{"id":1675243,"date":"2022-10-06T06:38:10","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T10:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1675243"},"modified":"2022-10-06T06:38:55","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T10:38:55","slug":"vladimir-putin-now-stands-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/vladimir-putin-now-stands-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Vladimir Putin Now Stands Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fvladimir-putin-now-stands-alone%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1675243&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p><span>Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin pushed through the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.themoscowtimes.com\/2022\/09\/30\/putin-declares-russias-annexation-of-occupied-ukraine-lashes-out-at-west-a78937\"><span>annexation<\/span><\/a><span> of invaded territories in Ukraine. These territories are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/10\/putin-the-thief-russia-is-annexing-territories-in-ukraine-they-dont-control\/\">not fully conquered<\/a>. Indeed, a short time after Putin\u2019s announcement, the Ukrainians recaptured <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/10\/ukraine-wins-big-at-lyman-over-russia-what-does-it-mean\/\">Lyman<\/a>, a city Russia claims it annexed.\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/p>\n[embedded content]\n<\/p>\n<p><span>Most countries will not <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2022\/9\/30\/west-condemns-russia-illegal-annexation-of-ukrainian-provinces\"><span>recognize<\/span><\/a><span> Russia\u2019s moves. Even China, Russia\u2019s shadow ally in the war, will likely avoid directly supporting the annexations. Indeed, Putin\u2019s priority may not even be the land he has grabbed, but rather its utility in providing a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/09\/putin-will-soon-have-his-reason-to-escalate-in-ukraine\/\"><span>pretext<\/span><\/a><span> to further escalate a war that now threatens his regime \u2014 and even his personal survival.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><b>The Sovereignty Principle<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span>Russia\u2019s friends hesitate to back Putin\u2019s territorial claims because of the terrible precedent the annexation sets. If one state can redraw its borders by force, there is little to stop others from considering the same. Most leaders are cautious and oriented toward the status quo. The list of revolutionary imperialists willing to claim neighboring territory by force at any given time tends to be short \u2014 Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin are examples. Conflict is inherently risky and destructive, and few states or leaders want a global norm that allows for war as a common tool to set national grievances right. States generally agree to respect each other\u2019s sovereignty, if only for the reciprocal benefits: By guaranteeing your safety through non-aggression, I guarantee my own as well.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>Putin\u2019s move is further unnerving because Russia is a large, powerful state \u2014 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/06\/the-ukraine-war-is-bleeding-russia-dry\/\"><span>or so we thought until February<\/span><\/a><span>. Putin\u2019s logic, therefore, is the rule of the strong: World politics is a jungle, and the strong can force their will on the weak. That sort of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/international-organization\/article\/anarchy-and-hierarchy-in-international-relations-examining-south-americas-warprone-decade-193241\/E8BE7A3F35EF91D184BD702036829FFD\"><span>unconstrained anarchy<\/span><\/a><span>, where large states bully and dominate small ones, benefits only the great powers. If only because they fear the precedent Putin is setting for their own safety, most small states in the world will reject Putin\u2019s logic and will reject his annexations. Putin will be isolated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In short, few countries will be comfortable with these annexations. Small countries will oppose the move because they benefit from the basic reciprocal respect of sovereignty that has characterized international politics since World War II. Countries with territorial disputes will fear the idea that force could legitimately solve those disputes. And liberal states that have <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20445105\"><span>long ceased to use force<\/span><\/a><span> against each other will reject the rollback of the non-aggression principle.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><b>Few Examples of Annexation<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span>It is hard to find modern examples of annexation. So uncomfortable does it make most of the world \u2013 both dictatorships and democracies, big and small states \u2013 that even countries involved in longstanding territorial disputes are loath to openly use force to solve them.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>The most obvious example is China. The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/08\/03\/world\/europe\/china-russia-taiwan-ukraine-analysis.html\"><span>parallels between China\u2019s claims on Taiwan and Russia\u2019s claims on Ukraine<\/span><\/a><span> are well established by now. Russia is a large autocracy near a small democracy against which it makes capacious territorial claims. So is China.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>Sensing the global anxiety about the norm against conquest, Putin initially tried to pretend that Ukraine did not exist as a separate country. So the invasion was a \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/stories.state.gov\/what-is-a-special-military-operation\/\"><span>special military operation<\/span><\/a><span>,\u201d not a war. Only after Ukraine fought off a quick conquest did Putin resort to talk of annexation.\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>This is a clear breakpoint with China. Beijing has long framed its claims on Taiwan within the language of the sovereignty norm. Taiwan is a rogue province, Beijing claims \u2014 it is an integral part of China, and its leaders are \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thediplomat.com\/2015\/11\/chinas-potential-pitfalls-4-splittist-forces\/\"><span>splittists<\/span><\/a><span>.\u201d So long as Putin could package his claims on Ukraine in similarly deceptive but norm-abiding language, China could support the Kremlin\u2019s war. But Ukraine\u2019s intense resistance and the ensuing protracted war have ended the fiction that Russia abides by norms of sovereignty. So Putin dropped the pretense and openly annexed new areas. China will never talk this way, and this move will almost certainly widen the gap between Beijing and Moscow over the war.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>Democracies too have acted cautiously in this area since World War II. U.S. wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq never had declared territorial claims, and U.S. intent was always to leave proxies in charge and withdraw early. Israel has picked up substantial territorial gains in its various conflicts over the years, and its annexations (of the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem) have been deeply contentious and are generally unrecognized.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>In short, Putin is mostly alone in this venture. The only states likely to recognize these annexations are rogue regimes such as North Korea. The democracies will never consent, just as they refused to recognize Putin\u2019s snatching of Crimea in 2014. Even China will be wary of openly violating a core norm that it uses to justify its claim to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/09\/could-the-u-s-military-really-defend-taiwan-from-an-invasion-by-china\/\">Taiwan<\/a>. Putin himself likely knows this. His claims are designed to stir up support for the war at home by portraying the fighting in Ukraine as an attack on Russia itself.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><b>Expert Biography:<\/b><span>\u00a0<\/span><i><span>Dr. Robert E. Kelly (<\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Robert_E_Kelly\"><i><span>@Robert_E_Kelly<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>;\u00a0<\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/robertedwinkelly.com\/\"><i><span>RoberEdwinKelly.com<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>) is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science at Pusan National University and 19FortyFive Contributing Editor.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin pushed through the annexation of invaded territories in Ukraine. These territories are not fully conquered. Indeed, a short time after Putin\u2019s announcement, the Ukrainians<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1675245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1675243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1675243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1675245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1675243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1675243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1675243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}