Russia-Ukraine conflict: Sitting on the fence suits SA

South Africa’s response to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine says a lot about how much influence the country really has on the international stage: very little, to none at all.

Confusion emanated from the department of international relations and cooperation’s statement that contradicted the president’s stance. It called on Russia to withdraw from the Ukraine, while the Presidency has adopted the more noncommittal stance of calling on the United Nations to bring Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table.

That showed the government knows its voice doesn’t really matter. Does South Africa have to pick a side though, and if so, which side? In 2003, when George W Bush led the United States to invade Iraq despite the United Nations’ call not to do so, the world’s voice of reason, Nelson Mandela, condemned the United States’ actions.

His moral authority meant his voice could be listened to by other world leaders and although they couldn’t stop the invasion, it mattered that Mandela had spoken out. It also mattered that Mandela was no longer president of SA at the time, so the US could not direct any of its wrath towards South Africa.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s deliberate ploy not to pick a side is a genuine strategic move not to make enemies unnecessarily. The easiest thing to do would be to criticise Russian President Vladimir Putin because war is devastating.

It brings death, destruction and hardship. But had the Ukraine succeeded in joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), it would have given the US and some of its allies direct access to Russia and Tuesday 10 1 March 2022 therefore becoming a security threat to Russia.

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Nato, when it was first formed in the late ’40s following World War II, did not hide the fact that it was formed to neutralise the then Soviet threat, of which Russia was the main player. All through the Cold War, even after the demise of the Soviet Union in the ’90s, Nato never stopped being an anti-Russian/Soviet organisation.

If the situation were to be reversed and the US suddenly had a Russian-backed country on its border it would also do all it could to fight off the Russian threat to its security. The Cold War might be over and the world order different to what it was in the ’90s, but it remains true that there are superpowers who will go to war to protect their interests.

The US has gone to war far from home fighting to defend its own interests, often to the detriment of the locals in those countries that the US has chosen to “defend.”

It is also not beyond the realms of possibility that certain sectors of the US economy could see a war as a desirable outcome soon after their economy was battered by the pandemic. As was the case in Iraq, Ukraine will require massive rebuilding projects after the war, it will issue massive contracts to companies, especially allied to the US, to help it rebuild.

If South Africa went into the situation all guns blazing simply to be on the side with the moral high ground, it could be left with enemies that can pull economic strings to South Africa’s disadvantage. For once, President Ramaphosa’s choice of sitting on the fence when required to make quick and important decisions has worked to the country’s advantage.

South Africa does business with both Russia and the United States.