It could be said that the nations of the global South see themselves as having come of age and are ready to break definitively from the tutelage that, in one way or another, the West has exercised over the rest of the world, epitomised in the expression popularised by Niall Ferguson, "The West and the Rest" 2.įurthermore, as Josep Piqué expresses, there is great concern about the values that will end up predominating in the world to come: In a similar vein, the moral authority of Western powers has been undermined by events that have remained in the memory of various international actors, including the recent Western lack of solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paradigm shift, dominated by intense and growing Sino-US rivalry, is compounded by a significant component of anti-Western resentment linked to the colonial past. Faced with a foreseeable new hierarchy of power, international actors are looking out for their own interests and seeking to position themselves well vis-à-vis the future international system. It coincides with a particularly unique historical moment-considered by many to be a turning point-when it would appear that after five centuries the Western powers are ceding the leadership of history to the Asian world 1. To the surprise of Washington and its allies, the country leading this wave of opinion is India, a close strategic partner of the US in its rivalry with China. This is producing a fracture between the West and what has been termed the "global South" (figure 1). In the rest of the world, however, the attitude has been different. The war in Ukraine has provoked a unanimous reaction against Russian aggression from the EU, the US and the US's closest allies. In any case, the struggle between the Western powers and the Russian Federation to try to align the global south in accordance with its strategic designs will be one of the keys that can determine both the outcome of the military conflict and, fundamentally, the survival of the Russia of Putin when the war is over. Resentment over the abuses of the colonial era, the perception that the West uses different yardsticks according to its convenience, and the rejection of one part of the world imposing its value system on the rest also come into play.
Sensing the decline of the Westerncentric era of human history, the countries of the global south have decided to act according to their own interests, maintain their autonomy and not be drawn into a confrontation that they do not perceive as their own. The West has responded to Russia's military aggression with an unprecedented set of sanctions, the effect of which, however, has been reduced by the global south's refusal to align itself with the United States and its closest allies in this regard. The war in Ukraine is dragging on and complicating at a huge price for the parties. This document is a copy of the original published by the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies at the following link.
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