Unilateralism presents the casual reader with an intimidating term. Although we may have a street level idea on what it means, most of us feel more confident if we consulted a thesaurus to better understand the term. The world is not & will never be without double standards, especially when the topic is geopolitics drowned under vindictive albeit lopsided narratives of history. When the United States intervenes unilaterally in the world, American forces are hailed as liberators & protectors of world peace fighting just wars to restore freedom & democracy to the oppressed while dispatching Washington’s enemies. Wars are sold as existential threats to a people’s existence; the United States is no exception. We are led to believe America does not occupy nations while fighting zero sum proxy wars. Rather, we fight glorious campaigns fashioned under catechisms as seen in “Operations Enduring & Iraqi Freedom.”
In some way, shape, or form, when America abandons a failed military campaign or state occupation project, we are somehow successful no matter how marginal the perceived victory or severe the resulting collateral damage. On the other hand, when Russia is the unilateral military actor, a restored image of the evil Soviet empire reenters the public discourse only to be masqueraded as wanton aggressions against world peace. Never mind America’s legacy of post-Cold War geopolitical sabotage in Moscow’s backyard. As it turns out, the United States shares much more in common with Russia than we readily admit. The United States & Russia are not members of the International Criminal Court nor do both post-Cold War powers recognize its authority. On January 22nd 2021, the United Nations effectuated the “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” as a new standard of international law.
Unsurprisingly, not one member of the United Nations Security Council endorsed let alone recognized the treaty, specifically the United States & Russia. With that said, what contributions, if any & no matter how small, has the United States made in the name of the same treaty as an act of good faith since? The Washington based Arms Control Association estimated that as of January 2022, Russia had 707 more nuclear weapons than the United States did at 5,550. Do the latest statistics available describe a post-Cold War reality dedicated to nuclear disarmament? Have Russian & American nuclear arsenals increased or decreased since the collapse of the Soviet Union? Which post-Cold War power managed to destroy more nuclear weapons? Does it matter?
According to information compiled by the Federation of American Scientists, before Trump authorized a major expansion of America’s nuclear arsenal, the Clinton Administration increased the nuclear weapons inventory of the United States by adding 107 additional warheads between 1995-1996, approximately 4-5 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Why? At a time when America was the world’s undisputed military superpower immediately after the Cold War, to this day, one unanswered question remains: was the expansion of America’s post-Cold War nuclear weapons program necessary? What kind of message did that send to a revanchist Russia with an ever expansionist NATO presence closing in on Moscow under mixed messages of nuclear disarmament? February 24th, 2022 must be treated as a major watershed moment of the early 21st century.
It was more than a day when Russia invaded Ukraine. It was also the day NATO failed the world in denying any possibility of World War Three. What is NATO beyond a complex extension of American foreign policy preserved in perpetuity under neo-Cold War justifications of resurgent Atlanticism? If NATO truly had any interest in proving it was not an anti-Russian military alliance dedicated to the geopolitical isolation of Moscow, why did NATO time again fail to forge a strategic partnership with Russia after the Cold War? How will NATO expansionism offset Russian revanchism without provoking Putin & Russia’s oligarchical influencers simultaneously? Arguably, one of the greatest legacies of the Russo-Ukrainian War will be found in double standards used to justify state sponsored unilateralism: a reality where post-Cold War powers repackage foreign policies as devices for militarism, not disarmament.
If Washington & Moscow were truly interested in world peace & nuclear disarmament, they would strike a geopolitical compromise over Ukraine by mutually agreeing to join the International Criminal Court, adhere to a treaty bound commitment to build no more nuclear weapons, & designate an attainable future benchmark free of nuclear arsenals entirely.
This cannot be achieved when unilateralism is fashioned as the new multilateralism.