To understand the objectives, strategies and tools that Russia uses in its attempt to lead a new anti-colonialism, or, more precisely, anti-neocolonialism, in the global south, it is necessary to explain the very concept of the global south and its growing importance in the reconfiguration of the international order accelerated by the war in Ukraine and the return of rivalry between the great powers.
Global South refers to the developing countries of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, which have suffered an interconnected history of colonialisms and neocolonialisms. Carl Preston Oglesby, an American political activist, first used the expression in an article on the Vietnam War published by Commonwealth magazine in 1969. Since then, global south has sought to suggest in a less condescending way a meaning analogous to that previously given. to concepts such as third world or underdeveloped countries. But it has always connoted the division between the southern and northern hemispheres, between poor countries and rich ones. Since 1969, it has been used in academia and politics. As of 2011, its use has been reinforced by the book Civilization: the West and the Rest, by Niall Ferguson.
The war in Ukraine has emphasized the opposition between the global south and the northern hemisphere. In March 2022, a large majority of countries voted in favor of condemning the Russian invasion in the United Nations General Assembly: 141 delegations, compared to only 5 against (Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea and Eritrea) and 35 abstentions. However, it is a fact that more than two thirds of the world's population live in countries that have not condemned the aggressor for violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the international order in force since the end of the Cold War: only 16% of the world population (which produces 62% of GDP) has imposed economic sanctions on Russia.1
The countries that Westerners call the global south and the Russians call the world majority (while they call themselves non-aligned) are becoming the key pieces of the future international order. Currently, unlike the 20th century, non-aligned countries are not defined by their membership in an organization or platform (as was the Non-Aligned Movement, founded in the sixties), but by their own traits and behaviors. Over the past two decades, many of them were able to simultaneously build relationships with the West, China and Russia.
At least 25 countries that are geographically part of the global south, and which the Economist Intelligence Unit called “the transactional 25” (T-25) represent the main national economies that refuse to take sides in the Sino-American confrontation or the war in Ukraine .2 The T-25 are very varied in terms of wealth and political systems, and include everything from gigantic India to tiny Qatar. However, they have something in common. They are pragmatic and opportunistic and, collectively, they have become very powerful. Today they make up 45% of the world's population and their participation in global GDP has increased from 11% in 1992 to 18% in 2023 (more than that of the EU). The T-25 do not aim to maintain firm and lasting alliances, but rather minilateralism, which, unlike multilateralism, would be characterized by the appeal to discrete alliances or groupings, instead of playing their luck in a single bloc.
The global south, to which the T-25 belong, has become a theater of rivalry between the great powers and of the division between the West and the rest. In such a context, Russia and China aspire to lead the global south. Russian ambition is favored by the absence of a colonial past and, correlatively, by the resentment that colonialism has generated and continues to arouse today a Western neocolonialist stance that is perceived as arrogant: the great European powers such as France, Belgium or the United Kingdom consider , with little self-criticism, that its former colonies benefited from its rule, because this also translated into economic development of the colonized peoples.
Furthermore, in the face of the war in Ukraine, many countries in the global south consider Western leaders to be hypocrites. About $170 billion in aid was pledged to Ukraine in the first year of the war, equivalent to about 90% of all global aid spending in 2021, by the U.S. Development Assistance Committee. the OECD, which comprises 31 Western donors. For the West, such generosity constitutes a show of solidarity with a like-minded democracy; For others, it proves that rich countries only help those who serve their interests. “Europe has to abandon the mentality that its problems are the world's problems, because the world's problems are not Europe's problems,” declared Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India's foreign minister, last year.3
Although the war in Ukraine has highlighted Russian activity in the countries of the global south, this is not recent, although such countries have never been a priority in Russia's foreign policy. The framework of current Russian policy in the global south, in its broadest sense, is derived from the Primakov doctrine, formulated by Yevgeny Primakov, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister of Russia (between 1996 and 1999), which he had harshly criticized. the Kremlin's abandonment of its traditional allies in all parts of the world, but especially in Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East, to integrate more quickly into the West. The Primakov doctrine maintains that Russia's main national interest lies in becoming a great power in a multipolar world. In this sense, Russia's political orientation should be multilateral, or multi-vector, with the aim of developing balanced relations with Western and non-Western countries. The first significant turn in the foreign policy of post-communist Russia occurred at the end of 1997, with Primakov's visit to several Latin American countries, and had a double purpose: 1. to demonstrate that Russia's main interest was not to integrate in the international institutions created, sustained and led by the US since the end of the Second World War, and 2. recover the old alliances of the USSR, in line with the Russian aspiration to once again be a great power.
The subsequent visits of Vladimir Putin to the Republic of South Africa in 2006, that of Dimitri Medvedev to several African countries in 2009, and numerous visits of the current Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to both continents, as well as the support and military intervention of Moscow in the war in Syria (2015), which restored its role as a strategic actor in the Middle East, gave a great boost to bilateral relations between Moscow and the global south.
Leading anti-colonialism in the global south is not only an objective of Moscow, but also an instrument to fulfill other strategic objectives such as gaining influence, expanding its geostrategic presence to compete with the West, controlling sources of natural resources and advancing a post-Western international order. multipolar (thus demonstrating that Russia is not internationally isolated after the imposition of economic sanctions by the EU and the US), establish and protect markets for its goods (arms first of all, but also diamonds, gold, grain) and maintain its presence in key institutions for their global economic transactions.
Political instability and the lack of interest of Western countries in the countries of the global south provide Russia with the opportunity to strengthen its ties with the leaders of these countries, under the pretext of proposing heavy-handed and short-term solutions to systemic problems. deep and complex, as the cases of Syria, Venezuela, Mali, Burkina Faso and Sudan have demonstrated. There, Kremlin-backed interventions to export its own authoritarian and kleptocratic governance model have forced dependence on Russian regime support packages, without providing long-term political solutions. This Russian strategy involves undermining the international system based on rules and principles of democratic reform, in favor of violence for the control of resources and irresponsible leadership.
Russia's current commitment – unlike the USSR during the Cold War – does not involve large public expenditures. On the contrary, it tends to be a source of profits for Russian companies (whether arms exporters, state conglomerates, mining companies or private military companies), as well as a useful tool for political elites to maintain their clientele networks, while at the same time They expand Moscow's influence abroad. Although Russia lacks the economic resources necessary to match China as an economic player in the global south, it has been able to leverage its toolbox to gain, sustain and expand its presence.
The content of said box can be divided into four groups: 1. historical ties created by the USSR in its support of anti-colonial movements; 2. military cooperation (through state and non-state actors such as the Wagner group); 3. media (RT, Sputnik and many local media that disseminate information created by Russian state media), and 4. multilateral organizations.
In terms of political tools, the most important that the Russian Government has at its disposal is, without a doubt, its diplomatic projection on the international scene. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia can use its veto power to protect allied governments from international condemnation and, more importantly, the imposition of sanctions. The use of this capability has been a recurring feature of Russia's interaction with countries in the global south since the late 2000s, when it defended the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Sudan and Syria, among others.
In addition to the UN, Russia has two other diplomatic tools to exert its influence in the countries of the global south: it is part of the Brics group along with Brazil (its largest trading partner in Latin America), India, China (two countries that are benefiting from the low prices of Russian hydrocarbons due to economic sanctions) and South Africa (its largest trading partner in Africa), as well as the G-20, where it shares membership with the BRICS and several other countries in the global south. Proof of Russian influence in these multilateral organizations is the last G-20 summit held in November 2022, in Bali, where the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, was quite isolated, but in which no agreement was achieved. final statement condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, over the veto of China and Russia. The leaders of India, South Africa and Brazil called for the war in Europe, which they view as a simple “Ukraine crisis,” not to be allowed to completely block the work of the G-20.4
Russia appears to have interpreted the votes in the UN General Assembly regarding the war in Ukraine as a positioning of the governments of the global south in its favor. However, there are strong signs that, while the leaders of these countries do not want to explicitly take sides, they are no closer to Russia than to the position of the EU and its allies. However, the reaction to the Russian invasion has brought to light a new international reality that not only will not change, but has every sign of being reinforced in the coming years, as the countries of the global south unite. efforts to change the still dominant international order. In this sense, Russia will try to take advantage of it, championing the anti-neocolonial struggle, to advance towards the achievement of its strategic objectives.
Mira Milosevich is principal researcher at the Real Instituto Elcano.
