War & Business as Usual

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Silent Majority

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Why haven’t non-Western coun= tries joined the sanctions against Russia? Richard Gowan o= n food, guns, and global uncertainty.

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Jonathan Ansel

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(Originally published 2022 | 0= 4.28)

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Renewing ties that had fra= yed since the Cold War, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ha= s united the West against Moscow. This bond is the foundation for the unpre= cedented sanctions Western countries and their allies have imposed—fr= eezing the foreign reserves of Russia’s central bank and the foreign = assets of Russian oligarchs, and cutting off Russian banks from the SWIFT p= ayment system. Yet outside the West, few states have taken any action again= st Vladimir Putin’s regime. No African country has placed sanctions o= n it, and only three Asian countries have. America’s closest allies i= n the Middle East, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, have refused to punis= h Moscow and are still working with it. India, another nominal Western ally= , continues to buy oil from Russia and trade with it. Why are these countri= es refusing to take sides?

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Richard Gowan&nbs= p;is the UN director for the international nonprofit Crisis Group. As Gowan= sees it, countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are reluctant to joi= n the campaign against Moscow for an array of reasons. Some are ideological= , driven by hostility toward Washington and NATO or sentimental affection f= or the former Soviet Union. Others have material reasons, depending on Russ= ia for food, energy, or weapons supplies. Domestic politics are also influe= ncing non-Western countries, Gowan says, as is a feeling that Western power= s too often come to them only to ask favors, without ever responding to the= ir needs in turn. But most are mainly hedging their bets as an intentional = strategy for pursuing their national interests, uncertain of what Washingto= n’s and Moscow’s relative power and influence will look when th= e dust of the war settles.

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Michael Bluhm: Wh= at patterns are you seeing in responses to the war outside the West?

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Richard Gowan: A = lot of non-Western countries have condemned the invasion. At the UN General= Assembly, 141 countries supported a resolution condemning it. Majorities o= f every regional group at the UN voted in favor of the resolution, although= about half the African group supported it and half either abstained or bac= ked Russia. Cuba and Nicaragua, which are normally surefire supporters of R= ussia at the UN, abstained and implied through their abstentions that they = were uncomfortable with what Russia has done.

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That said, we see a lot of limits = to this condemnation. Countries that have rhetorically deplored the war don= ’t want to invest very heavily in pushing back against Russia. A hard= core group of countries—Syria, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Algeria, and Er= itrea, for example—have started to get behind Moscow. That’s a = group of countries that have always been critical of the West and have alwa= ys banded together at the UN to oppose Western initiatives.

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Bluhm: Why don&rs= quo;t they want to invest in pushing back against Russia?

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Gowan: Many of th= ose countries see the invasion as an enormous violation of international la= w. Brazil and Mexico have firmly condemned the military action—but th= ey also have this instinctive feeling that you shouldn’t push Russia = too far. If you condemn Moscow too harshly, that’ll make it harder to= bring it back into the fold. Mexico and Brazil both abstained on a move to= throw Russia out of the UN Human Rights Council after the awful images tha= t came out of the suburbs around Kyiv, such as Bucha.

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A number of African countries&mdas= h;and Mexico and Brazil—said, We will condemn the crime, but= we don’t want to entirely isolate the criminal. The logic is th= at penalties and sanctions will drive Russia further away from diplomatic s= olutions to the war.

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For a lot of these states—an= d this is also true for China—there’s a feeling that if you can= punish Russia this way, you can punish anyone. Some countries don’t = want to create any precedents for maneuvers that could be used against them= in the future.

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Bluhm: How are ec= onomic factors influencing decisions against penalizing or imposing sanctio= ns on Russia?

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Gowan: Another gr= oup of countries—including some in the Middle East, such as Egypt and= the Gulf countries—have economic and security ties to Russia. Some, = like Egypt, are highly dependent on Russian and Ukrainian food and agricult= ural supplies.

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Many African countries that are hi= ghly dependent on Russian food supplies have started to get quite nervous a= bout efforts to punish the Russians. Planting season is coming up in Ukrain= e, and they’re concerned that they’re not going to get Ukrainia= n wheat. They’re also concerned that the sanctions on Russia will mak= e it harder to get Russian food supplies.

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This is an enormous issue, felt ve= ry deeply in a lot of African countries. On account of the climate, there a= re already concerns about famine in places like Somalia. Those countri= es are sitting on the fence over sanctions because they worry about food&md= ash;and they don’t feel that Western countries are taking those food = and agricultural concerns seriously enough. There’s quite a big push = from Germany, as the president of the G7, to address these concerns, but I = don’t think that’s fully filtered through to them.

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Cristian Castillo

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More from Richard Gowan at The= Signal:
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=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09“There aren&rsqu= o;t sanctions by many non-Western countries. A lot of them fe= el they’re taking significant risks in their economic and diplomatic = relations with Russia by criticizing it at all. A fundamental reason, which= cuts across everything, is a desire to stay out of European wars or wars i= nvolving Moscow and Washington. There’s a strong intuition that nothi= ng good can come from getting involved in those conflicts. And that’s= linked to a second intuition: a disinclination to associate yourself with = NATO or U.S. positions—even though we hear most global leaders say th= ey’re appalled by Russia’s behavior. People in the U.S. tend to= think that history gets erased every four years—and that people beyo= nd the U.S. have forgotten about Iraq or America’s involvement in cou= ps against leftist leaders in the Cold War era. They haven’t. Putin&r= squo;s rhetoric about NATO being a dangerous force in the world resonates. = Even if people outside the West don’t buy his whole theory of Russian= history, those anti-NATO feelings run deep.”
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=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09“Even before the= war, in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere, a lot of these countrie= s remaining non-aligned on Ukraine were articulating very strong criticisms= of the West on climate financing and Covid-vaccine distribution. These cou= ntries are saying, Great, thanks for telling us about sovereignty = and human rights, but we’re still waiting for the money you’ve = promised for climate adaptation and the vaccines. That feeds into= calculations on whether to back the West.”
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=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09=09“We’re in = a world where people are hedging their bets. No one knows wha= t the future of U.S. foreign policy is, because they know that Trump or a T= rump-like leader could return to power in Washington. Then, the effective i= nternational leadership that Biden has shown over Ukraine will fragment aga= in. In the meantime, you have China on the rise, but no one’s quite s= ure what its ambitions are beyond its own immediate area. Most countries wa= nt to maintain economic and diplomatic ties with both Washington and Beijin= g—and don’t want to be solely dependent on either.”

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The Signal explores u= rgent questions in current events around the world—to support it and = for full access:

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