In light of the recent invasion of Russia in Ukraine Natalie Jordaan, a Stellenbosch resident, wrote the following opinion piece.
South Africa and Brics: Brics is an economic relationship, not a military one. We have no obligation to get involved, in fact we belong to the Non-Alignment Movement, which means we are allowed to refuse to take sides and get involved in these kinds of conflicts.
Why is Nato not getting involved? It requires the consensus of ALL the 30+ member states to actually make a move; not only that, but the leaders of those countries do have a responsibility to their own people and their safety. By one Nato country getting involved, it means that they are dragging ALL Nato countries into it, and actively endangering their own citizens.
Why would Putin make the statement to have Russia’s Nuclear Deterrence Forces on standby? A threat like this is not acceptable at all in the modern international arena. Already, many of Putin’s actions have been deemed illegal and are indeed being put forth to the International Court of Justice, which was originally established exactly to deal with situations such as this where international law is breached. There can be no positive outcome from the use of nuclear weapons; Putin is acting irrationally, and these are the actions of someone who feels like they are losing.
Unfortunately, his history as President of Russia does not give us much faith in his “rationality” when it comes to his actions. He knows how much is to be lost from involving nuclear. However, at the moment, with the Russian economy plummeting, and Russia not yet getting a foot-hold in Ukraine, he is realising that he has dug himself into a hole, and he is feeling threatened. He refuses to “lose face”, even though it is becoming very clear that he is realising how reckless and irrational his attempting to take Ukraine was, and is also increasingly losing what minimal support he still had from the Russian public.
He is running Russia into omni-shambles and further ruining his own reputation, and so he (dangerously) might feel like he has nothing to lose at this point, showing disregard for the safety of others, both in and outside of Russia.
Belarus is one of the Kremlin’s few supporting nations, mostly because they rely heavily on Russia for economic reasons. Belarus also knows it cannot survive another nuclear situation. Although the Chernobyl incident happened in Ukraine, 60-70% of the fallout fell over Belarus, absolutely crippling them.
Belarus was arguably the country that suffered the most after Chernobyl, and with most of the nuclear particles (in particular, caesium) having half-lives of up to 30 years, it means that some contaminated areas will not be entirely cleared for anything up to 180 to 320 years. Belarus has a direct interest in Russia not pushing the nuclear button, because the retaliation of such a move would be beyond devastating.
It is important to note that most Russian civilians (and soldiers) do not support the war against Ukraine. Many say that if the Russian population continues to be oppressed and controlled in this manner, Russia will become no more than another North Korea (North Korea being another country openly supporting Putin’s aggressive stance).
Natalie Jordaan has a master’s degree in international relations from Shandong University in China; she specialised in conflict negotiation and mediation, focusing on nuclear power & nuclear warfare, primarily in countries such as Ukraine, Russia, Japan, China, and USA.
*The views in this article is that of the writer and not that of Media24 or Eikestadnuus.
