Cadmus (Jun 2022)
Missed Opportunities: Ukraine is an UN-finished Story of Global Proportions
Abstract
This paper seeks to look beyond the sense of justifiable outrage and horror over the events still unfolding as a result of the war in Ukraine to examine the root causes of the current conflict and the essential issues that need to be addressed in order to end and prevent its recurrence. It challenges simplistic assumptions underlying the sense of pessimism, fatality and inevitability that pervade current thinking so much and which is used to justify the revival of deeply flawed ideas and failed policies, discarded as obsolete decades ago. It re-examines the concepts and strategies on which the current model of security is founded, calling for a shift from competitive national security to an inclusive cooperative security system and for a broadening of our approach to encompass the full gamut of interdependent human security threats–political, economic, social, cultural, technological, personal and environmental–the indivisible dimensions of the three cardinal human aspirations for peace, security and sustainable development. It calls also for immediate affirmation of Negative Security Assurances (NSAs) and other measures to drastically reduce the threat of nuclear war with its calamitous impact on humanity and our planet’s life support system. Finally, it focuses on the essential, irreplaceable function of global rule of law and multilateral institutions in any viable and sustainable system of global governance resting on the foundation of a slowly emerging, richly varied culture of universal human values. Nothing can justify the horrendous suffering and destruction resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but outrage and the aggressive defense of human freedom are not sufficient to address the root causes which have enabled it to occur. Wise, visionary, courageous leadership is needed to fashion a multilateral system that can end and prevent its recurrence.
