Ukraine and the US alike see opportunity in the Global South’s multipolarity, because the so-called ‘Global South’ is presenting itself as one
Government and security officials from over 40 countries have descended on Saudi Arabia’s port city of Jeddah on the coast of the increasingly important Red Sea to discuss the continuing conflict in Ukraine, and, more importantly, ideate on how to bring it to a logical end. The conference, where Russia has not been invited, is another attempt to try and build some kind of consensus around the war on Europe’s border. But for Riyadh and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), it is also about placing Saudi Arabia strongly amidst a fast-changing global order.
Doval’s attendance was also a testament to the positive bilateral trajectory between New Delhi and Riyadh.India was represented by National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval at the meet. Doval’s attendance was also a testament to the positive bilateral trajectory between New Delhi and Riyadh. “The meeting confronts a two-fold challenge—resolution of the situation and softening the consequences of the conflict. Efforts must be directed on both fronts simultaneously and much more groundwork is needed to ensure this,” he said on the sidelines as the main meeting was conducted behind closed doors. The Jeddah meet was put together by Ukraine and Saudi Arabia following President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s stopover in May to address the Arab League. For Riyadh and MbS, orchestrating such an event has multi-layered reasoning behind it. To begin with, it feeds into a lagging Saudi–United States (US) dynamic, which has been fraught with complications of the kind that even a personal visit by Biden last year did not help fully resolve. Saudi Arabia and Russia, together, as members of the cartel Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have worked in unison to extend supply cuts to keep the price of oil above a certain threshold. Beyond energy, the Ukraine crisis has also pushed global inflation as prices for food increased, severely impacting developing economies. In June, a group of African leaders visited Moscow in an attempt to promote their own peace plan to end the conflict and ease stress on the supply of grains and other food security-related items both from Russia and Ukraine. This entire strategy from the perspective of Russian President Vladimir Putin is often christened as ‘Hunger Games’, named after a 2008 dystopian novel by American writer Suzanne Collins. For Russia, the Black Sea Grain Initiative, initially brokered by the United Nations and Türkiye, allowing for shipment of grains and fertilisers to sail smoothly through the conflict-ridden waters, is also a point of leverage.
A group of African leaders visited Moscow in an attempt to promote their own peace plan to end the conflict and ease stress on the supply of grains and other food security-related items both from Russia and Ukraine.Expectations from this meet were tempered to begin with, as it remained largely unclear as to what was to be achieved, other than good advertising for MbS’s convening power within the Global South; the kingdom’s positioning in the same; and perhaps more narrowly, aiding American efforts to build consensus by making sure China attends the meet with US National Security Agency (NSA) Jake Sullivan in the same room. While these can be seen as narrower aims from the idea of a ‘Saudi century’ perspective, there are stronger undercurrents below these regional initiatives where the idea of multipolarity, often thought of as one led by a consortium of middle powers, is unravelling simultaneously. The Saudis, for example, would see themselves as a pole of power as part of a newer global order based on multipolarity, but within the extended region, so would the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Türkiye, and Iran. Similarly, while India, more realistically, postures itself towards the same and to a certain extent uses constructs such as the Global South to present itself in a leadership role, others, such as Saudi and the UAE, are doing the same. The market for geopolitical middlemen challenging post-WWII constructs is indeed brimming with options.
However, China’s positioning and how it views this conflict will remain critical as it is set to benefit from Russia’s fracture with Europe and Moscow’s incoming reliance on Chinese politics and economics.However, the joker in the deck for all of this will be China. Scholar Cinzia Bianco correctly notes that Beijing by no means is a hegemonic leader of the Global South, and much of this perhaps comes from the fact that China cannot be defined as a ‘middle power’ anymore. However, China’s positioning and how it views this conflict will remain critical as it is set to benefit from Russia’s fracture with Europe and Moscow’s incoming reliance on Chinese politics and economics. In turn, this is bad news for ideations such as multipolarity and strategic autonomy, terms found commonly today in West Asia, India, Africa, and Latin America as expectations over a neo-Cold War between the US and China increase. A weakened Russia is not in the interest of the Global South, and while the architect of this reality today is Moscow itself, the domino effect it is going to have in strengthening China’s position needs much more space for introspection and debate than what it is currently getting, specifically in the West.
Ukraine and the US alike see opportunity in the Global South’s multipolarity, because the so-called ‘Global South’ is presenting itself as one.Finally, as scholar Happymon Jacob notes, the actual conditions on the battlefield and how they evolve will be the single biggest deciding factor on any direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv. Attempts such as the Jeddah Summit bode well for Ukraine as a state and Zelenskyy as a leader to continue applying pressure on the international community by pushing his 10-Point Peace Formula—a smartly devised list that evenly distributes the risk of the war between Ukraine and the international community so as to make sure fatigue of the conflict does not set in (as witnessed in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.). Ukraine and the US alike see opportunity in the Global South’s multipolarity, because the so-called ‘Global South’ is presenting itself as one. Whether anyone from this construct has either the design or leverage with Putin to change the course of this unfolding history, and willingness to act on it, remains to be seen.
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Kabir Taneja is a Fellow with Strategic Studies programme. His research focuses on Indias relations with West Asia specifically looking at the domestic political dynamics ...
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