South Africa’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine says a lot about how much influence the country really has on the international scene: very little to none at all. Confusion arose from the statement by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation that contradicted the president’s position. He called on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, while the presidency has taken a more non-committal stance by calling on the United Nations to bring Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table. That showed that the government knows that its vote doesn’t really matter. Should South Africa pick a side, though, and if…
South Africa’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine says a lot about how much influence the country really has on the international scene: very little to none at all.
Confusion arose from the statement by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation that contradicted the president’s position. He called on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, while the presidency has taken a more non-committal stance by calling on the United Nations to bring Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table.
That showed that the government knows that its vote doesn’t really matter. However, should South Africa choose a side, and if so, which side? In 2003, when George W. Bush led the United States to invade Iraq despite the United Nations’ call not to do so, the voice of reason, Nelson Mandela, condemned the actions of the United States.
His moral authority meant that other world leaders could listen to his voice, and while they couldn’t stop the invasion, it mattered that Mandela had spoken out. It also mattered that Mandela was no longer SA president at the time, so the US couldn’t turn its anger on South Africa.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s deliberate ploy not to take sides is a real strategic move to avoid making enemies unnecessarily. The easiest thing to do would be to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin for saying war is devastating.
It brings death, destruction and hardship. But if Ukraine had succeeded in joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it would have given the US and some of its allies direct access to Russia and thus become a security risk to Russia on March 10, 2022.
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When NATO was first established in the late 1940s after World War II, it made no secret of the fact that it was created to neutralize the then-Soviet threat, of which Russia was the main player. Throughout the Cold War, even after the demise of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, NATO has never ceased to be an anti-Russian/Soviet organization.
If the situation were reversed and the US suddenly had a Russian-backed country on its border, they would also do everything they could to fend off the Russian threat to their security. The Cold War may be over and the world order is different than it was in the 1990s, but it remains true that there are superpowers that go to war to protect their interests.
The US has gone to war far from home to defend its own interests, often to the detriment of the local population in those countries the US has chosen to ‘defend’.
It’s also possible that certain sectors of the US economy could see a war as a desirable outcome shortly after their economies were ravaged by the pandemic. As was the case in Iraq, Ukraine will need massive reconstruction projects after the war, and will award huge contracts to companies, especially US affiliates, to help it rebuild.
If South Africa went into the situation with all the weapons blazing, simply to be on the side of the moral high ground, it could be left with enemies who could take economic strings to the detriment of South Africa . For once, President Ramaphosa’s choice to sit on the fence when necessary to make quick and important decisions has worked in the country’s favor.
South Africa does business with both Russia and the United States.