A matéria trata do momento delicado com Rússia, as movimentações de Putin nos bastidores internacionais além da perspectiva do autor sobre a perspectiva de polarização dos BRICS frente os recentes episódios.
Leitura bem legal !
matéria publicada em: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/28/triumph_putin_good_countries_do_nothing_india_brazil
ARGUMENT
The Triumph of Putin Is When Good Countries Do Nothing
While Obama focuses on shoring up European support to fend off Russian aggression, it's actually powerful emerging nations that hold the key.
President Barack Obama was shoring up alliances this week with visits to The Hague, Rome, Brussels, and Riyadh -- all trips designed, for the most part, to counterbalance a bellicose Vladimir Putin. But if he really wants his flanks covered, the U.S. president should consider routing Air Force One for stops in New Delhi, Brasilia, Pretoria, and other capitals that may look irrelevant to the crisis, but are anything but.
Obama's March 26 speech in Brussels affirmed the sanctity of the transatlantic alliance but made only passing reference to rising powers elsewhere in the world. While coordinating with Europe over the past few weeks, Obama has managed to hold close America's trusted traditional allies, such as Canada, Australia, and Japan. Meanwhile, the administration has had to keep an eye on Iran, Syria, and other flash points such as Venezuela and the Central African Republic.
But Washington needs eyes in the back of its head to ensure that the world's leading rising powers -- Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Nigeria, India, and Indonesia -- don't, deliberately or not, stab it in the back by gradually giving Putin the global legitimacy that the Obama administration wants to deny him.
These six countries maintain complex and often strong relationships with an array of powers worldwide. They have built their economies and their regional influence, cultivating ties in Beijing, Washington, Brussels, Moscow, and points in between.
Since entering office, Obama has mounted a charm offensive geared toward key regional leaders, building friendships that serve partly as counterweights to China's and Russia's own voracious networking. Closer cooperation with these countries formed a centerpiece of Obama's 2010 National Security Strategy and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 2011 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review -- both core statements of the administration's strategy and policy direction.
India and Indonesia, respectively, are the world's first and third most populous democracies, and they are centerpieces of Washington's "pivot to Asia" and approach to handling China's rise. Brazil and Argentina are the most influential players in Washington's near abroad, and South Africa and Nigeria are key to countering terrorism and fostering trade and development across Africa. Reflecting their importance, the Obama administration has included these countries in an array of treaties, strategic dialogues, and commissions all aimed at improving relations -- partly as a counterweight to China and Russia.
As for these six countries, their willingness to help solve global problems and conflicts -- as measured by things like their votes as nonpermanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- is monitored not just by Washington and Brussels, but also by Moscow and Beijing. And these capitals all likely judge the results as mixed.
On a tense global rift like the Crimea conflict, most capitals instinctively want to stay out of the way. Ukraine is mercifully distant from most of the developing world. But these countries have long complained that structures like the G-7, G-8, and Security Council are obsolete and ignore today's global power realities. India, Brazil, and South Africa have been among the most vociferous in demanding a seat at the table in global affairs, and they won't be able to hide for long in the face of a prolonged international conflagration.In the drama over Ukraine and Russia's relationship to the West, the supporting actors could ultimately matter nearly as much as the stars. Russia is boasting that it will survive the West's sanctions because it has alternative trading partners. Having been blacklisted by the West, Putin will either be left friendless or will succeed in turning the BRICS, a coalition of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, into a tight new clique. These countries' warmth toward him may affect his calculus on whether to push further on eastern Ukraine or call it a day with Crimea.
These nations also influence bloc votes at the U.N. General Assembly, where Russia’s actions were the subject of a new resolution -- brought forward by Ukraine on March 27 -- to not recognize the annexation of Crimea. One hundred nations voted in favor and just 11 against, but another 82 were either absent or abstained, including Argentina, Brazil, India, and South Africa. As the Russian president rewrites the rules on sovereignty and cross-border intervention, these countries will help determine whether his actions go down in history as an aberration or as a new normal. And as Washington tries to prove that it can still rally the world, these countries can affirm that the United States still has its mojo, or confirm a narrative of decline.
During the run-up to the Crimea referendum, Washington and Brussels seemed to be winning most hearts and minds. On March 15at the U.N. Security Council, the United States rallied every member state, save China and Russia, to vote not to recognize the Crimea referendum. It was Nigeria's U.N. ambassador who warned, "The lessons of history are not far-fetched, and we are concerned that the mistakes of history must not be repeated by those alive today." Indonesia echoed the same sentiment, saying, "We cannot accept any move that violates sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine."
But history suggests that the support summoned in an immediate crisis doesn't always last. After the 2011 Security Council vote to stop Muammar al-Qaddafi's assault on Libyan insurgents, India, South Africa, and Brazil quickly slipped into voters' remorse. The specter of a Western-led military onslaught to remove Qaddafi from power tapped into old anti-colonial mantras, triggering an almost visceral aversion. Their turnabout translated to their resistance to international intervention in Syria, giving Putin a measure of cover for his support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
When considering faraway foreign-policy dilemmas, many of these rising powers are influenced by a competing trifecta of impulses: old anti-imperialist antipathy toward the West, especially Western shows of force; the liberal, democratic values most of these nations have espoused in their constitutions; and the desire to demonstrate their own sophistication and significance on the world stage. The Ukraine conflict inserts certain additional factors into the mix, spanning trade relationships, military partnerships, historical alliances, and concerns about how precedents on sovereignty and self-determination might play out locally.
On March 24, a BRICS meeting at the margins of the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague announced that the group rejected sanctions and the use of "hostile language" (presumably by the United States and Europe) in the Ukraine conflict.
Citing a long-standing policy against sanctions that lack U.N. endorsement, India presaged the BRICS's pronouncement by refusing to back Western measures directed at Russia. Days after India's national security advisor said that there were "legitimate Russian … interests" in Crimea, Putin publicly thanked India for its "restrained and objective" stance. All things considered, this likely wasn't a tough choice for India: The country relies on Russia for three-quarters of its arms supply, and U.S.-India relations have deteriorated in the wake of the nanny-wage scandal.
Brazil, a major meat supplier for Russia, has been circumspect, breaking its silence only to blandly call for a negotiated solution to the Ukraine crisis. But its foreign minister, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, confirmed that the upcoming BRICS summit will meet in July as planned -- a promise to Putin that he will be in the group photo with his fellow heads of state and government.
Although Argentina voted for the U.S.-backed resolution, its president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has since linked the fate of Crimea to that of the Falkland Islands, which voted in a referendum in 2013 to remain part of Britain. The analogy is spurious, as the Falklands, a British territory since 1833, simply voted to remain so. Nonetheless, she called out Western hypocrisy,saying, "Many of the major powers, which have secured the Falklands' people right to self-determination, do not want to do the same in relation to the Crimea now. How can you call yourselves guarantors of world stability if you do not apply the same standards for everyone?"
It is already clear that Washington and Brussels will have a hard time sustaining the support of rising powers over Crimea. Key milestones ahead will reveal whether Obama or Putin is winning the battles of allegiance. If rising nations side with Russia, this could undermine the years of investment Washington has made in bettering relations with these countries, making the rift with Russia more costly.
The Obama administration can do three things to better its chances with key non-Western capitals. For one, it can make a public show of consulting rising powers as friends and allies, just as Russia has done by meeting with the BRICS. If there's one thing these countries hate, it is being left out of the conversation.
The administration should also ensure that Ukraine's young government has the bandwidth and resources needed to mobilize its own embassies and U.N. mission to directly approach foreign capitals for support -- places like India and South Africa, which have also resisted great-power domination.
And, finally, the Crimea precedent could have dangerous implications for Tibet and Taiwan. Obama wisely met on March 24 with Chinese President Xi Jinping, a show of cooperation that flew in the face of the BRICS communiqué. Forced to choose between the United States and Russia, other developing capitals will be inclined to follow China's lead. And as the largest of the BRICS, China could well determine whether their united facade endures or crumbles.
Photo: Alexey Maishev/Host Photo Agency via Getty Images
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