The current state of our global [in]stability

February 24 marked the one-year anniversary of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Since then, tens of thousands have died, counting military and civilian deaths, including many Russian soldiers. Many people are counted as missing. Approximately 14 million people are displaced either within Ukraine or to other countries. The cost of damages is well into the hundreds of billions of dollars. And the end is not in sight.

Ukraine is just one hotspot demonstrating global instability and insecurity. Nations in the Middle East and Africa are facing conflicts of their own. Brazil recently saw an uprising like the insurrection in the United States on Jan. 6, 2021. Planetary pressures and natural disasters are disrupting governments and regions. And supply chain issues continue to plague global commerce after the COVID-19 crisis. The following is a transcript of a conversation between Schlosser, Orlich and Hanson during a Global Futures Roundtable on Feb. 23, 2023. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Ileana Orlich is President’s Professor of Romanian Studies and Comparative Literature and a Distinguished Global Futures Scholar.

Margaret Hanson is an assistant professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies; her research focuses on authoritarian politics.

Peter Schlosser (moderator) is the vice president and vice provost of Global Futures and director of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory.

Schlosser: The war in Ukraine highlights so many weaknesses in our societal systems and their stability. It is a stark reminder of how quickly we can experience instability at the local and regional levels, but also witness effects on global scales. On the one hand, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the associated disruptions came very quickly. But on the other hand, of course, we had precursors with the occupation of Crimea and the general evolution of what was the former Soviet Union. What are the historical contexts and geopolitical issues that might further instability?

Orlich: Allow me to go back to 2021 a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin feels on top of the world. He has eviscerated civil society. He has gotten rid of his political adversaries. He has good connections with China. And finally, he has pushed Russia back to a point of central focus on the international stage. He feels that he needs to reappropriate what belonged to the Soviet Union, what in his mind is Russia including places such as Georgia, where Russia occupies Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And there was Crimea. No one said much of anything, and even sanctions failed to discourage him or severely impact Russia. Now he is ready to appropriate Ukraine, which in his mind is not a country. He thinks of Belarus, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova as low principalities, little fiefs of the Soviet Empire, which he is trying to rebuild. Ukraine is only a pawn. It is the center of a proxy war. Putin is trying to bring himself and Russia into prominence. If you look at all his speeches, he is mainly talking about the West. He is talking about the United States. We, in the United States and in the West, very seldom think of Russia. But in Russia, everybody thinks about the West and the United States at all times. So, this added element of empowerment makes Putin engage in a war with the United States, NATO and the European Union.

Schlosser: There are many who believe, exactly as you said, that Putin wants to reestablish the former Soviet Union and uses that to juxtapose the power of an expanded Russia against the West. Looking to the east, what role does China play in the conflict, in terms of either escalating it or de-escalating it? Recently, we heard talk in the media of a potential third world war that might be stirred by China. Do we need to be concerned about that?

Hanson: China’s role to date has been primarily to hedge its position. There have been suspicions about arms deals and sidestepping sanctions, and China has also spread Russian talking points regarding the war. However, it has not come out swinging for its Russian ally on the world stage, either. China does not want Russia to lose because they are allies and have a shared interest in challenging Western geopolitical power, but it also does not want to back a loser. I think the broader question here, when we are talking about geopolitical instability, has to do with the rise of personalism in authoritarian regimes around the world. We know from studying different types of authoritarian regimes that not all dictatorships are structured equally, and they tend to have differing levels of constraints and different types of information problems. For example, as these regimes, such as Russia under Putin and increasingly China under President Xi Jinping, become more personalistic in terms of how they are governed, they are more likely to become belligerent on the world stage. They are also more likely to make egregious missteps such as Putin’s now famous proclamation that he would be able to take Ukraine in three days because they surround themselves with yes-men and have issues getting accurate information about conditions on the ground.

Schlosser: If we are looking at the world, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is just one of many examples that seem to indicate that democracy is weakening. We heard quite a bit of language directly addressing that concern during President

Biden’s address in Ukraine. These discussions are also happening within democracies, including within the U.S. between the two dominant political parties one is seen as threatening democracy, whereas the other is seen as being radically left. Worldwide, it appears as if there is a decline in democracy over the past few decades. If we look at the future, will we have democracy at the same level as we enjoyed in the past? What is the role of authoritarian states in the future?

Orlich: It is a very complicated question. With Russia, there is this notion of recreating the former Soviet youth, who is built a certain way to give his life and his family and everything else to the country. But then, there is the other aspect, where the Russians do understand that at the end of so many decades of Stalinism and bashing the West, life is generally better in the West. In response, Russians are looking for flaws in democratic systems. Putin was a spy. His main job was to find flaws and weaknesses in other people, in other systems. Putin has been looking for flaws to show the Russian people and the world that the democratic agenda advanced by the U.S. and the West is a mere veneer to give the impression that Americans live in a democracy but in fact do not. The point is not for the Russian side to embrace or research or understand issues that

Americans face every day. It is to use conflict in the West and forward those issues as agendas.

Hanson: Authoritarian regimes, like democracies, are always changing and evolving. You are right to point attention to democratic backsliding. This is very difficult to separate from the current conflict in Ukraine because Russia has engaged in sophisticated misinformation campaigns designed to undermine trust in democracy, and this has really aided extremist political movements in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere. The rise of populist movements has given Russia an opportunity to drive a further wedge in democracies around the world. But we have also seen efforts to fight back against that, with some of these populist leaders losing their bids for reelection. It is a very dynamic situation, where we’ll see autocrats like Putin continue to learn and adapt. But I do not think it is the end all be all for democracy, either, as we have seen its resiliency in the face of those threats.

Schlosser: Will most of the resistance against the rise of authoritarian structures come from the outside of nations, or will it come from within resistance from their citizens?

Hanson: These two factors are interrelated. My own work, with researchers Hannah Chapman,

Valery Dzutsati and Paul DeBell, suggests that how people understand democracy plays a big role in whether they support it; this could extend to their willingness to show up on the street to protest or at the ballot box. But of course, people learn about democracy from their information environment and their civic education, which is why the work that institutions, including Arizona State University, do to further civics education is potentially very important for providing a bulwark against authoritarianism.

Schlosser: If Russia conquers Ukraine, it will be left with a destroyed country. Russia would inherit a country destroyed down to its bare bones. Why would Russia do that, and would they have the will and resources to rebuild?

Orlich: Ukraine was destroyed before, during the famine of 1932-1933. It was starved; 7 million Ukrainians died. And yet Joseph Stalin benefited from adding Ukraine to the Soviet collectivization project. After the famine, the Russians “Russified” Ukraine. They brought in people from other parts of the Soviet Union to populate the region. I have a feeling that should Russia win the war which I do not think will happen they will do the same thing. Russia is not interested in welfare. It is not interested in community building, institutions or academics. Russia is about power and totalitarianism. The ways in which we wonder about rebuilding a country are not commensurate with the way in which Putin desires to appropriate territory and make himself look like a great leader descended from czars. Russia is currently undermining another country, the Republic of Moldova, which is kept poor and without roads. The Republic of Moldova, fearing the threats of Russian occupation, has declared that it will blow up its only airport if the Russians occupy or aggress Moldova. They understand that Russia is not interested in having their land, their beauty, their people, their culture. Rather, Russia is interested in destroying it and building a totalitarian, autocratic regime not unlike Stalinism that shifted power from a white to red czar. It is not about the quality of people’s lives; it is just a matter of might makes right.

Schlosser: How long will the Russian population go along with the suffering they are experiencing? Some of the suffering is hidden from the larger population, but there is building pressure that is felt by the population. At this point, the people still seem to support Putin, but for how long will that last?

Orlich: The Russian people do not know that they suffer. For the longest time, Soviet regimes have not issued passports so people could not travel. Now they do and Russians can see the differences, so Putin highlights and magnifies the flaws of democratic governments. In Putin’s recent speech, while having the Orthodox Church of Russia by his side, he said the West makes God look neutral and talked about children engaging in gay parades. This gives the Russian people a sense of being engaged in some sort of crusade that is based on moral, normative values. They have not given up the idea of Moscow as “third Rome.” The Russians are convinced that their traditions, their customs, their language and their faith are going to be preserved within a state that is disciplined, God-fearing and ruled with an iron fist.

Schlosser: Interesting perspective and also a view into the Russian soul in a way. There is quite a bit of support from Europe and the U.S. to Ukraine to hold off Russian occupation. Can this support prevent Russia from winning the war? Or, at some point, will the war of attrition go in favor of Russia?

Hanson: Winning can mean a lot of different things. Relatively few wars end in a decisive rout, historically speaking. Winning is defined by goals: for Ukraine, that means pushing Russia out of its territory and retaining its independence. But in my opinion, the intent of the U.S. and NATO coalition is to support Ukraine so that Russian advancement can be contained, slowed and exhausted. In that sense, I am relatively optimistic. But of course, this is contingent, not only on time, which is multifaceted, but also how long both the Russian population and Russian elites will support the war. Regarding the former, it is hard to know the real proportion of Russians who support the war. There is an underappreciated impact of the prevalence of propaganda and misinformation within Russia. While older populations in particular may believe it outright, for a lot of people, it has instead just caused them to distrust everything. This helps breed apathy. Even among those who I have interviewed who fled Russia, there is no sense of agency. But at the same time, highly repressive regimes like Russia tend to appear very stable until suddenly they are not. Remember, virtually no one predicted the collapse of the USSR. Change within Russia will depend on whether the impact of the war is felt more widely and who people blame for that impact when it happens. How the war unfolds also depends, obviously, on how Ukraine does and that depends in part on the continuation of Western support so there are a lot of complex variables at play.

Schlosser: Yes, there are discussions in the U.S. saying the support for Ukraine should not be at its current level, and the U.S. should look at its internal issues first. In terms of the complexity you mentioned, one factor I feel is playing into Russia’s hands with respect to the support from other nations is Russia’s nuclear weapons arsenal. A lot of the tactical moves and strategic decisions circle around the question of will Russia pull the trigger on a tactical, if not a larger nuclear weapon? Are we seeing the curse of the nuclear weapon coming back to haunt us?

Orlich: Putin was convinced that he was going to take Ukraine quickly and that other nations would look the other way. It was only after the initial attacks that he realized this was not the case. Now we see the hardliners, including Dmitry Medvedev and Nikolai Patrushev, pressing Putin to become more and more aggressive. I know that from this side, it may not look this way. But it is like the Praetorian Guard for a Roman Emperor as a distant analogy to Putin’s own 30,000-plus close-knit retinue. They want to succeed; they want to show the West that they are better. In the context of continued defeat on the battlefield, the nuclear solution is the only one left. It is a solution that they will embrace. You mentioned the Russian soul. There is a belief they will have heroic deaths defending their motherland. This is a very scary notion because they will go down with the ship it is part of their worldview.

Hanson: I have a slightly different take. Putin is someone who sees any kind of concession or willingness to compromise as weakness, and it tends to encourage him to go further. We saw a microcosm of this with the grain embargo. Russia threatened to stop ships from leaving, but the ships just kept going, and Putin backed down. It is justifiable to worry about nuclear weapons, certainly. But because we know that Putin is using this threat very strategically, to stymie the speed of assistance to Ukraine, and to try to keep the West from being even more involved in the conflict, it is wielded as a tool. But I am not sure that it necessarily serves the interests of Putin to take that step because of the risks to Russia itself.

Schlosser: Besides military conflict, we see pressures from living out of balance with our planet, from environmental degradation, and from so-called natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria. What role do these increased pressures play compared to traditional military conflict in our futures?

Hanson: Natural disasters and other crises can and do precipitate regime change. But political revolutions are also a very complex phenomenon because regimes are ultimately constructed by people, and people learn and adapt to their environment. The earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria have generated rumblings of discontent within Türkiye due to the widespread corruption that many people blame for the building collapses. However, that is certainly no guarantee that President Erdoğan will fall. Dictators expend considerable effort in making their regimes resilient to unexpected threats. This brings us back to the earlier point that these regimes are very strong until suddenly, they are not. When regimes fall relies on something we call tipping effects, where once you get a critical mass of people moving, regime change is more likely. Other threats, for example, large-scale migration, environmental degradation and climate change, will put pressure on democratic and authoritarian governments alike. But I think democratic governments are in many ways better able to respond adaptively to those threats than autocratic ones, whose inclination tends to be repression rather than accountability.

Schlosser: Given all the pressures that we’ve seen, do you think we are moving into a world that is more unstable than what we have seen in the past? Or is it more or less the same level of stability and instability, just of a different kind?

Orlich: According to one of my favorite literary figures, Mark Twain, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Lenin, Stalin, Putin we have seen it before. But the sun also rises. There are cycles. I think we have been very fortunate in my generation, at least immediately after World War II. So now, payback time may be in order. It seems as if after a certain amount of time, there is another disaster, and then the tide turns. And so it goes.

Hanson: World history hasn’t exactly been characterized by stability overall. So in that broad sense, I think this is nothing new. The types of threats we are facing are certainly novel. My hope would be that we learn to respond to them in a way that enhances stability. I have hope in our ability to adapt to the changes in front of us.