How Ukraine’s post-war international relations will change. Some general probable scenarios

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Following the ongoing events in Ukraine, what are the likely scenarios to occur in the immediate future of international relations between the state actors directly or indirectly involved, in an increasingly multipolar international system?

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Scenario 1

Russia and the West split zones of influence in Ukraine

A little over a month after the start of the war in Ukraine, the mapping that emerges from media reports (it is not easy to discern between media propaganda, news objectivity and censorship) leads us to a picture in which that country seems destined to become two zones of influence: the western zone under the influence of the EU, the UK and the US, and eastern zone under the influence of the Russian Federation, and in the middle a neutral strip, possibly under the administration of the United Nations, as a true buffer zone between the two opposing sides.

This scenario, although dramatic for the Ukrainian people, to their history and social homogeneity as a people, would bring back to the collective European memory the events of the Berlin Bloc (1948-1949) and the subsequent Berlin Wall (1961 1989), in which postwar Germany once defeated and divided into two zones of influence between the former allies, was further «walled in» by both the Iron Curtain between the Soviet and the Western and by systems of separation, including the Berlin Wall, which divided the city into two now irreconcilable blocs, even though they had been united against the common threat of the Third Reich.

Moreover, the buffer zone between the West and East, if considered as such (remembering that these are hypothetical scenarios), would not even be the first in Europe, if we look at the outcome of the 1974 war in Cyprus, where the island was divided between the pro-Greek Republic of Cyprus in the South and the pro-Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, with a buffer zone in the middle since then under the aegis of the United Nations.

The triggers for this hypothesis could be:

1.The continuation of the military conflict over time, with no end in sight;

2.The failure of both sides (Russian and Ukrainian/Western) to meet their demands in negotiations for a diplomatic exit;

3.The widespread and constant rearmament of both sides;

4.The conviction not to give in on the part of both leaders in order not to appear weak to their citizens and public opinion.

Scenario 2

The strengthening of the awareness of zones of influence typical of the era of peaceful coexistence (1963-1989)

The hypothetical materialization of the triggers of the first scenario may reinforce the temptation of some major states in the international system, especially those with a colonialist past and others, to implement/consolidate strategies aimed at greater control/influence over foreign policy, defense and privileged access to natural and energy resources available in the countries of the global South.

Obviously, for some states, the real or surreal feeling that they are still living under forms of neocolonialism is constant and manifests itself in various forms, such as the use of currencies designed during colonial times and under control from abroad, development aid that accelerates their economic dependence rather than investments for sustainable economic development, or targeted support for forms of democracies more as a convenience of the moment, bearing in mind that freedom to choose political regimes being up to each people and society themselves.

The triggers for this hypothesis could be:

1.The ongoing economic war between the US and China for global economic dominance, which now appears to be extended to Russia in the form of economic sanctions for the ongoing war in Ukraine;

2.The race to diversify energy sources as a counter to climate change and as the energy of Industry 4.0 and the green economy;

3.The race to diversify the energy sources that UE will need by and after 2030, when it will achieve energy independence from Russian gas;

4.The conflict between China’s Silk Road and the EU’s Global Gateway, launched in 2021, for access to global labor, consumer and commodity markets.

Scenario 3

Two parallel models of world economies

The world economic architecture, also known as Bretton Woods, was more or less consensual throughout the post-war period until other complementary or competing forms emerged. The term Washington Consensus (Federal Reserve, World Bank and International Monetary Fund) has been, since the late 1990s, a true illustration of how the economic rules, often handed down by these three financial institutions, have and continue to guide the economic, monetary and fiscal policies including of states that in 1944, when this architecture emerged, were not yet independent (the majority), or less sovereign than today (the minority).

However, the transformation – a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall – of the European Economic Community into the European Union, with its own central bank, its own currency, and a common market of some 500 million consumers, was one of the first economic «schisms» within the Washington Consensus, although within the Atlantic Alliance, in addition to the Japanese model already consolidated decades earlier.

Moreover, the economic reforms and openness initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s and 1980s, which resulted in the socialist market economy, a mix between the classical market economy and the presence of the «visible hand» of the Chinese state in the economy, not only ensured the emergence of China as the second largest economy in the world, but also the advent of another model, called the Beijing Consensus, which is parallel, competitive or alternative to the Washington Consensus and that of the EU. In comparative terms, if in the first case, the dollar and euro are the currencies and democracy the political ideology, in the second yuan is the currency and socialism the political ideology.

The triggering factors of this hypothesis may be:

1.The economic sanctions as an instrument of hybrid warfare against regimes not considered democratic or liberal by the West;

2.The strong sanctions against Russia in 2014 and 2022, especially the withdrawal of Russian banks from the SWIFT payment system, lead many to believe that “It is possible that the SPFS could become integrated with China’s nascent, yet much larger, payment system, the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS)”

3.The announced countermeasure from the Russian side about replacing the dollar and euro with the ruble for gas payments that the EU still needs (by 2030);

4.The demand for the Chinese yuan as an international reserve currency by some states, which may become a real global exchange currency, especially if it is used to buy strategic commodities such as oil and gas and other consumer goods, as happened to the dollar itself in 1971, when it changed from a reserve currency under the Bretton Woods agreements of 1944 to an oil purchase currency, in the wake of Nixon Administration decision on non-convertibility between the dollar and gold.

Scenario 4

More and more hybrid wars and fewer conventional wars, especially between equal powers

The fourth industrial revolution, or technological revolution, is changing the interface even of war typologies. From alternative military drones to fighter aircraft, to satellites for military use, to economic warfare, to software wars and wars for exclusive access to rare materials and the chips needed for electric vehicles and all electronic equipment, and the use of mass media and digital platforms as instruments of propaganda and media warfare.

The triggers for this hypothesis may be:

1.The institutionalization of space as the new frontier of cyber and conventional warfare, through the use of satellites and dedicated troops;

2.The pirate or state cyber attacks against the strategic targets and structures of the adversary state;

3.The creation of Space Command in 2019 by the Trump Administration as a new branch of the U.S. military, which considers space as “the next war-fighting domain”;

4.China’s new space race, which may be reinforced by Russia, given current sanctions and the former’s exclusion from Western-led international space missions for more than a decade;

5.The race by private companies into space and the emission of communications satellites into the lower atmosphere, which can also be used for military purposes.

Scenario 5

Unstable and predictable multipolar world

Due to the nature of the Cold War or peaceful coexistence, the international system was bipolar, with two powers and respective blocs as key leaders and decision-makers for international security and stability, sometimes under observation of the United Nations Charter. Today, the changes that have occurred in the last 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the economic, military, technological and social spheres, have made the international system inevitably multipolar, where the United States, after almost two decades of absolute post-1989 dominance, now faces off on the economic front with both the EU and China, and on the military front, essentially, with the Russian Federation.

In addition to China, Japan, the EU, India, Russia, Brazil or Nigeria, the proliferation of regional powers in terms of both softpower and hardpower in the Global South, the Pacific and the Middle East, each pressing for its own geopolitical supremacy at the local level (as between Iran and Israel in the Middle East; between North and South Korea and Japan or between China and Australia in the Pacific) are a demonstration of the multipolarity of the post-Cold War system, while the new AUKUS alliance (Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States) may confirm both the emergence of China as a major power in the Pacific, and the need for the creation of new alliances and the strengthening of old ones in order to achieve domination goals that would otherwise be difficult to achieve.

This multipolar environment, in a context where the United Nations seems weakened by the individual positions of the major member states, becomes as unstable as predictable, the permanent risk of which is the increase of (hybrid) wars between opposing parties in the name of their own societal principles and values or as a leitmotiv to defend geopolitical dominance in international relations, which will never be the same, regardless of the outcome in Ukraine, or because war has returned to the heart of Europe. But rather because this fact may indicate the return of Power Politics in order to achieve Balance of Power both at the European level – as, by the way, has been recorded, with due intervals, since at least the Congress of Vienna of 1815 – and at the international level, while most other international actors aspire to and promote a more just and balanced international order, based on international cooperation and trade, without neglecting the Security Dilemma, in a kind of fusion between Kantian Perpetual Peace and Hobbes’ Leviathan.

Issau Agostinho