Under the headline, “What is at Stake in Ukraine,” City of London mouthpiece The Economist explains in an April 22 article that what’s really at stake in Ukraine is “a worldview.” Whose? While Putin thinks big countries should dominate small ones, the author asserts, Ukraine affirms the universal principle that all countries are sovereign, and that “whoever prevails on the battlefield will win a fundamental argument about how the world should work.” But guess what? Off the battlefield, “this is an argument the West is losing.” Why? Because, as the Economist admits, most of the “emerging world” either backs Russia over its invasion or is neutral, with many nations seeing the West as “decadent, self-serving and hypocritical.” Even those who might reject the invasion, think it’s someone else’s problem. “This is a stunning rebuke.”
The author reveals that it was the Economist Intelligence Unit that had to figure out that the vote at the UNGA in which 141 countries voted for a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (5 against and 35 abstained), really wasn’t a vote for the West: one-third of the world’s people live in countries that have condemned Russia and imposed sanctions, but most of these are Western. Another third is neutral, including India, and “tricky allies” Saudi Arabia and the UAE; and a final third are countries that “are echoing Russia’s rationale for the invasion.” This includes China, which has also denounced American bioweapons labs in Ukraine.
The conclusion? The power of the West and America over small countries is declining; the West has lost influence. Up until the time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the author laments, the West “seemed to have lost faith in the universal principles it espoused.” The EU seemed “helplessly self-absorbed.” The West hoarded vaccines during the pandemic while China and Russia supplied vaccines to the world. So guess what? Poorer countries see the West as hypocritical. Europe talks about universal rights, but look how it treats refugees. There was the illegal invasion of Iraq, not authorized by the UN. Saddam Hussein, the criminal, couldn’t have been more different from Zelenskyy. “Yet the rulers of other countries worry that if the West is free to act as judge, jury and executioner they will get summary justice.”
