he War in Ukraine remains a lodestone for analyzing the international systems and their efficacy in crises. The uncomfortable truth that this ongoing crisis demonstrates is liberalism’s inability to adapt to crises, a byproduct of the system’s inherent need for collaborative decision–making and action. Collective action is necessary in a liberal system, but the structure itself is subject to apathy and indecision as the construct lacks a de facto “shot caller,” a flaw which autocratic, realist actors don’t face.
Liberalism in crisis suffers from the “collective action problem.” Simply, the rules–based liberal order’s efforts to support Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression are less effective absent a unifying, hegemonic power directing the terms of the collective group's efforts. As such, the uncoordinated efforts of states, with each beholden to domestic policies and politicking, haven’t enabled Ukraine’s victory, but merely survival. This collective action syndrome is made worse as escalation fears by Moscow influence the gradual nature of response by the West.
Observers of international relations should not be misled by the recent decision of western nations to allow Ukrainian forces to use western–provided weapons to attack inside Russian territory. This stark reversal of policy is unlikely to have significant impact on the near term situation on the ground and in fact highlights the unwieldy process liberal states must navigate in order to arrive at definitive action against overt threats.
Autocratic states (Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea) enjoy advantage over liberal states and international mechanisms of cooperation. Notably, cooperation and collaboration are seldom a priority among those realist actors, and common causes are often holistic (undermining the liberal order and altering balances of power). Further, autocratic states enjoy functional advantages when utilizing tools of national power to pursue strategic objectives. Realist states see no power above the states themselves in an anarchic system. In contrast, common cause across liberal states—in this instance, countering Russian aggression in Ukraine since February 2022—must deliberate to a wide–ranging middle ground, difficult to achieve in discourse, let alone practical application.
The realist expansion
Despite staggering casualties, Russia's defense industrial base revitalized itself under international sanctions, thus enabling renewed Russian aggression and putting Ukraine’s defenders on the back foot. Sweeping economic sanctions by the West in early 2022 meant to isolate Russia from the SWIFT system—the global messaging network which allows financial institutions to securely exchange encrypted information and transaction instructions—and cripple its tech production that has proved insufficient. Russia’s resilience against western export controls have been astoundingly adaptive. Though Russian forces alone are engaged in this effort, it has been supported in myriad forms against the liberal order, both tacit and complicit.
Tehran launched an unprecedented, large–scale assault against Israel in April which, while ineffective, signaled a clear and blatant disregard of Israeli capabilities. This attack came on the heels of the Israel–Hamas war, a conflict with indisputable Iranian influence. Further, the drone attack was an escalatory response to Israel’s pre–emptive and questionably ethical strike against the Iranian consulate in Syria. These are two distinct domains in a conflict between antagonists vying for regional influence (and in Iran’s case, regional hegemony), whose complexity superbly fits Iran’s strategy.
North Korea sustains antagonism for peaceful resolution in Northeast Asia, abandoning peaceful Korean reunification. It has continued expanding military capabilities and volatile rhetoric. While South Korea and Japan face the immediacy of the threat from Pyongyang, the United States remains the impetus for North Korean aggression. Beyond potential nuclear–fueled aggression, Pyongyang has mastered the liminal aspect of strategic competition through cyber and espionage efforts to undermine the liberal order.
China has applied myriad and complex levers of power at its own discretion to reform the international order into a system favorable towards Beijing’s policies. Its long–term aims align with the realist ideology that American hegemony has failed to equalize the world, particularly along Global North–South lines, and aims to lead a revised international order. Beijing enjoys an indisputable advantage to the liberalist network in one particularly key demographic: long–term vision and commitment thereto. Beijing has proven to be unsuitable for international hegemony as it's continuously critiqued for its 'authoritarian capitalism' and disregards individualism–based rights.
Political turnover’s impact on liberal cohesion
In liberal states, political turnover, partisan division, and rising populism all but guarantee that liberal cohesion remains an uphill battle. This is exacerbated by the 2024 super election year where two billion voters will choose national vectors. With political turnover risking increased discord and debate, the future of pure liberalism—genuine democracy—is at risk.
The February 2022 invasion of Ukraine demonstrated that the liberal order simply fails to understand the realist actor calculus, and resists its hard power advantage in influence or compliance. Fears of escalation, half–in/half–out measures and wavering on redlines have left Ukrainian defenders rightly wondering as to western grand strategy.
The liberal system inherently requires collaboration between states, but the need to arrive at a cohesive strategy is never swift or direct, whereas realist actors are capable of much more streamlined strategic decision–making. The collective action syndrome is made worse amidst the liberal states’ political turnover. The liberal order remains the world’s best chance at prosperity, even if it has not yet resolved the wealth disparity, the global North–South economic and governance divide, or our own risk of being lost in rising populism. The solution is that the liberal order must necessarily embrace a more collaborative form of realism (while rejecting populist and nationalist detours) because the world remains indisputably anarchic.
The future Liberal order’s uneven emergence
Almost ironically, France’s Emmanuel Macron took the initiative among European powers aligned with Ukraine, giving Ukraine the proverbial “green light” for using western–supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia. The remainder of western states soon followed suit. The irony comes just a few years after Macron’s lightning rod remarks about European collective security—NATO itself—being braindead. It’s one thing for a key NATO member and foundational European state to be assertive, but Macron’s “green light” was also carefully qualified: “We support Ukraine to resist and defend its borders, and we do not want escalation.”
What the beginning of the twenty–first century taught western scholars and strategists is that the United States cannot reasonably export Jeffersonian democracy, as it failed to do in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet promoting and advancing liberal ideals which benefit all states should remain the priority of the international system, which won’t happen if the rules–based order remains timid in contesting with authoritarian actors.
The world would benefit from some form of international hegemony, and that center of power should be located in Washington D.C., or shared with Brussels. The world should certainly not want to cede regional centers of power to Pyongyang, or Tehran, or stand idly by while Beijing and Moscow seek regional influence using their own tendrils of liminal capabilities. So long as key liberal actors hesitate to lead the contest against realist autocracy, or remain susceptible to the temptations of populism and nationalism, the realists retain their advantage.
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The collective action problem of liberalism in crises
Image by Maksym Pozniak-Haraburda from Unsplash.
June 18, 2024
The War in Ukraine remains a lodestone for analyzing the international systems and their efficacy in crises. One uncomfortable truth it has revealed is that liberalism’s ability to adapt to crises is limited by the system’s inherent need for collaborative decision–making, writes Ethan Brown.
T
he War in Ukraine remains a lodestone for analyzing the international systems and their efficacy in crises. The uncomfortable truth that this ongoing crisis demonstrates is liberalism’s inability to adapt to crises, a byproduct of the system’s inherent need for collaborative decision–making and action. Collective action is necessary in a liberal system, but the structure itself is subject to apathy and indecision as the construct lacks a de facto “shot caller,” a flaw which autocratic, realist actors don’t face.
Liberalism in crisis suffers from the “collective action problem.” Simply, the rules–based liberal order’s efforts to support Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression are less effective absent a unifying, hegemonic power directing the terms of the collective group's efforts. As such, the uncoordinated efforts of states, with each beholden to domestic policies and politicking, haven’t enabled Ukraine’s victory, but merely survival. This collective action syndrome is made worse as escalation fears by Moscow influence the gradual nature of response by the West.
Observers of international relations should not be misled by the recent decision of western nations to allow Ukrainian forces to use western–provided weapons to attack inside Russian territory. This stark reversal of policy is unlikely to have significant impact on the near term situation on the ground and in fact highlights the unwieldy process liberal states must navigate in order to arrive at definitive action against overt threats.
Autocratic states (Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea) enjoy advantage over liberal states and international mechanisms of cooperation. Notably, cooperation and collaboration are seldom a priority among those realist actors, and common causes are often holistic (undermining the liberal order and altering balances of power). Further, autocratic states enjoy functional advantages when utilizing tools of national power to pursue strategic objectives. Realist states see no power above the states themselves in an anarchic system. In contrast, common cause across liberal states—in this instance, countering Russian aggression in Ukraine since February 2022—must deliberate to a wide–ranging middle ground, difficult to achieve in discourse, let alone practical application.
The realist expansion
Despite staggering casualties, Russia's defense industrial base revitalized itself under international sanctions, thus enabling renewed Russian aggression and putting Ukraine’s defenders on the back foot. Sweeping economic sanctions by the West in early 2022 meant to isolate Russia from the SWIFT system—the global messaging network which allows financial institutions to securely exchange encrypted information and transaction instructions—and cripple its tech production that has proved insufficient. Russia’s resilience against western export controls have been astoundingly adaptive. Though Russian forces alone are engaged in this effort, it has been supported in myriad forms against the liberal order, both tacit and complicit.
Tehran launched an unprecedented, large–scale assault against Israel in April which, while ineffective, signaled a clear and blatant disregard of Israeli capabilities. This attack came on the heels of the Israel–Hamas war, a conflict with indisputable Iranian influence. Further, the drone attack was an escalatory response to Israel’s pre–emptive and questionably ethical strike against the Iranian consulate in Syria. These are two distinct domains in a conflict between antagonists vying for regional influence (and in Iran’s case, regional hegemony), whose complexity superbly fits Iran’s strategy.
North Korea sustains antagonism for peaceful resolution in Northeast Asia, abandoning peaceful Korean reunification. It has continued expanding military capabilities and volatile rhetoric. While South Korea and Japan face the immediacy of the threat from Pyongyang, the United States remains the impetus for North Korean aggression. Beyond potential nuclear–fueled aggression, Pyongyang has mastered the liminal aspect of strategic competition through cyber and espionage efforts to undermine the liberal order.
China has applied myriad and complex levers of power at its own discretion to reform the international order into a system favorable towards Beijing’s policies. Its long–term aims align with the realist ideology that American hegemony has failed to equalize the world, particularly along Global North–South lines, and aims to lead a revised international order. Beijing enjoys an indisputable advantage to the liberalist network in one particularly key demographic: long–term vision and commitment thereto. Beijing has proven to be unsuitable for international hegemony as it's continuously critiqued for its 'authoritarian capitalism' and disregards individualism–based rights.
Political turnover’s impact on liberal cohesion
In liberal states, political turnover, partisan division, and rising populism all but guarantee that liberal cohesion remains an uphill battle. This is exacerbated by the 2024 super election year where two billion voters will choose national vectors. With political turnover risking increased discord and debate, the future of pure liberalism—genuine democracy—is at risk.
The February 2022 invasion of Ukraine demonstrated that the liberal order simply fails to understand the realist actor calculus, and resists its hard power advantage in influence or compliance. Fears of escalation, half–in/half–out measures and wavering on redlines have left Ukrainian defenders rightly wondering as to western grand strategy.
The liberal system inherently requires collaboration between states, but the need to arrive at a cohesive strategy is never swift or direct, whereas realist actors are capable of much more streamlined strategic decision–making. The collective action syndrome is made worse amidst the liberal states’ political turnover. The liberal order remains the world’s best chance at prosperity, even if it has not yet resolved the wealth disparity, the global North–South economic and governance divide, or our own risk of being lost in rising populism. The solution is that the liberal order must necessarily embrace a more collaborative form of realism (while rejecting populist and nationalist detours) because the world remains indisputably anarchic.
The future Liberal order’s uneven emergence
Almost ironically, France’s Emmanuel Macron took the initiative among European powers aligned with Ukraine, giving Ukraine the proverbial “green light” for using western–supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia. The remainder of western states soon followed suit. The irony comes just a few years after Macron’s lightning rod remarks about European collective security—NATO itself—being braindead. It’s one thing for a key NATO member and foundational European state to be assertive, but Macron’s “green light” was also carefully qualified: “We support Ukraine to resist and defend its borders, and we do not want escalation.”
What the beginning of the twenty–first century taught western scholars and strategists is that the United States cannot reasonably export Jeffersonian democracy, as it failed to do in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet promoting and advancing liberal ideals which benefit all states should remain the priority of the international system, which won’t happen if the rules–based order remains timid in contesting with authoritarian actors.
The world would benefit from some form of international hegemony, and that center of power should be located in Washington D.C., or shared with Brussels. The world should certainly not want to cede regional centers of power to Pyongyang, or Tehran, or stand idly by while Beijing and Moscow seek regional influence using their own tendrils of liminal capabilities. So long as key liberal actors hesitate to lead the contest against realist autocracy, or remain susceptible to the temptations of populism and nationalism, the realists retain their advantage.
