Russian Invasion Reshaping the Global Order: Ian Bremmer / Political Scientist/President, Eurasia Group

Hello and welcome to DEEPER LOOK from New York, coming to you from our NHK WORLD Studios in New York.

I'm Del Irani. It's great to have your company.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the global world order as we know it shifted dramatically.

Suddenly, peace and security in Europe became a thing of the past.

Now, while most countries have condemned Russia's actions, there have been some outliers.

Most notably, China.

It claims to be in a neutral position and while it hasn't provided outright support for Russia - there are concerns over the country's increasingly ambiguous role in the crisis.

So, to what extent should Western countries be concerned about Russia and China's growing partnership?

And could this relationship pose a serious threat to the international order?

Joining me once again to talk more about this is Ian Bremmer, he's the president and founder of Eurasia group,

the world's leading political risk research and consulting firm.

Welcome back to the program, Ian. Great to have you with us again.

So, how would you describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine in geopolitical terms?

Is this a throwback to the Cold War era?

Or is this a whole new sort of different time in the world?

It is a new cold war between Russia and NATO.

But it's different.

And it's different in two ways.

In some ways, it's less dangerous than the old Cold War because the Russians are much less powerful economically.

And frankly, they don't matter much in many parts of the world, like Southeast Asia, or like Latin America, or much of Africa and the Middle East.

When we were fighting against the Soviets back in the day, every corner of the world was relevant.

They were on one side or the other, or they were they were in the middle of conflict.

It's more dangerous than the old Cold War, because the Russians are more interdependent economically with the world,

especially the Europeans, and so cutting them off really matters.

But also, the fact that the Russians have other capabilities, like cyber capabilities that make the potential of fighting between the two sides, much easier to fathom,

and much harder to prevent an escalation.

So if you're a US or European policymaker right now, how would you be viewing Russia's proximity and growing relationship with China?

How worried would you be about that alliance that's going on?

I certainly wouldn't like it.

When Xi Jinping met with Vladimir Putin on February 4 in Beijing, the Beijing Olympics just started, feels like years ago, it wasn't so long.

The statement that was announced was quite historically surprising that the Chinese would say that they were prepared to be friends without limits to the Russians.

Fully understanding what the situation was on the ground in Ukraine.

And furthermore, the statement actually talked about China's support for Russia's position on Ukraine.

China's support for Russia's position on NATO, which has nothing to do with China, it's Europe!

And so, the fact that Xi Jinping who wields ultimate authority in China in a way that no Chinese leader has since Mao

decided that he was going to describe Putin as his best friend.

So, the Americans absolutely perceive that China is on the Russian side of this conflict.

And when Biden says this is a war between the world's authoritarian states, the autocracies and the democracies, that's not completely true at all.

Yeah.

But let's be clear, China's on one side of that, and it ain't the American side.

And so how much of this growing partnership between these two countries has the potential to affect global world order, and potentially derail the sanctions

which have been the main sort of line of defense against Russia that have been imposed by the West?

I don't think they're going to derail the sanctions, much.

The reality is the Chinese can buy more Russian grain and fertilizers; they can buy more Russian oil.

But China's population centers on the coast.

Russia's population centers in the West.

Between the two is a lot of land and not a lot of infrastructure.

So, the reality is that the integration of the Russian and Chinese economies is hard, it would be costly, and it would take a long time.

And it's unclear the Chinese really want to do that kind of spend on the Russians, especially when China is facing their own challenges for growth in 2022,

zero COVID problems and all the rest.

But I do think that a China that decides that they want to be on the wrong side of this conflict is a China that will be less attractive as an investment destination from the west.

And that makes you start thinking about the potential of a broader decoupling that undermines globalization.

That's a real problem here.

How's China's position in the world changed as a result of this conflict?

Are they more powerful or important because we need their cooperation?

Or is it pretty much the same?

From the perspective of the United States at least right now, the relationship with China's more hostile.

I'm unclear as to how much that necessarily matters to China in the long term.

For a few reasons.

First of all, because the ability of the United States to portray itself as an effective leader of free world democracy is constrained.

It's constrained by challenges inside the United States.

It's constrained by January 6, that wasn't so long ago, it's constrained by Donald Trump potentially being the Republican nominee,

as we look ahead to the 2024 election.

The second point is the fact that many of the Europeans would not want to cut the Chinese off at all.

And if Xi Jinping said, I'm willing to engage in negotiations with Putin.

Well, I think Macron would also be willing to engage along with Xi Jinping in negotiations with Putin.

And how might that allow the Chinese to decouple or drive a wedge into the transatlantic relationship, which on Russia, at least, is going to hold very, very solid?

So, I think it's still early to say that this makes China's position in the world much worse.

But it potentially, it potentially makes it much worse.

If we see that this new Cold War is not just about Russia, but becomes about Russia and China; China's position in the world deteriorates radically.

What lessons do you think China is learning from Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

Well, I think one clear lesson is that the West has been much more united and willing to respond to Russian aggression in Ukraine than Putin would have expected.

And then the Chinese would have expected.

And of course, that's a lesson when they think about the South China Sea, the East China Sea.

Or most particularly, Taiwan.

And the Americans and the Quad have a lot more commitment to Taiwan than any of NATO ever had to Ukraine.

So clearly, that's a lesson.

I think that there's also a broader lesson that the Russians, Putin himself, isolated for two years,

clearly did not have a sense of what his own military capabilities were.

Look, I did not think Russia was going to fully invade Ukraine, for a fairly obvious reason.

They only had 190,000 troops on Ukraine boarder.

That's less than Ukraine's troops in Ukraine.

So, in other words, they were fielding about 0.8 troops for every Ukrainian troop.

No one would think they could win that war, unless you thought the Ukrainians were just going to surrender.

That they weren't going to fight.

And so, I thought when the Russians were saying, Ukraine's committing acts of genocide on the ground against Russians in the Donbass,

which they weren't doing, but the Russian said that.

I thought, "Oh, the Russians are really going to invade the Donbass.

They're going to take it. They're going to take an expanded territory there."

And I was wrong.

And the reason I was wrong is I didn't appreciate that Putin had been so isolated from his own senior military brass, from his own troops,

that he didn't know what their capabilities were not in the field.

And so, he made the misjudgment of his career.

An epic misjudgment.

And if you're China, and you saw that Putin did that.

Yeah.

You know, you got to be worried about that.

And in the middle of all this, you have North Korea.

And they of course, launched their first long range ballistic missile test since 2017.

How has, you know, not just the invasion, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but I guess even this ballistic missile test,

I mean, what are the repercussions right now for global security?

I think the two reasons is the North Koreans did that.

The first is, of course, because of the distraction that's being caused by Russia.

The second is that the South Koreans just had an election.

And they voted for a new president, who is discernibly more hawkish towards North Korea towards China, much more aligned with Japan and the United States.

And I think the North Koreans wanted to show that they couldn't, they weren't gonna just sit by idly.

They want to improve their negotiations lie.

And that means, you see, we've got ICBMs that work now too.

You've got to take that into consideration.

I think that the Iranians are doing similar things.

They're playing for a harder deal with the Americans, because energy prices are high, and they know they can get away with it.

So, you've got a bunch of rogue actors around the world that see that this is a chance for them to flex their muscles a bit more.

It doesn't, you know, create World War III.

But in a G-zero world, as I describe it.

And why did Russia invade Ukraine?

They thought in a G-zero world they could get away with it?

Why are the North Koreans launching an ICBM?

They get that you don't have strong leadership from the United States and being the world policeman and being the architect of global trade,

and certainly not in promoting global values the way you used to.

And that creates more space for rogue actors to operate.

Now, amidst all of this, Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and as such has special rights to veto certain resolutions that are put forward.

Given this conflict, given this invasion that was sparked by Russia, can the UN really function when Russia has these special privileges?

And what does it say about the UN as a body?

I mean, is this something that we need to rethink or redesign or perhaps look to a new institution?

The Security Council was broken as of 1949.

Remember, established in 1945.

You gave the winners of the war in World War II permanent seats with veto authority.

You didn't give it to Germany and Japan, why not?

Because they lost the war.

That was the reason, which doesn't make a lot of sense in 2022.

Because Germany, Japan are the two countries that are large, that are most committed to multilateralism and rule of law.

But they can't have permanent seats in 2022 because they lost World War II.

Now, the Russians, you gave the Soviet Union a permanent seat.

In 1949, you have a Berlin Blockade.

And I'm sure the Americans were thinking, "Why the hell did we give these guys a permanent seat?"

So, it was broken almost from inception.

So, this is not new.

It's just worse.

The problem is not the Security Council.

The problem is the G20.

Because the Americans have said, as the Poles have, as the Australians have, the Russians should be removed from the G20.

And the Chinese have said absolutely not.

Indonesia hosts the G20 this year.

Next year, India hosts it.

Indonesians do not want to kick the Russians out of the G20.

So, assuming this war is still going on and assuming that Biden still considers Putin to be a war criminal,

what's going to happen?

What's probably going to happen is that Indonesia invites Putin.

Putin says he's prepared to go, the Americans boycott.

The Americans tell all their allies to boycott because the Americans are saying this all about democracy.

So, what happened to the G20?

Well, instead, you get a G7 and some friends, and the Chinese with the Russians building other stuff.

If that happens, that's a very big problem.

How will these events be remembered in history?

What are what are historians going to say about what we're living through right now?

So, if you went to Brussels, in the new NATO headquarters, which was just opened four years ago,

you have a big piece of the Berlin Wall, and you have a big piece of the twin towers that came down on 911.

I think in 30-years-time, if you go to the NATO headquarters, there'll be a big piece of the rubble from Ukraine.

This is a geopolitical moment of generational impact.

It will be the defining moment for, at least all of Europe, in how they think about before and after.

So, people ask me how this is going to end?

What do you mean end?

No, you know, we just entered in, we've entered into a new global period that is much less stable,

because Russia is going to be destroyed economically.

But Putin still there, right?

I mean, no one would bet it.

Vince Lombardi said "hope is not a strategy."

Like I hope Putin is removed.

That's not a strategy, right?

So, you're going to have this incredibly damaged, vulnerable, insecure, debilitated Russia, run by Putin.

Really angry at NATO, and they're going to be armed to the teeth.

That's where we're heading, irrespective of what happens on the ground in Ukraine.

Well, that sounds like a very uncertain, scary future.

But Ian Bremmer, we always appreciate having you on the show and your analysis and your time.

- Thank you so much for joining us.
- You're welcome.

Now, after decades of peace in Europe, President Putin brought war back to the region.

History will judge him, his actions and the international community for their response.

But future generations may ask you, what did you do to stop this conflict?

And what will you answer them?

Because your actions, or inaction right now could make all the difference.

I'm Del Irani. Thanks for your company.

I'll see you next time on DEEPER LOOK from New York.