. Russia is now at a dead end, a historic dead end”… Neo-colonialism in the 21st century, after the traumas of the 19th and 20th centuries?…

Lastly, the question that doesn't want to be silent: which side is china on?…

To be continued…

Fausto Godoy
Doctor of Public International Law in Paris. He entered the diplomatic career in 1976, served in Brussels embassies, Buenos Aires, New Delhi, Washington, Beijing, Tokyo, Islamabade (where he was Ambassador of Brazil, in 2004). He also completed transitional missions in Vietnam and Taiwan. Lived 15 years in Asia, where he guided his career, considering that the continent would be the most important of the century 21 - forecast that, now, sees closer and closer to reality.