One of the oldest problems in public policy is the “tragedy of shared commons”: When people have access to a shared resource, they act in selfish ways and eventually deplete it. Pretty much the entire purpose of lawmaking, and every domain of government, is to counter this problem.
Every domain of government, except, apparently, international relations. For centuries, scholars of international relations have propagated self-interest as the most desirable objective of foreign policy. While you’d be frowned upon as an individual for littering on the street or vandalising public property, in international politics, all this is lauded.
Ukraine is only the latest country to suffer from a lack of global empathy in recent times. This was a relatively stable democratic State which was attacked — unprovoked — by a much larger, nuclear-armed neighbour. It is an appalling case of disregard for basic norms, characteristic of international politics.
Yet, in response, many countries publicly renounced ideals of global good. While the West has been by far the most proactive in Ukraine’s support, it hasn’t quite been faultless. Britain has tied up Ukrainian refugees in a web of regulations, making it near impossible for many of them to take shelter there. America has made clear that it won’t militarily support a non-Nato member. It stopped Poland from sending Ukraine desperately needed fighter jets, much to the latter’s chagrin. (Of relevance here is the shockingly racist media coverage across Europe, where reporters have tried to drum up support for the Ukrainians by describing them as “Christians, white, very similar people.”)
Meanwhile, the non-West has been decidedly more apathetic. For several years, China has never let go of an opportunity to lampoon the West for its interventions in the “internal matters” of other countries. But for all that pompous posturing elsewhere, China has so far refused to condemn Putin.
India has been far more honest that it only cares for its own stranded students (if even that) and that it has no interest in condemning, let alone punishing, Putin or trying to end his invasion. Last year, during the Afghan crisis, India initially said that it would prioritise only Hindu and Sikh refugees, before eventually walking that back and cancelling all previously issued visas.
Many of these policies have been glorified by both media commentators and academics as the most “prudent” course. But I’ve often wondered why such selfishness is lauded, despite the catastrophes that it has caused in several countries and the lasting horror of selfishness-driven climate change. Why is it okay for a nation to act in predatory ways but not for a business or an individual?
In many ways, the primacy of the nation-state in international politics is beginning to hurt world peace. That problem has only been made worse by the definition of “nationalism” itself, which is getting narrower across countries and leaving out minorities of all kinds. In recent years, the Ukrainian government itself has taken various steps to define a narrower Ukrainian national identity, prioritising the Ukrainian language over Russian in the country’s multilingual landscape. And as nationalism gets increasingly defined by narrow ethnic or cultural identity, empathy is only bound to suffer further, and countries will respond to global crises primarily through their ethnic, religious or racial biases.
To be sure, a humanitarian foreign policy is not costless; it means that you must provide shelter to more refugees, sacrifice strategic ties with an invader, or donate your resources to a country in need. But a lawless world is no less unsafe for life and business than a lawless society.