The war in Ukraine is often described by Western analysts as a turning point in international relations that shook up the post-Cold War international order. In the Global South, the war is equally historic, reinvigorating foreign policy autonomy and non-alignment as geopolitical tensions rise between the West and Russia (and China).

The Russian invasion of Ukraine revealed more than Russia’s neo-imperialist vision of a reconstituted empire. He revealed that many countries of the South, with market economies and democratic political systems and values ​​like those espoused by the West, prefer not to take sides even in the face of a clear violation of the territorial integrity of a sovereign state.

Many in the West have been baffled by the overwhelming lack of support from countries in the South. South Africa, for example, vacillated between the Foreign Office initially calling on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, and days after the invasion withdrawing that position. This was followed by an abstention in the UN General Assembly and a call for both Ukraine and Russia to negotiate.

South Africa’s response must be understood through two elements: (1) its key foreign policy principles and positions and (2) the continued importance of solidarity with old “friends”.

Foreign policy principles and positions

South Africa prides itself on its independent, non-aligned foreign policy that resists getting involved in great power conflicts. Many statements by South African government officials have underscored this importance. Furthermore, the government does not see the war as a war between Russia and Ukraine, but as a proxy war between Russia and NATO – a war that has its roots in NATO’s expansion towards is despite Russia’s legitimate security concerns.

South Africa joined the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) shortly after its first democratic elections in 1994, and the pressure felt by developing countries to support the West’s position on Ukraine has revived the principles of NAM in South Africa and elsewhere.

The South African Minister for International Relations and Cooperation pleaded for closer cooperation with other NAM members which “would actively help shape the reform deliberations with the UN system, as well as give a new content to the United Nations Security Council”. South Africa, along with other members of the southern hemisphere, should resist “being drawn into the policy of confrontation and aggression advocated by powerful countries”. Rather, they should seek to “assert their independent and non-aligned views” and promote “the peaceful resolution of the conflict through dialogue and negotiation” with the aim of maintaining independent foreign policies.

However, South Africa has encountered difficulties in that some of the statements by government ministers have belied its stated commitment to non-alignment, even though the Foreign Secretary stated emphatically in April that “our position non-aligned does not mean that we tolerate Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, which violated international law” and that “South Africa has always opposed violations of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Member States, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations”.

The peaceful settlement of disputes has been a fundamental tenet of South Africa’s foreign policy since 1994, as reflected in its efforts to resolve several African conflicts (eg DRC, Burundi and South Sudan/Sudan). These conflicts are not characterized by a large-scale invasion of one country against another as by Russia in February 2022, but are often insurgencies and civil wars, albeit supported by external actors. South Africa’s position on Ukraine is that dialogue is essential for the war to end. While reasonable and principled on one level, pushing for a negotiated settlement in the early days of the war was likely naive in the context of Russia’s goals in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, six months after the start of the war, the need for the international community to find ways out of this conflict and to press for the necessary compromises on both sides is essential. This is all the more the case because other more pressing issues on the global agenda have been neglected or aggravated by the war in Ukraine – from climate change to the Sustainable Development Goals, to the war on Yemen, energy and food insecurity. The diplomatic challenge for South Africa (and other BRICS countries) is whether there is leverage to bring Russia to the negotiating table and push for a lasting compromise.

A fairer and more coherent multilateral system is another fundamental principle of South Africa’s foreign policy. Basically, South Africa recognizes the UN as the pinnacle of the global governance system, but advocates for an overhaul of the system and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). This last call has been amplified by the inability of the UN to respond effectively to the Ukrainian crisis.

Finally, South Africa is generally opposed to the imposition of unilateral sanctions against countries by the West, in particular because these reveal double standards in the management of different conflicts. South Africa also views the “regime change” rhetoric used by the West – whether in Iraq or Libya – as highly problematic and a violation of state sovereignty. While the West has insisted that regime change is not its goal against Russia, South Africa views it with some skepticism. Ironically, he didn’t call out Russia for his goal of overthrowing the current government in Kyiv.

Solidarity policy

A central feature of the African National Congress (ANC) government’s foreign policy is solidarity with parties and countries that supported the national liberation struggle against apartheid or are still struggling for independence. Western Sahara and Palestine are both long-standing examples of the latter, while economic support and solidarity with Cuba is a case of the former. The ANC also had a long-standing relationship with the Soviet Union, which supported its armed struggle and where many ANC leaders were educated or received military training. This support contrasts with the American labeling of the ANC as a terrorist organization and the opposition of the Reagan and Thatcher administrations to the movement in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1980s.

The ANC is ignoring what it perceives as the arrogance and imperialist behavior of the West – whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya – or by ignoring the concerns of developing countries on issues such as access to vaccines or waiver of trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights. . The migration and treatment of African migrants – also at the start of the war on the Ukrainian border – is another sore point.

Soviet/Russian support during apartheid – coupled with the West’s double standards of multilateralism, use of force, rule of law and democracy – made many members of the ANC, Communist Party South African (part of the ruling Tripartite Alliance) and populist Economic Freedom Fighters (an offshoot of the ANC) are inclined to justify Russia’s “special military operation”.

BRICS links add another layer of solidarity. Since the creation of the BRICS, the West has dismissed it as an anomaly given the political and economic differences among its members. But the West has underestimated its relevance to its members as a geopolitical group of the Global South (Russia is an “honorary” member of the Global South). For South Africa, the smallest of the BRICS members, it remains a very important geopolitical body where the country can rub elbows with rising superpower China and other important leaders from the global South who share similar views. on the need for reform (or transformation) of the global system.

What can the West learn?

Much of the South African government’s narrative of the Russian invasion focused on Western hypocrisy. But he also called the invasion a violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations. South Africa has repeatedly stressed that it has the right to exercise an independent and non-aligned foreign policy, and that it should not be expected to take sides in a conflict in which it has no direct interest, or in which it risks its interests by aligning itself with one side.

At the start of the war, the West presented the conflict as one between democracies and authoritarian systems. The voting behavior of developing countries in three votes at the UN General Assembly has shown this analysis to be flawed. South Africa and other developing countries took “non-aligned” positions not because they necessarily condoned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Rather, it became a proxy for countless examples where the West had failed to play by or respect the rules it expected of others. The countries of the South are no longer willing to automatically align themselves when pushed by the great powers. This means that the West (and others) should not take the support of developing democracies for granted. The invasion of Ukraine has highlighted the fact that developing countries are looking at the whole scorecard to determine which side to take sides or even not to take sides at all.