In Ukraine, Russia Broke an 85-Year Taboo

Having mailed my absentee ballot, I watched the US election results in my modest apartment in a working-class neighbourhood of crumbling Soviet-building blocks in Poltava, Ukraine. I spent six months living in Poltava—located a mere 150 km from the front—to study the ways in which the war was transforming culture and the political-economy in this medium-sized oblast (district) headquarters. Or, at least, I watched the coverage when the electricity was not shut off as a result of incessant Russian missile and drone barrages. Watching the results against the backdrop of constant air-raid sirens and the sound of heavy-calibre machine guns attempting to shoot down drones overhead, it struck me that the election of Donald J. Trump to a second term marked nothing short of a rupture in the fabric of the world system and the start of a perilous new era. Russia라이브 바카라 brazen and unrelenting invasion of its neighbour initiated a dangerous tear in the fabric of a post-World War II international order founded, above all, on the principle of national sovereignty. Sure, national sovereignty had been violated innumerable times by the US and other powers in the context of the Cold War and then the War on Terror. But the principle of national sovereignty itself was not abandoned in invasions legitimised through an often-hypocritical defence of “democracy.” A principle routinely undermined in practice, while affirmed in theory, is different than openly abandoning that principle. The US invasion of Iraq, for instance, clearly violated Iraq라이브 바카라 national sovereignty, but the fact that it was fought in the name of spreading “democracy” meant that when the new Iraqi government asked US troops to leave, there was little choice. Trump, espousing an openly imperialist orientation, lamented not permanently seizing Iraq라이브 바카라 oil fields. Russia라이브 바카라 stealth invasion in Donbas and Crimea in 2014 was deceptive out of a reluctant respect for the international order. The 2022 full-scale invasion, in contrast, initiated a dangerous tear in the fabric of this order. Trump라이브 바카라 repeat victory rendered this tear a complete rupture that appears irreversible.

A few days later, I travelled to Kyiv on the Kramatorsk train, popularly known as the “war train”, because most passengers were soldiers returning from the front. With stares hinting at unspeakable horrors and small kittens or puppies—inseparable companions in the trenches—hanging in makeshift slings attached to their uniforms, they departed the train at stations for a few precious cigarette puffs. From the long durée, anthropological perspective gleaned from the study of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, it is clear that the willingness of warriors to face death in order to protect their people was the original basis of masculine status. Soldiers repeatedly explained to me that the consideration that most motivated them was a determination that their sons, or future sons, would not have to fight invaders. It was their generation라이브 바카라 duty to finish this fight, regardless of the sacrifices required. As we arrived in Kyiv, loudspeakers throughout the central station blared the song “warriors of light” to honour those serving as the shield of a nation facing a very real threat of subjugation. Surely, I thought, there is more manliness in the little toe of any of these soldiers than the entire online “manosphere” that had inspired so many of America라이브 바카라 lost young men to vote for such destabilising and unpredictable change clashing with long-cherished principles of the republic. How far America라이브 바카라 youth have strayed from the spirit of their great grandparents—the “great generation” who lived through two world wars and an economic depression and embodied the unimaginable sacrifice that forged an international order now unravelling before our eyes.

The taboo on territorial conquest that kept a shaky peace for 85 years was first broken by Russia and now legitimised by the Trump administration. All countries will need to completely reevaluate their defence strategies in this new age of empires. If India looks dangerously reliant on Russian arms imports, for instance, shifting to Washington hardly appears to be a stable solution—while diversification of military imports can mitigate risk in the medium term, there is now no alternative to domestic production for every essential component of defence. It라이브 바카라 hard to predict what a “multipolar” world, in which territorial conquest is once again legitimate, will look like in the nuclear age. Ukraine provides a sketch of this future, with the largest nuclear power plant in Europe under Russian occupation in Zaporizhzhia and frequent Russian nuclear sabre-rattling that has at times been effective in miring Ukraine라이브 바카라 allies in paralysing “escalation management”. The UN system, international law and even the Geneva Convention have lost legitimacy as Russia has routinely executed and tortured Ukrainian captives and abducted tens of thousands of Ukrainian children. Despite an order for Putin라이브 바카라 arrest in The Hague on charges of genocide, not only has China declared an “unlimited friendship”, but Trump has embraced him as an equal partner that many in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement see as a model for a muscular, authoritarian response to liberalism. History has repeatedly demonstrated that a respect for the laws of war means the difference between devastation and relative order. In our new chaotic world, even the once unthinkable—a US invasion of Canada, for instance—now must be considered a possibility, with far-reaching geopolitical consequences.

On the other hand, Ukraine라이브 바카라 increasing reliance on innovative drone technologies as an asymmetric counter to Russia라이브 바카라 much larger military-industrial complex and massive Soviet-era stockpiles shows the contours of future anti-imperialist struggles. This future was revealed to me in a secret drone factory that I visited in Western Ukraine, with the constant hum of 3D printers and laser-focused technicians producing hundreds of drones a month in a space the size of a small garage. These small and inexpensive drones are capable of destroying tanks and other equipment costing millions of dollars and have proven indispensable in holding the Ukrainian front in the face of ceaseless assaults. The military effectiveness of these new asymmetric technologies was demonstrated by the reported role of Ukrainian-assistance and a few hundred drones during the lightning-fast fall of Aleppo. This catalysed the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime that had dominated Syria for decades, surviving the Arab Spring and the subsequent civil war with Russian assistance. Ukraine will produce more than three million such drones this year.

The Trump administration라이브 바카라 dislocation of the global security architecture is accompanied by a similar destabilisation of the world economy. The global interdependence and internationalised supply chains that have driven economic growth, albeit very unequally distributed, for decades are now over. The era of globalisation, neoliberalism and liberalisation has ended and we are now in a profoundly de-globalising moment driven by Trump라이브 바카라 tariffs. Security and economy are more explicitly intertwined within this new imperialist order. The so-called “Mar-a-Lago Accord” advocated by senior MAGA economic advisors seeks to devalue the US dollar while retaining its status as the reserve currency. They explicitly advocate a combination of economic, political and military pressure to achieve this aim, marking an end to “democracy” or “free markets” as hegemonic values conceived as ends in themselves. The collapse of these values is perhaps most dramatically exemplified by Trump라이브 바카라 claim that Canada can be economically compelled to surrender its sovereignty.

How will India position itself within this new global (dis)order? Independent India was forged through a national, anti-colonial movement that prioritised economic self-dependence and military non-alignment. In the face of looming trade wars combined with new security concerns, Nehruvian economic self-reliance for critical sectors may have newfound appeal, despite the costs to growth. The meaning of non-alliance, however, is unclear in a multipolar world of competing empires that will likely be defined by webs of shifting bilateral alliances. One of the biggest challenges of all will be to adjust our thinking. Since most contemporary theories and frameworks—both explicit and tacit—were produced within the post-war order, it will prove difficult for us to effectively analyse, or even comprehend, the brave new world that now faces us so ominously.

(Views expressed are personal)

Jeffrey Witsoe is a well-known author

This article is a part of 바카라's April 1, 2025 issue 'World At Reset', which explores the ongoing changes in the global geopolitical order. It appeared in print as 'Enter A New Perilous Era'.