How I Learned to Stop Worrying about the Bomb

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many scholars last year wrote about the ramifications that the war would have on international security. Among the concerns was the distress about the potential impacts that the war would have on the nuclear nonproliferation regime. In their article for Foreign Policy (published in March of last year), Andreas Umland and Hugo von Essen, analysts at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, argue that the war in Ukraine will cause middle power states to derive three main lessons. First, nuclear weapons remain a powerful source of power in the international system. Second, if you are a state with nuclear weapons, it is foolish to relinquish said weapons. Third, treaties, alliances, and the like cannot be trusted as a means of ensuring security. In this article, I aim to expand the discussion via addressing and disputing these claims. I argue that even though middle power states may recognize that nuclear weapons are a powerful tool, they’ll still refrain from acquiring them and instead make use of other methods (such as international agreements), either willingly or by the coercion of a great power, to quash their security concerns.

Umland and von Essen argue that states with nuclear weapons or aspirations to acquire such weapons will perceive the invasion as proof that nuclear weapons are essential to their security. They argue that states will see Ukraine’s past efforts to denuclearize as foolish, as they eliminated the deterrence effect that was preventing a Russian invasion. Because of this, they conclude that non-nuclear weapons states are likely to rush to obtain nuclear weapons before their regional adversaries, and that nuclear weapons states are unlikely to agree to disarmament measures in the future.

I disagree with the notion that states will take away that Ukraine was invaded because it denuclearized. To start, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons 30 years before the invasion. Assuming Umland and von Essen are right in their claim that the decisive factor determining whether Russia decided to invade the former Soviet state was its possession of nuclear weapons, then it seems illogical that they would wait so long to launch an invasion. Instead, I would argue that there is another factor that has more explanatory power regarding Russia’s behavior: Ukraine’s position relative to the West. Simply put, it seems as though the more Ukraine has panned towards the West, the more aggressive Russia’s behavior has become.

In February 2014, after Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a proposal to increase cooperation with the European Union in favor of expanding ties with Russia, large-scale protests erupted across the country, culminating in the ousting of Yanukovych on February 22nd.  As the reality became increasingly clear to Russian elites that their attempts at influencing Ukraine were facing staunch resistance from the populace, they responded by launching an invasion of Crimea, a region in southern Ukraine. Russia’s response then was motivated primarily by the fear of a Ukraine that aligns itself more towards the West and away from Russia. This factor remains prevalent in their decision calculus today, as it likely undergirded the decision to launch a full-scale invasion in February of last year, a decision that coincided with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s goal of Ukrainian integration with the EU and NATO by 2024.

Additionally, an important caveat I’ll add to Umland and von Essen’s argument is that, while the weapons were on Ukrainian soil, Ukraine didn’t have control over the weapons, which limits the ability of the weapons to act as a deterrent. For a nuclear weapon to act as a deterrent that changes the behavior of other actors, there must be a credible threat that the state would use it in the face of a provocation, a condition that cannot be meet if a state is unable to use them, whether initiated in a conflict or otherwise. Regardless, while the weapons nonetheless influenced Russia’s decision to invade, I disagree with Umland and von Essen’s analysis that states will believe their presence (or lack thereof) was the single most decisive factor behind the invasion. 

Instead of focusing on their nuclear weapons, I would argue that states will recognize that Ukraine was not part of a regional alliance, such as NATO or the European Union, with a guarantee to protect its members in the face of encroachment or invasion. This development will compel states to strengthen bilateral relations with a great power, realizing that it is a much more efficient and effective means of ensuring security than pursuing a nuclear weapon, as states can enjoy the same benefit of security without the costs of acquiring nuclear weapons. 

To clarify, I think that Ukraine was in a unique situation, in which a country’s pursuit of a network of alliances prompted an aggressive response from another. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long sought after Ukraine, a former Soviet state that he argues is “ethnically Russian” and should therefore reintegrated into Russia. Ukraine suffered from the illusion of choice: either pursue alliance commitments and aggravate Russia or don’t and risk fighting Russia alone in the event of an invasion. The lack of alliance commitments left Ukraine as a sitting duck in the event of Russian encroachment. Conversely, the shift towards the West to form alliance commitments angered Russia and accelerated any desire to invade. In this case, what Ukraine believed was in their self-interest clashed with what Russia believed was in their self-interest, which caused conflict.

In terms of the international reaction, this is where Umland, von Essen, and I agree: middle power states will look to avoid an instance in which a conflict emerges from their self-interest clashing with another state, and thus will look to bolster their security. Where we disagree, however, is in the methods by which these states will use. Umland and von Essen argue that other middle power states will interpret Russia’s attack as an indication of the necessity of nuclear weapons to ensure international security, whether it is to deter confrontations with regional adversaries or encroachments from great powers. While I won’t deny that middle power states will reconsider the power of nuclear weapons on the international stage in the wake of the war in Ukraine, I don’t think that sentiment will necessarily translate into them seeking a nuclear weapon of their own. Instead, I would argue that it provides a reason why they should enhance cooperation with their allies, especially great power allies, to achieve an enhanced sense of security.

Regarding treaties, Umland and von Essen argue that the war in Ukraine undermines the credibility of treaties to prevent non-proliferation, such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and leaves middle power states with little incentive to abide by treaties writ large, given the willingness of great powers (such as Russia) to completely disregard them. However, it seems as though the opposite is happening. Instead of abandoning treaties, assurances, and the like, middle powers have begun to (and will likely continue to) cling to them, recognizing that their livelihood may depend on the security provided by a great power. 

Consider the increase in cooperation between Taiwan and the US in the past year, as evidenced by high-profile meetings, for example. Taiwan, a state that many would argue is a likely candidate for an amphibious invasion in the coming years from its neighbor China, is reaffirming the importance of its relationship with the United States. Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and current Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s meeting with president Tsai Ing-Wen have signaled to China that the US’ commitment to Taiwan remains stronger than ever. These visits are rooted in a Taiwanese desire for security, as enhanced cooperation is an indication that the US recognizes the vital role Taiwan plays in advancing its national interests. This recognition is informally hinting towards a willingness by the US to defend Taiwan in the event of a conflict, thus deterring a Chinese invasion without involving the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Based on Umland and von Essen’s analysis, one would expect Taiwan, as a middle power, to pursue nuclear weapons to resolve their security qualms. Instead, they’ve taken steps to fortify their relationship with the United States, leveraging their relations with a great power to hedge back against China. 

Additionally, even if states decide that it is in their best interest to pursue a nuclear weapon, international actors will intervene to prevent this desire from translating into concrete action. China has played a key role in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, because (among other reasons) they recognize that any such effort would be seen as aggressive by its adversaries in the region, namely Israel and Saudi Arabia, and set off a regional arms race. China cannot afford such an outcome, as they benefit immensely from stability in the region, as it ensures they can continue to trade extensively with both Saudi Arabia and Iran. As a result, they have a unique incentive to step in to prevent any actions that would jeopardize access to those markets, which, much to their dismay, means no bomb for Iran.

Regardless of whether this is an instance of a middle power reaching out to a great power to ensure its security (without the pursuit of nuclear weapons) or a great power reaching out to a middle power to provide security (to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons), or something in between, the result remains the same: no nuclear proliferation by the middle power.

Umland and von Essen’s fears that the war in Ukraine will collapse the non-proliferation regime are overblown. The war in Ukraine has done little to fundamentally change the costs and benefits of pursuing a nuclear weapon as a means of addressing security concerns, meaning that states will opt to pursue treaties and other agreements. These declarations allow countries to achieve the same security without the international backlash associated with developing a nuclear weapons program. Additionally, while the NPT in its current state may have lost credibility, any residual loss will be supplemented by the intervention of state actors. The interest of great powers to cap the proliferation of nuclear weapons (and their accompanying destabilizing effect on regional and international security) will ultimately continue to prevent any remaining desire by states to pursue nuclear weapons from materializing. 

Revisiting the Genocide Convention

The concept of genocide, as outlined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, is no longer useful and detracts attention and resources from other instances of systematic mass violence. In fact, the concept of genocide as we know it today, was not what Raphael Lemkin had originally conceived when he coined the term. Only four groups are protected under the convention: racial, ethnic, national, and religious groups. Other groups are excluded from protection including political groups. There are also no explicit prevention provisions within the Genocide Convention. The definition and conception of genocide as it currently exists allows us to pick and choose which acts of mass violence deserve the recognition that comes with labeling something a genocide.

There is a tendency to downplay instances of mass violence if they do not conform to the strict definition of genocide outlined in the convention. Taking away attention from mass atrocities because the victim pool is not homogenous or does not neatly fit into one of the four categories is cruel and dehumanizing. 

The Original Conception of Genocide

It would be neglectful to not begin this paper with a brief overview of Raphael Lemkin’s original conception of genocide. This is to honor his role in coining the term but to also demonstrate how different the current definition is from what he imagined and how that limits our understanding of genocide today. Lemkin coined the term genocide in 1942, but the bones of the concept were there as early as 1933. Lemkin’s report titled “Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger Considered as Offences Against the Law of Nations” developed the precursor to genocide which he called “barbarity.” Barbarity was “acts of extermination directed against the ethnic, religious, or social collectivities whatever the motive (political, religious, etc.). Barbarity was unique in that the attacks were “carried out against an individual as a member of a collectivity” with the goal being to damage the collectivity. A second type of attack on a collectivity was known as “vandalism,” or cultural and artistic destruction. Lemkin saw individual cultures as contributing to a wider world culture that all humans were part of. His argument was that destroying a particular culture inflicted a loss on world culture. These two acts, barbarity and vandalism, violated the law of nations and therefore a multilateral convention criminalizing these acts was necessary. 

Lemkin coined the term ‘genocide’ in 1942, but it first appeared in print in his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. In Chapter 9, Lemkin defines genocide as “the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group.” The word is 

intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

Lemkin identifies two phases of genocide: destroying the “national pattern” of the oppressed group and then imposing the “national pattern” of the oppressor.

Lemkin’s definition highlighted different techniques of genocide in various areas. He identified eight techniques of genocide. The first was political, which included the destruction of local institutions of self-government and the imposition of the oppressing government. The second was social, which meant the overhauling of social structure through the forced deportation of intellectual leaders and the clergy. The third was cultural, which included prohibitions on speaking and printing in local languages, as well as strict control over cultural activities and artistic expression. The fourth was economic, which included lowering the standard of living, expelling groups from certain industries, seizing private property, and controlling the banking system. The fifth was biological, which was taking measures to prevent the group from reproducing like separating men and women, and also taking steps to actively reproduce the oppressing group. The sixth was physical, which Lemkin outlines in the following ways: “racial discrimination in feeding;” “endangering of health;” and “mass killing.” The seventh was religious, which included forcing people to renounce their religious affiliations and persecuting clergy. The last was moral, which meant creating an atmosphere of moral debasement by forcing oppressed groups to watch pornographic movies, to overconsume alcohol, and to gamble. In the end, the concept of genocide officially adopted in the convention only focuses on biological and physical techniques of genocide. 

It is important to note that Lemkin understood genocide as a process, not a singular event. Genocide was an attempt to destroy a nation, with ‘attempt’ meaning an “active social, political, or historical process set in motion intentionally” rather than a single act. Lemkin made sure to emphasize the role of the state in developing a genocidal policy over time through various laws, decrees, and administrative institutions that worked together to commit genocide. In this way, the apparatus of the state becomes a vehicle for genocide. 

Lemkin lobbied heavily for a UN convention outlawing genocide and in 1947, along with Vespasian Pella and Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, he created the first draft of such a convention, now known as the secretariat draft. I want to highlight two notable provisions in this draft that are not included in the final version. First, the protected groups are not just racial, religious, and national, but also linguistic, cultural, and political. Second, genocide can be biological, physical, and cultural. Cultural genocide included “forced and systematic exile of individuals representing the culture of a group;” “prohibition of the use of the national language even in private intercourse;” “systematic destruction of books printed in the national language or of religious works or prohibition of new publications;” and “systematic destruction of historical or religious monuments or their diversion to alien uses, destruction or dispersion of documents and objects of historical, artistic, or religious value and of objects used in religious worship.” Lemkin’s original conception of genocide was lost throughout the drafting process. Each draft after the secretariat draft looked less and less like his original vision and he was forced to decide what his priority was: definitions or prosecuting genocide. Ultimately, he chose to fight for the provisions that would establish an international criminal tribunal for genocide. In the end, the work Lemkin put into preserving his original conception of genocide would not produce tangible results until the ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda were created in the early 1990s.  

Specific Problems with the Genocide Convention

1. The Exclusion of Political Groups

The exclusion of political groups is one of the critical flaws of the Genocide Convention. The primary justification for the exclusion of political groups from the Genocide Convention is that people choose their political affiliation, but people cannot choose their race or ethnicity. This argument hinges on the idea that genocide is the targeting of a specific group solely because of some innate characteristic, but that is rarely ever the case. It is important to note, however, that nationality, religion, even ethnicity are not innate characteristics. While you are born into a nationality or religion, it is a choice to remain part of a national or religious group and we know that ethnicity is not an entirely biological phenomenon, but also socially constructed and ever-changing. “Groups formed on the basis of ‘religion’ or ‘nationality’ are in reality no more stable or permanent than groups formed on the basis of political affiliation” and “ethnicity can be shaped by political and economic factors as much as ancestry and inherited culture.” Extensive research has been done into why political groups were excluded from the initial drafting of the Convention (states wanted to be able to suppress political opposition, among other things), but as Beth Van Schaack explains, the exclusion of political groups is fundamentally at odds with the international human rights apparatus. 

Discarding political groups from the Genocide Convention created an internally inconsistent human rights regime, because other major international agreements include the category. The prohibition of crimes against humanity prohibits persecutions on ‘political, racial, or religious grounds.’ Likewise, the provisions of the Refugee Convention protect individuals from persecution on account of ‘race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.’ 

To solidify this point further, political persecution is a valid reason to seek asylum, which shows that political affiliation and expression, while not innate, is something worth protecting. Additionally, before the Genocide Convention was adopted, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution affirming that genocide is a crime under international law “whether the crime is committed on religious, racial, political, or any other grounds.” In sum, there is a history of political affiliation being a protected status under the international human rights regime that cannot be ignored. 

1. The Exclusion of Cultural Genocide

Culture is a fundamental part of identity, and its destruction not only harms that culture, but humanity as well. But the Genocide Convention does not reflect this. The first two drafts of the Genocide Convention explicitly stated that cultural destruction is a form of genocide. In the Secretariat Draft, the definition of genocide included provisions such as “forced and systematic exile of individuals representing the culture of a group;” “prohibition of the use of the national language even in private intercourse;” “systematic destruction of books printed in the national language or of religious works or prohibition of new publications;” and “systematic destruction of historical or religious monuments or their diversion to alien uses, destruction or dispersion of documents and objects of historical, artistic, or religious value and of objects used in religious worship.” The Ad hoc Committee Draft succinctly reiterated these provisions, defining cultural genocide as “any deliberate act committed with the intent to destroy the language, religion, or culture of a national, racial, or religious group on grounds of the national or racial origin or the religious beliefs of its members…” As mentioned in the previous section, fifteen years before the creation of the Genocide Convention, Lemkin explained how vandalism, defined as the “destruction of culture and works of art,” constituted an attack on a collectivity. “The contribution of any particular collectivity to world culture as a whole, forms the wealth of all humanity…Thus, the destruction of a work of art of any nation must be regarded as acts of vandalism directed against world culture.” The definition of cultural genocide in the first two drafts of the Genocide Convention is simply a generalization of the examples Lemkin used to describe the cultural genocide committed by the Nazis in France and Poland. 

Humanity clearly understands the importance of cultural preservation and appreciation. If we did not, UNESCO World Heritage sites would not exist, and museums would have nothing to exhibit. Culture gives life meaning and to destroy the culture of a particular group is to destroy the “social vitality” of that group, as identified by Claudia Card. She writes, “Social vitality is destroyed when the social relations—organizations, practices, institutions—of the members of a group are irreparably damaged or demolished.” Because culture gives groups social vitality, “When a group with its own cultural identity is destroyed, its survivors lose their cultural heritage and may even lose their intergenerational connections.” If people cannot participate in their culture because it was destroyed, life becomes devoid of meaning, leading to social death akin to physical death. “By limiting genocide to its physical and biological manifestations, a group can be kept physically and biologically intact even as its collective identity suffers in a fundamental and irremediable manner…the present understanding of genocide preserves the body of the group but allows its very soul to be destroyed.”

1. Forgets Prevention

The Genocide Convention as it currently exists fails to provide sufficient guidance on how states should prevent genocide, diminishing the utility of the convention as a legal instrument. For a crime like genocide, who implementation and methodology are constantly evolving, there simply needs to be more substantive explanation and guidelines for its prevention. Prevention is currently based on deterrence and the threat of punishment. But it is unclear how effective a deterrent punishment is. Preventing a genocide is a difficult task because the term tends to be retroactively applied via courts or independent fact-finding missions. The international community cannot prevent a genocide if it refuses to acknowledge one is happening and only do so after the violence has ended. Genocides can be prevented by understanding and mitigating the factors that are most likely to lead to genocide, a significant one being war. Prevention must be proactive and cannot be solely based on threat of punishment. 

Moving Forward

After highlighting a few problems with the concept of genocide, I want to offer a few alternatives. In terms of Genocide convention, changes are possible. Article XVI of the convention states “A request for the revision of the present Convention may be made at any time by any Contracting Party by means of a notification in writing addressed to the Secretary-General. The General Assembly shall decide upon the steps, if any, to be taken in respect of such request.” All it takes is one state to request that the Genocide Convention be revised, and the General Assembly can decide where to go from there. Given that this convention is 75 years old, it is worth reevaluating its provisions given that the world has changed tremendously since 1948. Revisions to the convention can mean including cultural genocide and expanding the protection status to include political groups. Revisions can also make the prevention aspect clearer. While convincing states to make changes might be difficult, proposing revisions does no harm and can even bring greater attention to the issues with the convention. 

One of the problems highlighted earlier in this paper is the exclusion of political groups from the Genocide Convention. Beth Van Schaack offers a new way of thinking of the protection of political groups from genocide and that is through the norms of jus cogens. Jus cogens is the idea that there are certain peremptory norms in international law, norms that cannot be violated no matter the circumstances. According to Article 50 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 

a treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law. For the purposes of the present Convention, a peremptory norm of general international law is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character.

Examples of peremptory norms are the prohibitions on genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, human trafficking, slavery, apartheid, etc. Van Schaack makes the case for applying the norm of jus cogens to protect political groups from genocide. “When faced with mass killings evidencing the intent to eradicate political groups in whole or in part, domestic and international adjudicatory bodies should apply the jus cogens prohibition of genocide and invoke the Genocide Convention vis-à-vis signatories only insofar as it provides practical procedures for enforcement and ratification.” Enforcement and ratification can be found in Article IX which says the International Court of Justice has jurisdiction over disputes between states about the interpretation, fulfilment, and application of the Convention (although there are several reservations to this article). Article VIII says that any party can call upon “the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action…as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide” or any enumerated acts.  

Conclusion 

There is a tendency to call instances of mass violence ‘genocide’ to garner attention and action from the international community because imbedded in the word is a certain gravity that necessitates action. The obsession with genocide makes equally grave crimes like crimes against humanity and war crimes secondary and something to settle for. This directs attention away from mass violence that is not genocide, leading to inaction and indifference. 

There are changes that can be made to reduce our obsession with genocide. Contracting parties can propose revisions to the Genocide Convention; the norm of jus cogens can be the legal framework by which we view genocides and mass violence in order to include historically excluded groups from the convention; and we can think diligently about the language we use to describe instances of genocide and mass violence and use the more inclusive phrase of ‘crimes against humanity.’ 

To be reiterate once again, this is not an argument for genocide denial or even the concept as a whole. Rather, it is an argument against the concept of genocide as it currently exists. The concept of genocide can be strengthened by the inclusion of other groups, cultural genocide, and more prevention provisions. 

A Deliberate Strategy

Introduction

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, violating the UN Charter and creating the largest threat to European unity and security since World War Two. While the threat to European security is undeniable, the threat posed to international humanitarian law is equally alarming. In the year since the invasion, more than 8,000 civilians have been killed and 8 million Ukrainians have become refugees. As the war continues and Russia retreats from regions it once occupied, evidence of possible violations of international law is being discovered. 

While media coverage in the West has focused on alleged violations committed by Russia, that does not mean Ukraine is innocent. In the eyes of the law, Russia and Ukraine are equal and they are held to the same standards. Any breach of those standards, even once, cannot and should not be tolerated because any potential violation that is not investigated or prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law risks being repeated, either in Ukraine or elsewhere by states who watch how this war is being conducted and think they can do the same. Understanding the various alleged violations of international law that have been committed by both sides since the war began is critical if we are to not repeat them and if there is to be any measure of justice once this war is over. There are people still alive today who remember the horrors of World War Two, who remember what this world was like without the Geneva Conventions to regulate the conduct of war. 

History of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine can be traced back to 2004 and the Orange Revolution. The revolution began in November 2004 after the second-round results of the presidential election proclaimed Viktor Yanukovych the winner, despite exit polls showing opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in the lead. The elections were marked by widespread voter fraud and corruption in favor of Yanukovych, the Kremlin’s candidate. Russian election monitors had “validated” the results of the run-off and proclaimed Yanukovych the winner. However, the Supreme Court of Ukraine annulled the results of the first run-off and ordered a repeat of the vote in December. Yushchenko won comfortably, much to the chagrin of people in eastern and southern Ukraine, as well as Russia. Yushchenko’s victory was a setback for Russia’s plans to keep Ukraine within its sphere of influence. However, Russia got its way in 2010 when Yanukovych became president after Yushchenko’s term was riddled with infighting and he failed to integrate Ukraine with the West.

Yanukovych’s presidency did not last long before he was ousted during the Euromaidan Revolution in 2013 when protests erupted across Ukraine after he rejected a deal that would have led to greater economic integration with the EU. The protests spread across the country and Yanukovych fled to Russia in February 2014. A month later, Russia annexed Crimea, citing a duty to protect the rights and lives of ethnic Russians, who comprise a majority of the Crimean population. Not long after the annexation, separatist groups in Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine declared independence from Ukraine. Russia supported the separatist groups in the war against the Ukrainian military, with some reports suggesting that Russian soldiers had crossed the border and were fighting alongside the separatists and that some shelling had come from inside Russia. 

In 2015, Russia, Ukraine, France, and Germany began negotiating the Minsk Accords, with “provisions for a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weaponry, and full Ukrainian control of the regions.” However, the agreement and ceasefire collapsed, and fighting resumed. In October 2021, Russia began substantially building up its troop presence on the Ukrainian border, with over 100,000 troops stationed there by the end of the year. In early February 2022, Russia deployed troops to its border with Belarus, surrounding Ukraine from the north, east, and south. Finally, on February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the war has only deteriorated: more than 71,000 alleged war crimes are being investigated by the Ukrainian authorities. 

International Law

After World War Two, the international community agreed that the conduct of war needed to be regulated or the atrocities committed during that time would be repeated. The Geneva Conventions, which are the foundation of international humanitarian law (IHL), are a set of four treaties and three additional protocols that regulate how states can wage war. One of the innovations of the Geneva Conventions is the concept of grave breaches, which are the most serious breaches of the law of war. Grave breaches are unique in that they are only applicable in international armed conflicts (e.g., the current Russo-Ukrainian war). There are articles common throughout the four conventions (the Common Articles) that describe what a grave breach is. Articles 50 and 51 of the first and second conventions describe grave breaches as “wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body of health, and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.” Article 130 of the third convention includes the previous language, adding that “compelling a prisoner of war of the right of fair and regular trial prescribed in this Convention” is also a grave breach. Finally, Article 147 of the fourth convention, building on the three previous articles, includes “unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the right of fair and regular trial” and the “taking of hostages.” Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions are legally and colloquially referred to as war crimes, which must be prosecuted by the High Contracting Parties. 

It is widely accepted that international human rights law (IHRL) is applicable during times of war and that principle has been affirmed by numerous international legal bodies. Even though states are technically allowed to derogate some of their responsibilities under IHRL, they are only allowed to do so “to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation. The measures of derogation may not be inconsistent with the state’s other international obligations, such as those under IHL.” There are also certain human rights that are considered non-derogable, such as the right to life, the right to liberty and security, and freedom from torture and inhumane or degrading punishment. Crimes against humanity are the most serious breaches of international human rights law, including violations of non-derogable rights.

This is where international criminal law (ICL) becomes applicable. ICL applies to four broad sets of crimes: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression. These are the four crimes the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over, as outlined in the Rome Statute. The Rome Statute defines war crimes as both grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, as well as “other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict” such as intentionally targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. The Rome Statute also has defined crimes against humanity as acts “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” Examples of crimes against humanity include, but are not limited to, “murder, extermination, deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty, torture, and rape, sexual slavery… and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity.” Even though neither Russia nor Ukraine are state parties to the Rome Statute, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Ukraine are within the International Criminal Courts' jurisdiction because the situation was referred to the ICC by 43 state parties, and Ukraine lodged a declaration formally accepting the ICC's jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory indefinitely.

Probable Violations of International Law

On October 18, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine published a report detailing the findings of its investigation into events that occurred between February and March 2022 in the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy provinces of Ukraine. The Commission “has found reasonable grounds to conclude that an array of war crimes and violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have been committed in Ukraine since 24 February 2022.” Russian armed forces were responsible for the vast majority of war crimes and human rights violations. The Commission found that Russia most likely used explosive weapons indiscriminately in civilian areas, including indiscriminate attacks on residential buildings, schools, hospitals, and other buildings of non-military importance. Attacking civilian infrastructure not out of military necessity is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. Additionally, “The Commission found numerous cases in which Russian armed forces shot at civilians trying to flee to safety and obtain food or other necessities, which resulted in the killing or injury of the victims.” The Commission also found that “violations against personal integrity” were committed in the four provinces under Russian occupation. “These violations included summary executions, torture, ill-treatment, sexual and gender-based violence, unlawful confinement and detention in inhumane conditions, and forced deportations.” These are also grave breaches under the Geneva Conventions. Furthermore, the Commission found “a pattern of summary executions in areas temporarily occupied by Russian armed forces" including in Bucha, where over 400 people were executed during the month of Russian occupation. Many Ukrainian civilians were also illegally confined, tortured, and forcibly transferred to Russia. “Russian armed forces inflicted severe physical and mental pain and suffering upon the victims.” Sexual and gender-based violence was rampant with victims as young as 4 and as old as 83. Each of these crimes described by the Commission constitutes grave breaches under the Geneva Conventions and can be considered war crimes. 

Even though Russia is responsible for most of the violations of international law, Ukraine is not absolved of wrongdoing. The Commission also found evidence of war crimes committed by the Ukrainian armed forces. “The Commission has also documented two cases in which Ukrainian armed forces shot, wounded, and tortured captured soldiers of the Russian armed forces.” In the first case, between March 24 and March 26, Ukrainian soldiers deliberately shot three Russian prisoners of war while interrogating them. The second instance occurred on March 29 when a Ukrainian soldier shot an already wounded Russian soldier three times at close range. 

The Commission’s investigation was limited in scope. It only investigated violations of international law committed through March 2022. As more Russian forces began retreating, evidence of possible war crimes and other violations of international law have been reported. In September, the Ukrainian news agency, Ukrainska Pravda, reported that 447 bodies had been exhumed from a mass grave in Izium, Kharkiv Oblast. Most of the bodies are civilians and their exact causes of death will be investigated, although most show signs of violent death, and 30 showed evidence of torture. As stated above, attacking civilians is a war crime, and the evidence, in this case, speaks volumes, but it must be properly investigated for this to be definitively called a war crime. 

A Deliberate Strategy?

International law is clear, but it seems that every day the world discovers another possible war crime or another violation of human rights. This begs the question: why? Why violate the laws of war and international human rights law? The answer is different depending on which country you are asking about, even though the law is equally applied to both. "This equal application of IHL to both belligerents is particularly difficult to accept in the current situation, where Russia is the aggressor and therefore responsible for all human suffering in Ukraine, whether or not it results from violations of IHL and even when it is directly caused by Ukraine because even that would not have occurred if Ukraine had not to defend itself from the Russian invasion.” The answer to why Ukraine committed those two war crimes is very simple: self-defense. The extent to which committing war crimes is the best way to defend your country is questionable, but that is the reason. 

On the other hand, Russia appears to be violating international law as part of a deliberate strategy. In the months and days before the war, Vladimir Putin made a series of addresses to the nation. On July 12, 2021, Putin wrote an article titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” in which he wrote there is no historical basis for Ukrainian independence from Russia, that Ukraine is a product of historical Russia and as such owes its existence to Russia. In this article, Putin accused Ukraine of fratricide by forcing Russians to assimilate into Ukrainian culture to create an “ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia.” Ironically, Putin ends the article by stating “we respect the Ukrainian language and traditions. We respect Ukrainians’ desire to see their country free, safe, and prosperous,” but the only way to do that is by aligning itself with Russia.” 

Exactly eight months later, three days before the invasion, Putin addressed the nation, repeating the same sentiments on the historical unity of the two nations, and proclaiming that Ukraine “actually never had any stable traditions of real statehood.” On the day of the invasion, Putin's intention for Ukraine became clearer. He stated that Ukraine was perpetrating genocide against ethnic Russians. "The purpose of this operation is to protect people who… have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.” Vladimir Putin’s thinly veiled eliminationist rhetoric is contrasted by the outright eliminationist rhetoric of Russian media pundits like Timofey Sergeytsev. At the beginning of the war, Sergeytsev called the Ukrainian masses “passive Nazis” and “accomplices of Nazism” and called for a “total lustration” of Nazis (i.e., the Ukrainian people and government). Sergeytsev, echoing Putin, wrote, “Ukraine, as history has shown, is impossible as a nation-state, and attempts to "build" one naturally lead to Nazism.” Any Russian citizen or soldier, reading these articles and listening to these speeches in the Russian state media echo chamber, would undoubtedly internalize this as the truth. Many Russians have: 74% support the military’s actions in Ukraine.

Russia has made it abundantly clear it does not recognize the existence of an independent Ukraine, going as far as saying that Ukraine is run by Nazis that need to be “liquidated.” To achieve this goal of demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine, the Russian armed forces have been deliberately brutal towards civilians in the towns they occupied. For example, Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, intercepted radio communications among Russian military personnel when they were north of Kyiv. One soldier said that they shot a person on a bicycle and another soldier said, “First you interrogate soldiers, then you shoot them.” Killing a civilian and prisoners of war are both violations of the Geneva Conventions.  Committing atrocities serves as a means to an end. By terrorizing civilians and committing gross violations of international law, Russia is trying to deter resistance and assert its dominance over the Ukrainian people. “Russia’s political goals in Ukraine lend themselves to violence against civilians, even more so after Moscow’s narrative shifted the motive for the war from liberating the Ukrainian population to cleansing it from “Nazi” elements.” Asserting control over the Ukrainian people can only be achieved by dehumanizing them to the point where they no longer have the will to fight back. 

Moving Forward

There is strong evidence both Russia and Ukraine have violated international law during this war. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine found evidence of such violations, disproportionately committed by Russia. There is also evidence supporting that this is a deliberate strategy by Russia to assert control over the Ukrainian people. Atrocities do not happen in a vacuum, but when they happen, they must be documented and investigated with the utmost urgency and respect for the people harmed. There are currently numerous international and domestic investigations open, but investigations of this nature can take months, even years, to complete. The Commission of Inquiry needed seven months to investigate crimes committed in just one month. This war has lasted for over a year, so the world may not find out the extent of war crimes until long after the war has ended. This poses its own set of challenges. Witnesses could emigrate, evidence could be destroyed, and victims, who are severely traumatized, may need years before they can tell their stories. It is also highly improbable that Russia will cooperate with any investigation, seeing as it does recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court, nor does it recognize Ukraine as a sovereign nation. None of these challenges should deter the international community from investigating, documenting, indicting, and, hopefully, prosecuting these gross violations of international law. Europe has seen the ‘cleansing’ narrative before and it, along with the rest of the world, must set the precedent now that any crimes and violations of a similar nature in a similar context will be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted, lest they will be repeated.

Crumbs in the Breadbasket: A Global Food Crisis on the Horizon

In September 2022, Ukraine’s farmers began sowing winter wheat, rye, barley, and rapeseed with the echoes of Russian artillery and the smell of burning cities fresh in their minds. Many agricultural fields such as those in Ozera, Ukraine were cratered by rockets, flattened by tanks, and littered with the vestiges of war. Tractors started with no guarantee that Russia would respect Ukraine’s right to export grain from its Black Sea ports. Many of those who would be working in these fields were off fighting against the Russian military. Ukraine’s rich black soil and its seaports which give it access to international markets make the country a critical global agricultural exporter and is the reason why it is commonly referred to as “the breadbasket of Europe.” Unfortunately, Ukraine’s Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food anticipated the land dedicated to winter grain crops would decrease by up to 35 percent. The time and resources lost to Putin’s war not only threaten Europe’s food security but could cause a devastating disruption in global food distribution. The international community recognized this threat and has acted. In November 2022, Türkiye and the United Nations negotiated a deal to extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI), which assures Ukraine’s grain exports safe passage past Russian naval blockades, by 120 days. Although the BSGI took a critical step in staving off the worst consequences of a global food shortage, there is more to be done.

As the March expiration-date soon approaches, Russia has telegraphed that reupping the crucial deal will come with some foot-dragging. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin said during a February 13 interview that without the “real removal of sanctions restrictions on Russian agricultural exports,” the extension of the deal is “inappropriate.” However, this statement bends reality, because Western sanctions have not explicitly targeted Russian agricultural exports. Moscow has argued that blocks on its payments, logistics, and insurance industries are a “barrier” to the export of grains and fertilizers. The Kremlin seems to be using the threat of a global food crisis to further its own interests and weaken Ukraine’s economy.

Moscow is not too proud to hide its intentions. As a condition of the BSGI, joint teams from Ukraine, Russia, the United Nations, and Türkiye must inspect each ship to prevent the arrival or departure of unauthorized cargo and passengers. Ukrainian ship inspector Ruslan Sakhautdinov claims that his Russian counterparts systematically delay inspections by double and triple-checking fuel gages and scrutinizing crewmembers’ personal belongings. The practice has become routine and created serious backlogs. In October 2022, Istanbul’s typically beautiful sunrise on the Marmara Sea was littered with 165 cargo ships waiting for inspection. In January 2023, Ukraine exported 3.1 million tonnes of grain which fell far short of its 5 million tonne goal. In fact, the BSGI has not once met its goal since the deal was signed in August. October was the month that came closest to the target— when 194 ships were cleared for passage exporting 4.3 million tonnes of grain (compared to the 85 ships in January). October’s brief success was thanks to Moscow stepping away from the deal which in consequence allowed for the Ukrainian, U.N., and Turkish inspectors to work without the obstruction of their Russian colleagues.

One consequence is that, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service observed in January, “Ukraine farm prices remain low due to the increased stockpiles and decrease in export demand as some countries shifted to other suppliers.” Facing market volatility and lower expected returns, many of Ukraine’s wheat producers have made the calculation that it is in their best interest to plant fewer acres so that they aren’t stuck with silos of grain which can’t be sold. Russian farmers on the other hand have increased their grain production and exports since the war started. However, they don’t have the capacity to supplant Ukraine’s agricultural losses. Moscow has critically damaged Ukraine’s production capabilities and continues to undermine global food networks with threats to the BSGI.

Russia’s actions come as World Food Programme (WFP) boss David Beasley stressed at the Munich Security Conference that nonrenewal of the grain deal would be catastrophic for millions in Africa who are on the cusp of starvation. Beasley noted too that the initiative’s current grain flows have still not been sufficient for the needs of poorer countries that are reliant on regional exports.

Together, Ukraine and Russia constitute 12 percent of the global market share in calories. The most vulnerable countries to food shortages share some common characteristics. They typically (although not all applicable) are reliant on Ukrainian and Russian imports, are low-income, have active conflicts, and lack robust internal food distribution systems. Countries in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), Central Asia, and Eastern Africa are most at-risk due to the Ukraine conflict. In the MENA region, Jordan, Yemen, Israel, and Lebanon are most vulnerable. Armenia (92 percent of its grain imports come from Ukraine and Russia), Azerbaijan, and Georgia are the most vulnerable Central Asian countries. In Eastern Africa, the countries with the highest reliance on Ukraine and Russian grain imports are Eritrea, Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Djibouti, Burundi, and Ethiopia.

The Brussels-based thinktank Bruegel in March 2022 following Russia’s invasion anticipated the global food implications of the conflict and forecasted three possible scenarios. In their worst-case scenario, Ukraine would need all of its grain for domestic consumption and exports fell 100 percent year-over-year. Thankfully this has not materialized and unless there is a dramatic turn in the war (possibly from Russian use of strategic nuclear warheads), this will scenario will remain a hypothetical. The second worst-case scenario would see Ukraine export half of its normal production. In the best-case scenario, Ukraine would export roughly 70 percent of its normal production. The current situation hovers in between the second-worst case and best-case scenarios. Although Ukraine exported 23.6 million tonnes of grain in the 2022/23 season (70.4% of its exports from the same stage the year prior), decreases in production will allow Ukraine to harvest only 51 million tonnes which is 59 percent of 2021 pre-war harvests.

High food prices also pose a danger to global food security. In the first stages of Russia’s War in Ukraine, food prices lept and the greatest costs were felt in low-income countries. For instance in August 2022, it cost Ayan Hassan Abdirahman— a mother of 11 children who lives in the capital of Somalia— twice as much as it did just months before to buy the wheat flour that she needs to prepare breakfasts. Increases in crude oil prices and disruption to Russian fertilizer exports have increased food production costs globally. These consequences are most visible in the ports of Brazil. The South American country is the 4th largest agricultural producer in the world and imports 85 percent of the fertilizer it requires— mostly from Russia. Sea ports across the country reached their maximum capacity due to growing stockpiles of imported fertilizer. Farmers were unable to purchase the products, delaying the sowing process, because the price of fertilizer became too expensive. In recent months, prices have decreased but are still roughly 150 percent more expensive than the 5-year average. The higher cost of production will result in higher food prices which would be unreachable from millions globally without international assistance.

WFP estimates that today 349 million people across 79 countries are facing acute food insecurity (which the Global Network Against Food Crises defines as when a person’s inability to consume food puts their life into immediate danger). This number rose nearly 200 million from pre-pandemic levels. 60 percent of the world’s malnourished populations live in areas affected by armed conflict which makes the successful delivery of food assistance more difficult. Food insecurity can be both begotten and beget violence with the notable examples of the 1789 French Revolution and the 2011 Arab Spring which were precipitated by historically-high food prices. Global food instability caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine would not only be a dramatic humanitarian catastrophe but could bring a massive destabilizing event to the world order.

Although the situation seems overwhelming, many policymakers and groups such as the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR) propose solutions to systematically reduce the risks and consequences of a global food crisis. CGIAR emphasizes the importance of reliable, real-time data analyses of food and input price volatility which can inform appropriate international and national policy responses. Governments must provide their farmers with targeted subsidies for productivity-enhancing inputs, machinery, fertilizer, and energy costs to increase yields in low and medium productivity environments. International assistance must be provided to low-income countries so that the higher costs of inputs is not passed onto consumers. Governments should invest in sustainable crops which require less water than wheat and barley and can better survive climate shocks such as quinoa and seaweed. However, not all policy responses are made equal and many government interventions could worsen the situation. Experts recommend that countries should avoid sanctions and export restrictions on food and fertilizer products and refrain from hoarding or panic buying input-products. This is not a crisis of anyone but Vladimir Putin’s making, yet it is incumbent upon the international community to make comprehensive policy solutions so that the world’s breadbasket can hold enough for everyone.

How France Lost its Mustard: A Story of War, Famine, and Western Negligence

 An unusual phenomenon has struck France in the last six months; where once sat jars of mustard lining the condiment aisle at grocery stores now sits empty. Upon first glance this may seem as just another random food shortage, likely spurred by the seemingly never-ending production and shipping issues resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But for the average French citizen who consumes one kilogram of mustard a year, and for a country that describes mustard as its favorite condiment, this is no small issue. Thus, outrage ensued. The national mustard shortage has made the product impossible to find, leaving individuals to turn to social media to beg fellow users for donations or to show off their sacred spread. French shoppers were forced to deal with a grim reality: mustard was nowhere to be found. 

At the root of this shortage lies a much larger international crisis: the war in Ukraine. Indeed, mustard production is a large part of both Russia and Ukraine’s agricultural yield. Ukraine is the fourth largest producer of mustard seed, and the second largest exporter. However, they produce a different mustard then the French, Dijon variant. The Ukrainian mustard seed is typically a milder one, and hugely popular within Eastern European countries. However, due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, production and export of the mustard seed has stopped, forcing Eastern European buyers to turn to French mustard instead, which has upped demand for French mustard, thus causing the shortage.

Mustard seed production is not the only export that has halted ever since Putin ordered the Russian army to invade earlier this year, other valuable exports such as wheat, barley, and corn have faced similar deficits due to the conflict. The widespread fighting has significantly decreased the areas available for harvest, particularly in the territories of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv and Kyiv. 

International Food Shortages

         Ukraine’s countryside is home to some of the most fertile land on the planet. The US International Trade Administration (ITA) estimates that Ukraine possesses close to a third of the world’s black soil reserves, (a fertile and moist soil that produces the highest agricultural yields). It is thanks to this fertile land that Ukraine is commonly labeled “the breadbasket of the world.” The country produces large amounts of grain, wheat, and barley, and exports around 90% of its total production. Alongside grain production, Ukraine also exports large amounts of corn and sunflower oil. Ukraine exports its goods to all four corners of the globe, but its primary areas of export are to Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. Ukraine sends its food to the places that need it most: developing countries that are heavily reliant on wheat and corn and are sensitive to price increases and shortages. These countries include Somalia, Libya, Lebanon, Egypt and Sudan. During times of peace, Ukraine was easily able to export its wheat and other grain products, but current Russian blockades along the Black Sea coast are preventing the trade of necessary food supplies.

         According to Ukrainian crisis management scholar, Anna Nagurney, over 400 million people across the world rely on food from Ukraine. Additionally, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, estimates that around 181 million people could face a food crisis or famine this year, caused by shortages and increased prices. [*3] At the root of this issue lies the millions of tons of Ukrainian agricultural production that has halted ever since the war began. Now, millions of vulnerable people across the world face the threat of a deadly famine.

         For many across the Western world, this minor mustard shortage in France marked the first realization of the ongoing war’s broader implication. Since the start of the War in early 2022 the West has been largely concerned with Europe’s reliance on energy from Russia. The threat of a gas shortage in Europe has dominated Western media headlines, leaving little room for concern or interest in the ways Ukraine has supported other corners of the world. Although it is an inherent truth that a country’s media primarily focus on issues that affect its own people (European and American news sources and media cannot be blamed entirely), the neglect of this crisis reflects a deep failure within Western media to document crises unrelated to us.

The Failure of the West

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, European and American war and conflict experts have neglected to draw attention to the wider implications of the war. There has been little to no analysis or discourse on Russia’s role in Africa’s food crisis and Russian hunger politics. Instead, much of the discourse around the war in primary news outlets has analyzed the psychology behind Putin’s decision to invade, or how the West should have seen the war coming. Other popular opinions tend to focus on the war’s implications for shifting the balance of power, the return of NATO, and the impact sanctions will have on the energy crisis. What is missing from this conversation is a thorough understanding of Putin’s ambition in other parts of the world, and how war routinely affects vulnerable and dependent populations first.

By choosing to focus on the ways that the West will be affected, politicians, scholars, and other experts have fundamentally failed to understand the global stake of this war and the true global reach of Russia’s intentions. Russia is starving the Global South as a political tactic to help them win the war. Putin is employing Stalin’s tactic in the 1930’s of political famine once again to help end sanctions against Russia, and create a narrative for African and Asian countries in which Ukraine is seen as the witholder of food and fuel. Yale historian and author, Timothy Snyder, believes that Russia’s tactic of global starvation is a modern attempt at Russian colonialism. In June this year Snyder reflected on the increasing signs of starvation and tweeted that “a world famine is a necessary backdrop for a Russian propaganda campaign against Ukraine. Actual mass death is needed as the backdrop for a propaganda contest.”

The Politics of Starvation

2022 was already expected to be a year of famine and starvation, thanks to ongoing droughts and inflation, but Putin’s role has only magnified the famine’s effects. Countries have already started to prepare for increased food prices and lack of goods: “Some countries are reacting by trying to protect domestic supplies. India has restricted sugar and wheat exports, while Malaysia halted exports of live chickens, alarming Singapore, which gets a third of its poultry from its neighbor.” Snyder believes that Russia’s international famine campaign has three components, each designed to weaken a different part of the world. Firstly, Russian blockages of Ukrainian goods hope to end the narrative of Ukraine as the “breadbasket of the world” for the vast majority of countries that receive its wheat and grain, such as Somalia, Libya, and Lebanon. Putin hopes this will decrease support for Ukrainian freedom and destroy the concept of Ukrainian statehood. Secondly, Putin hopes that this famine will increase the rates of refugee migration into an already politically unstable Europe, as people from Sub-saharan Africa flee into Europe in hopes of finding food and a better quality of life. Putin’s final goal within his mass-starvation tactic is one of political propaganda. Putin plans to blame Western sanctions for food supply issues, thus creating a narrative in which the West is to blame for global starvation. A successful change in narrative for Putin will thus ensure that Russian citizens (many of which are already angry at the war and the effects of sanctions) remain ignorant and naive of the true nature of Putin’s strategic thinking. 

Russia’s need for strong and powerful propaganda is only growing, thanks to Russia’s first military mobilization since World War II, which was announced in late September. The latest increase in military efforts has led to more protests by Russian citizens angry at the Kremlin. Over a thousand citizens were arrested in cities across the country as they protested the need for the 300,000 new troops that Russian officials are demanding.

Frustration and resentment across Russia will only grow as the war continues, therefore Putin’s need to create global implications and shift Russian anger outward will only become more pressing as time goes on. By framing the issues and effects of the war as part of a larger Western-led campaign to starve the world, Putin can prevent his citizens from rising up against him. Russians are already subjected to misinformation and propaganda about the war. The Kremlin has successfully convinced millions of Russian citizens that the war is Ukraine’s fault, spreading stories that “Ukrainians had fired on Russian forces during the cease-fire, and neo-Nazis were “hiding behind civilians as a human shield.” This disinformation tactic makes Russians particularly susceptible to Putin’s lies and less likely to understand his starvation politics. 

Putin has also applied the same tactics of disinformation to African nations, in an attempt to spread anti-West and anti-UN sentiment, while gaining political influence. Putin’s expansion of propaganda to Africa reveals the true diabolical nature of his intentions. Already aware of the need to provide an explanation for the lack of resources exported from Ukraine, Russia has established at least sixteen known operations of disinformation across the continent, otherwise known as dezinformatsyia. The goal of these campaigns is to shift anger onto the West, deny Russia’s role in withholding exports, and prop up political regimes that support Russia’s political ambitions. Through the use of sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Tiktok, Russia has actively succeeded in creating often untraceable campaigns of lies. The extent to which Russia has spread falsehoods through the continent should both alarm and frighten the West. 

         It is time for Western leaders to acknowledge the global implications of the war in Ukraine, and their correlation to famine and food shortages.  In an attempt to spread concern and awareness, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres stated “Global hunger levels are at a new high. In just two years, the number of severely food insecure people has doubled, from 135 million pre-pandemic to 276 million today … More than half a million people are living in famine conditions — an increase of more than 500 percent since 2016.” These numbers are already alarming without the added implications of war. Given these circumstances, it is vital that Western leaders work directly with countries already affected by these devastating food shortages. Similarly, Western media must turn its gaze to the international crisis of halted Ukrainian exports. Western negligence has not only led to widespread famine, but it has also allowed Putin to create a devastating narrative of political propaganda in which millions will starve as unknown casualties of a senseless war. 

Resistance in Syria

In early 2011, protests broke out against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria as part of the Arab Spring. The government responded to the protests - whose motto was ‘the people demand removal of the regime’ - with a violent crackdown. The attempted suppression of the protests quickly backfired, with many Syrians beginning to call for a revolution and taking up arms against the regime. The resulting violence quickly escalated into the Syrian Civil War. For years, the civil war has had the attention of the world as the Syrian people struggled against the dictatorial Assad. The Ghouta chemical attacks in 2013 horrified the world, as the regime killed 1,429 people (426 of whom were children) with sarin gas. This blatant massacre prompted the first, of many, foreign interventions in the civil war, as the United States and its allies threatened to retaliate against the regime if all chemical weapons were not turned over. A few years later, ISIS emerged from the power vacuum and conflict in eastern Syria, fighting both the regime and the rebel opposition. This prompted another foreign intervention, as much of the world cooperated to combat the rise of ISIS’ caliphate. The most significant intervention of the entire war though began in 2015, when Russia began a mass bombing campaign in order to support its ally Assad and keep him in power, which has been tragically effective and deadly.

The Syrian Civil War is still ongoing today and has been marked by intense violence, different factions, and the presence and interventions of multiple foreign powers, each with their own proxies. Today the civil war is far from settled, though the Assad regime has conquered, or pacified, large parts of the country - largely as a result of the brutal bombing campaign by its Russian ally. Despite the fact that the conflict is still ongoing, the international community has inexplicably moved on, acting as if the war had been won by Assad’s government. It seems that much of the world, and now recently even the Biden administration, is treating the Syrian Civil War as solved, and is now considering rapprochement towards the regime. This is a gross rehabilitation of a vicious regime. One that has utilized chemical weapons to kill thousands of its own people, and developed horrific new weapons of war, such as barrel bombs. It also ignores and downplays the conflict and continued resistance that occurs within Syria today in cities like Daara and Idlib, and the Kurdish northeast.

The city of Daara in southwestern Syria has been called the ‘birthplace of the Syrian revolution.’ The arrest of two teenagers in 2011 for anti-Assad graffiti led to an outbreak of protests, to which the regime had a brutal and deadly response. This incident was one of the opening salvos of the civil war. Only after seven long years of fighting was Daara largely captured during a Russian-led offensive in 2018. The remaining areas of the city soon came to an agreement with the Assad regime, brokered and guaranteed by Russia.

Disgruntled and dissatisfied by the lack of good faith shown by the regime in honoring their side of the deal, protests broke out in Daara in late July. Assad’s forces responded swiftly in their usual manner - an indiscriminate bombing campaign and siege of the city. The regime specifically targeted the neighborhood of Daara Al-Bahad, whose representative Central Committee has begged for a ceasefire to solve the water and food shortages. To date the regime’s bombings have killed at least 15 people, with some estimates rising to four times that number.

Yet the bombing of Daara has attracted little to no international attention or support. Daraa represents not only the birth of the struggle against Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, but also that it is ongoing. The regime’s ‘control’ of much of its claimed territory is tenuous at best, and fresh resistance is still taking place.

Similarly, fighting has intensified in and around the city of Idlib in northwestern Syria. A Russian bombing campaign seeks to displace the opposition forces that control most of the governorate. This campaign carries additional risks as well - the situation in Idlib is not as straightforward as in Daara. The city of Idlib and much of the governorate is controlled by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group. But a significant portion of the governorate is controlled by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, an opposition group, which risks a larger regional conflict between Turkey and Russia. Russia’s bombing campaign in Northern Syria also extends to areas firmly in control of the Syrian National Army, deep within the so-called Turkish ‘safe zones’ like Afrin.

But the most significant remaining opposition to Assad’s government is the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria - better known as Rojava. To the east of the Euphrates river, Rojava is a self-governing democratic region of Syria. While dominated by the Kurds, Rojava is notably multi-ethnic, especially in the wake of the influx of refugees and internally displaced persons created in the civil war. With its own armed wing - the Syrian Democratic Forces - Rojava has enjoyed great success combating not only Assad’s forces, but ISIS as well. In fact it was the SDF who led much of the ground fighting against ISIS in Syria.

But for the moment, it is not Assad’s regime that poses the greatest threat against the continued existence and independence of Rojava. Ever since President Trump pulled American troops from their supportive role in Rojava, Turkey has carried out a number of operations against Rojava, invading from the north and seizing territory - making the largest remaining resistance to Assad’s rule fight on two fronts. Turkey sees the existence of an independent Kurdish state as a threat, as they harshly oppress and persecute their own Kurdish minority. The threat posed by Turkey to Rojava is so great, the government of Rojava has indicated they would be open to some form of alliance with Assad’s government against Turkey. Yet despite all these challenges, Rojava has maintained its independence, making the recent attitudes towards Assad all the more strange.

Despite the fact that continued resistance to the regime is still ongoing throughout Syria, the last few months have seen a shocking movement towards acceptance of Assad’s regime. The governments of Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have all sent emissaries to meet with Assad in the past year, a stunning change of policy when most of these states have previously harshly opposed him. Interpol, the international police organisation, announced in October that Syria - as in Assad’s government - would be readmitted to the body. Not only is this an immoral recognition of the regime, but in time the government will have access to red notices  - the international equivalent of an arrest warrant, allowing the regime to target and harrass dissenters and critics abroad. Recently, even the Biden administration has begun to open negotiations with the regime. Washington is in the early stages of a deal to transport Egyptian natural gas through Jordan and Syria to energy deprived Lebanon - with Assad’s government getting a cut in the process. 

This deal would be a betrayal of those who continue to struggle against the regime and would be a disgusting acceptance of someone who has butchered those who protested against him. Worse, it would make the United States complicit in the crimes of Assad’s regime. Supplying Assad with resources like natural gas only makes it easier for him to keep his grip on a country that rejected his rule. The attempt to alleviate Lebanon’s energy crisis is laudable and humanitarian, and doubtlessly would do much in the way of reducing suffering there. But there has to be another way in which Lebanon’s crisis can be relieved without tying the solution to Assad. This deal would not only help legitimize his rule - recognizing him as the power in Syria - it will provide him with material assets to continue his oppression. The money and energy that the regime will gain from this deal could go straight to propagating the security forces that terrorize the Syrian people.

The United States should reject cooperation and recognition with the Assad regime. It is wrong to ignore the continued resistance towards his regime, and to abandon the allies that we have supported in Syria - especially the bastion of resistance that is Rojava in the Northeast. It is wrong for the international community as well to wash their hands of what is happening in Syria, to pretend that the war is over when the humanitarian crisis is still ongoing. The international community should not seek diplomatic rapprochement with Bashar al-Assad, should not let him and his cronies out from the cold. To do so would be an insult to all the Syrians that he has slaughtered and those that continue to languish under his rule.

A Weapon or a Consequence? Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict

“We know now, as we knew even before the passage of this resolution, that rape is a kind of slow murder.”

—Slavenka Drakulic on the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1820

Sexual violence is not merely an unfortunate side effect of war, but a deliberate tactic used to humiliate, dominate, disperse, and instill fear in women and their communities. This essay evaluates several key examples of sexual violence being used against women during wartime including the Bosnian War, ongoing conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and United Nations peacekeeping missions, with the goal of discussing the validity and consequences of the categorization of sexual violence as a “weapon of war.” While males and gender nonconforming people also suffer from sexual violence, and while men are not exclusively the perpetrators of rape during war, this paper focuses on sexual violence against women and girls since they are disproportionately targeted by the use of sexual violence. Although this paper incorporates evidence from scholars who believe sexual violence is only a consequence of war, or as I will refer to them, “Consequence Theorists,” it focuses on their challengers, “Weapon Theorists,” who believe sexual violence is a deliberately used weapon. This paper focuses on Weapon Theory since the passage of United Nations (UN) Resolution 1820 shifted the dominant paradigm in its favor in 2008. This paper does not consider conflict actors as homogeneous and recognizes that while sexual violence is, overall, a weapon of war used by most conflict actors (e.g., states and non-state groups), it may be an unfortunate side effect in other conflict actors’ operations (e.g., inter-governmental organizations and peacekeeping forces). I first review each theory by considering the validity and consequences of each, as perceived by differing scholarly opinions. I then test the theories against the historical record. I conclude by demonstrating that sexual violence is most appropriately and accurately categorized when it is defined as a weapon of war.

Weapon Theory

Weapons: guns, knives, swords. Weapons: emotion, gender, power. The way the international community—civilians and governments alike—has redefined what constitutes a “weapon” of war has dramatically changed since the turn of the twenty-first century. Today, many forms of sexual violence such as rape are considered war tactics that threaten international peace and security. This outlook was established for the first time in the UN Security Council’s 2008 Resolution 1820, which stated that sexual violence during conflict was an international threat. Weapon Theory scholars argue that sexual violence is a weapon of war due to its intentional use, its systematic nature, and its strategic execution. Hillary Margolis, leader of the International Rescue Committee’s sexual violence program in North Kivu, claims that rape is a deliberate (not a random) tactic. Dara Kay Cohen also attests that rape in wartime is intentional; however, she maintains that rape is not only used officially as a weapon against women, but is also used passively to promote bonding within a militia group. Wartime sexual violence is often systematic in nature, while side effects are not predictable. Weapon Theorists emphasize that male sexual desire fails to explain patterns of sexual violence because most men, given the opportunity, do not rape. Historian Antony Beevor says that rape during war has been used strategically to achieve political or military objectives by humiliating and terrorizing since ancient times. Even ancient academics believed wartime rape to be as old as war itself; Saint Augustine called it an “ancient and customary evil.” Elisabeth Wood shows that rape is used strategically, to terrorize people and force them to leave an area. She also says that militia leaders’ claims that they lack control over their troops are groundless, because a commander with enough power to direct military operations has enough power to stop his soldiers from raping.

Weapon Theory: Consequences

Anna Hedlund argues that the labeling of rape as a weapon of war is often inadequate, simplified, sensationalistic, and stereotypical. Kerry F. Crawford, Amelia Hoover Green, and Sarah E. Parkinson believe that classifying rape as a weapon causes inaccurate rape claims to be made out of hopes for case money, disincentivizes programming focused on other types of suffering during conflict, and makes other wartime crimes harder to prosecute. All four scholars believe that the selective media narratives that focus entirely on women, compounded with calling rape a “weapon,” create challenges for non-visible survivors. “Media narratives about Iraq and Syria are almost exclusively focused on women, concealing and marginalizing male and LGBT victims who may be equally in need of help,” write Crawford, Hoover Green, and Parkinson. They also write that calling rape a weapon of war gives outside states a disingenuous justification to intervene due to the “impulse to ‘save’ Syrian and Iraqi women from sexual violence.”

However, interventions in the name of “saving” women are not new phenomena. In 2001, Laura Bush advocated for the intervention of Afghanistan under a humanitarian front to fight “brutality against women and children” in the name of “our common humanity.” Categorizing rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war in 2008 did not give rise to this neo-imperialist façade. The goal of classifying rape and other forms of sexual violence during wartime as “weapons of war” is to bolster international accountability and eradicate the culture of impunity that supports sexual violence. Of course international policies could do more to help male and LGBTQ survivors of sexual violence. But this is beside the point; identifying rape as a weapon of war—and thereby creating legal mechanisms to hold military commanders accountable to the law—puts international law on a path to combat sexual violence that can be developed to include all victims. Having a system of accountability designed to affect deterrence is a better option than accepting the violence and allowing it to continue due to a lack of sufficient legal labeling. Furthermore, calling all forms of sexual violence—including rape, sexual slavery, and sexual humiliation—weapons of war legitimizes the suffering, pain, and damage that it inflicts on survivors and their communities. Associating traditional instruments of war and sexual violence with the use of the word “weapon” is an important shift in discourse that has helped to break stigmas and the silence attached to rape. Lastly, the weak argument that women might lie about rape in exchange for money is historically unsubstantiated and, frankly, the product of a patriarchal, victim-blaming mentality. These critiques do little to negate the importance and usefulness of recognizing sexual violence as a weapon of war.

Consequence Theory

Consequence Theory holds that sexual violence is not a weapon intentionally and strategically used during war, but rather an inevitable or unfortunate side effect of war due to a culture of rape that war often creates, the increased opportunities to execute sexual violence, soldiers’ sexual desires that cannot be satiated by consensual sex during wartime, and because poorly-trained soldiers do not realize sexual violence is wrong. Richard Malengule states that years of fighting have resulted in a culture of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where sexual violence is accepted as a by-product of the conflict. Susan Brownmiller, author of Against Our Will, wrote, “War provides men with the perfect psychologic backdrop to give vent to their contempt for women.” This belief suggests that sexual violence is an inevitable result of war due to an increased opportunity for men to perpetrate violence against women. Consequence Theory holds that soldiers see sex by rape as a “spoil of war,” and when sexual violence occurs it is a randomized result of an individual’s sexual desires. Military leaders in Japan and the DRC have argued that rape is not a weapon, but a consequence of male desire and a substitute for consensual sex. As evidence, Japanese commanders instituted the system of “comfort women,” who were forced into sexual slavery, to satiate soldiers’ desires. Leaders in the DRC have said that an inability to pay sex workers during warfare is what leads to rape. Others hold that sexual violence is not a weapon but a result of young, ill-trained men who do not understand their wrongdoings. Dearbhla Glynn argues that perpetrators are oblivious to their actions’ harmfulness because they are often part of the cycle of violence that has normalized rape and sexual violence. Similarly, Antony Beevor claims that it is the “indisciplined soldiers,” free from religious and social constraints, who commit sexual violence.

However, Consequence Theory’s claims are widely disputed. First, wartime sexual violence is not inevitable. There is a high level of variation of sexual violence across countries, conflicts, and armed groups. Perpetration is also heterogeneous among groups within the same conflict, proving that many armed groups can and do limit their perpetration of rape when commanders choose to prevent it. In El Salvador’s civil war, insurgents rarely committed rape. Likewise, sexual violence was virtually absent from the strategy of the Sri Lankan Tamil secessionist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Since some groups do not engage in sexual violence in war because their leaders do not condone it, it is not inevitable. If it is not inevitable, there are therefore “stronger grounds for holding responsible those groups that do engage in sexual violence.” This also defeats the argument that rape in war is opportunistic. It is a misconception that given the opportunity, men will rape, and it is over-simplistic to believe that all perpetrators, as Brownmiller implies, do so out of “contempt for women.”

Margot Wallström, UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict said, “There are no rape cultures, only cultures of impunity.” Critics of the Weapon Theory claim that a rape culture is produced as a side effect of conflict because even when wars end, rape continues. However, wartime rape used as a weapon often goes unpunished, thus creating a culture of impunity that sanctifies its continued perpetration. Rape and sexual violence do continue after the guns are put down, but this further exemplifies rape as a weapon of war. A culture of rape is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sexual violence’s use as a weapon. In other words, sexual violence perpetrated with rape culture and with strategy is a weapon, while rape culture without strategy is merely a side effect of wartime rape impunity.

The myth of uncontrollable male sexual desire also fails to explain sexual violence as an unfortunate side effect of war. Oftentimes, widespread rape of civilians is committed where soldiers have full access to sex workers or sexual slaves. Furthermore, sexual temptations cannot explain the extreme brutality of gang rapes or sexual torture that many women and girls suffer. Instead, participation in rape is often a way to build internal ties when armed groups are not cohesive, as seen in The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone. When fighters have been forcibly recruited, they are more likely to commit rape, particularly gang rape. Soldiers are usually not lacking in women to appease whatever sexual desires do exist; therefore, Weapon Theory more accurately explains this violence due to its intentional, systematic nature, and the internal strategies behind these rapes.

Finally, the claim that sexual violence is only a side effect of war committed by poorly trained soldiers who do not understand the evil of their actions fails to account for (i) the ill-trained insurgent groups that do not perpetrate this violence, and (ii) the highly trained and educated groups that do commit sexual violence in wartime. Perhaps only child soldiers who are born and raised in violent conflict zones, and where rape is common, are immune from this critique. The prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib in 2003, in which Iraqi prisoners were sexually abused and humiliated by U.S. soldiers, is a key example of sexual violence being used as a weapon of war by a highly trained military. Many Iraqi prisoners were made to perform homosexual acts. While dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, homosexual acts are against Islamic law and have been punished by execution in Iraq. In the case of Abu Ghraib, as in many others, the three tenants of Weapon Theory were clearly present: the use of sexual violence was intentional, systematic, and calculated, and was constructed based on cultural dynamics to humiliate, dominate, and instil fear in the prisoners.

As a Weapon of War: Bosnia and DRC

Several historic examples give credit to the Weapon Theory of sexual violence in war. The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Bosnia) from 1992 to 1995 was the first to gain international attention for the use of systematic rape as a weapon of ethnic cleansing during war. While numbers remain highly controversial, it is estimated that between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped during this war. Women’s bodies were widely seen as another battlefield where violent, ethnic conflict could be fought. Rape by Bosnian Serb forces was ordered by head military figures, with the goal of wiping out particular ethnic groups. As in many conflict, sexual violence in Bosnia was used as a weapon against a particular people. The use of rape during the Bosnian War is considered genocidal because the objective of the perpetrators was to forcibly impregnate women to create “more babies with the perpetrator’s ethnicity and through this to destroy and erase the ethnic, religious and national identities of their female victims.” Sexual violence in the Bosnian War was a weapon of war due to its intentional, systematic, and strategic nature.

Wartime rape can also be used as a way to deliberately instil fear, displace communities, and spread sexually transmitted diseases. Raped women are often stigmatized by their communities or blamed for their rape. In eastern DRC, which has been called the rape capital of the world, brutal and systematic sexual violence has plagued the region for almost two decades, leaving tens of thousands of victims enduring some sort of sexual violence. Essentially all sides of the conflict perpetrate sexual violence, including civilians, militiamen, armed groups and members of the Congolese Armed Forces. During one of the largest instances of mass rape in eastern Congo, three armed groups raped at least 387 civilians in 13 villages between July and August 2010. The indiscriminate, widespread nature of these mass rapes support the Weapon Theory, which holds that sexual violence is systematically used to impart fear on the victims and their communities. Since rapes in DRC are carried out regularly from village to village, women, girls, and their families often feel afraidto leave their homes to obtain food and water, go to school, or work in the fields. In contrast, some families are so afraid of staying in place (or are directly threatened with rape) that they flee their homes. This forced displacement breaks up communities that are often grouped on ethnic lines, giving perpetrators and armed groups power, as well as the resources that villages leave behind. Carrying out mass rapes is a strategic weapon of this particular conflict because it allows military objectives to be met and provides perpetrators with terror-based power.

As a Consequence of War: Peacekeeping Missions

While the majority of reported sexual violence during wartime is used as a weapon by state militias or non-state armed actors, Consequence Theory holds weight in the context of UN peacekeeper perpetrators. These operations involve military personnel but do not have enforcement powers, and are based on the cooperation of the parties to the conflict. As UN peacekeeping operations increased, a major problem emerged: peacekeepers were found to be sexually abusing or otherwise sexually exploiting local populations during missions.

Peacekeepers have been found guilty of sex-trafficking, soliciting prostitutes, forcing children into prostitution, and having sex with minors. This has occurred among both military and civilian UN personnel across a wide range of countries. Sexual exploitation and abuse is not tolerated by the United Nations, and as former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan said, it “violates everything the United Nations stands for.” In 2001, allegations of sexual violence emerged, and after refugee communities in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone were monitored, confirmation of these crimes was reported. In 2004, the UN reported 121 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation.Forty-five percent of these reports involved sex with minors. In 2005, 340 cases were reported; in 2006, 357 cases. In a Côte d’Ivoire mission in 2007, 800 peacekeepers were suspended on allegations of having sex with minors.

Many scholars have speculated (like Consequence Theorists) that the conditions of the missions allow the exploitation of local girls and women.Peacekeepers are seen as powerful figures in the areas they inhabit during missions, and are likely to believe they can get away with sexual abuse. One UN employee on a peacekeeping mission in eastern Congo who admitted to having sexual relations with 24 girls said he committed these crimes because, “Over there, the colonial spirit persists. The white man gets what he wants.”

The imbalance of power—along ethnic, cultural, and institutional lines, and a culture of impunity provide increased opportunities to execute sexual exploitation. This gives weight to the Consequence Theory: peacekeepers perpetrate sexual violence without gaining strategic political or military power and without a systematic agenda. When governments and non-state armed groups commit sexual violence, it is a weapon. In peacekeeping missions, however, sexual violence is a consequence of war. Nevertheless, these instances are the exception to the international norm, not the rule.

Conclusions

Not every incidence of sexual violence during wartime is a weapon of war; in some instances, it is a consequence of war or conflict. Typically, however, the use of sexual violence in conflict zones is widespread. It is deliberate. It is systematic, strategic and calculated. In these cases and for these reasons, it is a weapon of war. Women and girls have endured physical and psychological trauma in conflicts across the world. The current culture of impunity needs to be eradicated and international support should be fervently thrown behind the sentiments in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1820. Sexual violence is as much a weapon against international peace and security as it is on the bodies and minds of the women and girls who have endured it.