If Russia considers Ukraine a threat, why does the rule-based world need such a Russia?
Countries have been fighting for centuries, considering war as a continuation of politics by other means, until they came to a standstill in World War II. After it ended, the world of the right to war as a policy tool was replaced by a world based on rules.
Its essence is set out in Article 2 of the UN Charter, according to which countries in their relations with each other are guided by the principles of (1) sovereign equality; (2) faithful implementation of agreed rules; (3) settlement of mutual disputes exclusively by peaceful means, without endangering the world; (4) renunciation of the threat or use of force, in particular against the political independence of any state.
In short, war as an instrument of politics was banned after World War II and replaced by rules. The only exception is self-defense, individual or collective, in the event of external military aggression, until the rule-based world, as embodied in the original design of the UN Security Council, resolves the problem of such aggression. Until it does, the authorization for self-defense against military aggression is in effect .
Russia has long mocked the rule-based world order, threatened war, and used force in a large-scale war against Ukraine to establish political and economic control.
Now Russia is no longer ridiculing the rule-based world order. Perhaps it has finally realized that China itself supports the rule-based order. China just wants to change the rules from post-Christian to post-Confucian.
However, Russia persists in threatening Ukraine with war for political and economic reasons that have nothing to do with security.
If Russia considers Ukraine's internal structure to be a threat to its existence, why does the rule-based world need Russia? There will be no other world but a rule-based world when Moscow gets tired of hiding its Oreshniks from drones. Although the rules of the world order may change, as China wants them to.
