Russian imperialism’s time travel

International order is both de frontiers-opener and the walls between nation-state because it
dictates how they communicate and cooperate with each other, but it also regards each
nation-state with their own independence and autonomy withing said frontiers (Lawson,
2020).
This essay goes over how Russia’s attempt to force an empire disrupts the concept of
international order.
In the current Russia-Ukraine war, Putin is not only striving for power and resources, but
he has taken to reclaim status as an imperial power and assert Russia’s prestige, authority
and will (Harnett, 2022). Therefore, here I must highlight the fact that Russia seems to be
bringing the world back in time to when land-conquers were something that happened
relatively often and when international order was not in the picture.
In fact, many of Russia’s imperial conquests were brutal. In 1818 the Northern Caucasus
was hard to subdue, and Russia burned villages to the ground, incinerated forests and took
civilians as hostages (Harnett, 2022). Essentially, Russia is bringing this back with Ukraine
on his special military operation, all while keeping an image of brutality and strength.
Nevertheless, in Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter: “All members shall refrain in their
international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or
political independence of any State.” (Fazal, 2022), and its actions leads to serve global
sanctions from the international order agents.
Concluding, Russia has forgotten the main drive of this order: validation, to prioritize its
wishes of bringing back a past time. It has ignored Ukraine’s autonomy relating its
sovereignty and it has started battling down a road of being cut-off from the world. In this
war, it seems that imperialism, in general, is one of the driving forces of chaos that affects
international order.
My english research has improved and now I feel more capable of it but, as before, I want
to improve the expressions I use while writing and find way of being more concise.
References:
Hartnett, L. (March 2, 2022). The long history of Russian imperialism shaping Putin’s war.
The Washington Post. Consulted on April 2, 2022. Retrieved from:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/02/long-history-russian-imperialism-
shaping-putins-war/
Lawson, G. (2020). ‘The rise of modern international order’, in Baylis, J., Smith, S.,
Owens, P. (eds) The globalization of world politics – an introduction to international
relations, eighth edition. Oxford: OUP, pp. 39-53
Fazal, T. (February 25, 2022). Putin is breaking 70 years of norms by invading Ukraine.
What comes next?. The Washington Post. Consulted on April 2, 2022. Retrieved from:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/25/putin-is-breaking-70-years-norms-
by-invading-ukraine-what-comes-next/