A widespread interpretation of recent international events tends to group together the three current superpower leaders—Trump, Putin, and Xi Jinping—portraying them as figures driven by a shared imperialist impulse. Consequently, the conflicts they are involved in—or potentially could be, as in China’s case—are considered analogous to one another. But this is a misleading and deeply flawed simplification. Understanding the causes of a conflict is essential in order to identify possible solutions; for this reason, a thorough analysis of its origins is as important as it is indispensable.
Ukraine: A War About Security, Not Empire
The war in Ukraine primarily concerns Russia’s security architecture—and by extension, that of Europe. It is not an imperialist conquest: Russia’s intervention came in response to a civil war in Donbas, which began in 2014, and more generally to the mounting pressure from NATO’s eastward expansion. Moscow’s central demand has always been Ukraine’s neutrality.
Numerous official documents and independent analyses have clarified the motivations behind the so-called “Ukraine project,” which was initiated as early as the 1990s under the Clinton administration. From the outset, the strategic objective was to integrate Ukraine into NATO and, more broadly, into the Euro-Atlantic bloc. At the root of this strategy lies a historical continuity: U.S. opposition to the flow of Russian gas to Europe, already evident in the 1980s. In other words, preventing the emergence of a structured economic and geopolitical relationship between Russia and Germany—and more broadly between Russia and Europe—has always been a priority for Washington.
As George Friedman, founder of the think tanks Stratfor and Geopolitical Futures, clearly stated more than ten years ago:
“The primordial interest of the United States, over which for centuries we have fought wars—World War I, World War II, and the Cold War—has been the relationship between Germany and Russia. United, they form the only force that could threaten us. Our fundamental fear is the combination of German capital and technology with Russian natural resources and manpower: this is the only real threat the U.S. has ever faced.”
“To prevent this, the U.S. must build an alternative architecture: hence the strategy along the Black Sea–Baltic line. The Russians, for their part, have always said clearly that a pro-Western Ukraine is unacceptable. But the key remains Germany, which has not yet decided which side to be on: economically powerful, geopolitically fragile, historically uncertain about how to reconcile the two. This has been, since 1871, the ‘German question,’ the real issue in Europe.”
Russia justified its intervention by invoking the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle, formalized in 2005 by the United Nations, according to which the international community has a duty to intervene when a State is unable or unwilling to protect its population from serious crimes such as genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity. On February 21, 2022, Russia recognized the independence of the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, announcing the deployment of troops with the declared aim of protecting the Russian-speaking populations from what it described as “genocide.”
However, the R2P principle explicitly requires authorization from the UN Security Council, which in this case was never granted. As a result, the Russian intervention must be considered illegal under international law, as reiterated by the UN General Assembly, which did not recognize the separatist republics of Donbas—similarly to what happened in other controversial cases, foremost among them Kosovo.
The independence of Kosovo is in fact one of the most debated precedents in contemporary international law and is often cited—by Moscow and others—to justify the recognition of separatist entities like those in Donbas. In 1999, NATO intervened militarily against Serbia (then part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) without Security Council authorization, officially to end alleged serious human rights violations against Kosovo’s Albanian population. While invoking humanitarian reasons, that intervention violated the UN Charter, which allows the use of force only in cases of self-defense or with explicit Security Council mandate.
In Donbas, Russia adopted a logic partially analogous to that used by the West in Kosovo: denouncing alleged crimes against Russian-speaking populations, recognizing the separatist entities, and declaring an intervention to protect them. However, again, there was no UN mandate, nor a multilateral process or international negotiation.
The UN General Assembly, by an overwhelming majority, condemned the Russian aggression and reaffirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity, refusing to recognize both the Donbas republics and the subsequent annexations, including that of Crimea in 2014. The fact that Russia invoked the Kosovo precedent—which it had vehemently opposed at the time—highlights the instrumental and selective use of international law by great powers, employed not as a coherent system of rules, but as a geopolitical tool adapted case by case to immediate strategic interests.
Taiwan: An Internal Chinese Issue, Not an Expansionist Project
In the case of China, too, invoking imperialism is completely misplaced. The Taiwan issue falls under the One China Policy, the official position of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), according to which there is only one China, of which Taiwan is an integral part. Beijing considers Taiwan a rebellious province to be reunified, if necessary by force.
With UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 (1971), China’s representation at the UN was assigned to the PRC, and the so-called “Republic of China” (Taiwan) was expelled. Although the resolution does not explicitly define Taiwan’s legal status, Beijing uses it as a political basis to claim that the international community recognizes the existence of only one China.
In this context, many countries—including the United States and Italy—have signed bilateral declarations with the PRC (such as the three U.S.–China Joint Communiqués of 1972, 1979, and 1982), recognizing the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China, not recognizing Taiwan as an independent state, and renouncing official diplomatic ties with the island. However, most of these countries continue to maintain economic, commercial, cultural, and even military relations with Taiwan in unofficial forms, within a delicate diplomatic balance.
The United States, for example, supplies Taiwan with advanced weaponry to help Taipei build credible defensive capabilities against Chinese pressure. A recent package worth $11.1 billion, announced in December 2025, includes key systems for this purpose. These supplies, authorized under the Taiwan Relations Act, are intended to support Taiwan’s asymmetric warfare strategy. However, they have drawn strong condemnation from Beijing, which sees them as interference in internal affairs and a violation of national sovereignty.
Venezuela: A New Chapter in Western Interference
The case of Venezuela is quite different and fits into the long sequence of Western interventions over the past three decades: from Yugoslavia to Iraq, Afghanistan to Libya, and Syria. All are examples of systematic violations of the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of States, enshrined in the UN Charter, one of the cornerstones of international law. Any exceptions must be authorized by the UN Security Council, which was not the case in any of the above examples.
In Venezuela, what truly interests the United States is control over the country’s immense oil reserves. If, as already happened in Guyana, Washington extended its control over Venezuela as well, it would dominate over half of the world’s oil reserves. If Iran were added to this—bringing Israel into the equation—the strategic impact on Russia and China would be devastating: Moscow would face price pressure, while Beijing, highly dependent on energy imports, would be seriously affected.
The Decline of Western Hegemony
The sight of European leaders and their entourages justifying yet another Western intervention in Latin America is disheartening. It reflects not only cynicism, but also a structural inability to understand the emerging world order. Five centuries of Western dominance and three decades of U.S. unipolarity have eroded—almost erased—the cultural, political, and diplomatic tools necessary to deal with the current multipolar transition. Faced with the crisis of their own model, Euro-Atlantic elites react with stubbornness, escalating rhetoric and military posturing.
For these reasons, the current European governments do not want the war in Ukraine to end: every escalation is justified, just to avoid admitting strategic failure and confronting those who now demand a revision of the global order. But two obstacles make this strategy unsustainable.
The first is economic. Sanctions, forced energy self-sufficiency, and deindustrialization are undermining Europe’s productive foundations. As already noted: they want to fight a war with soldiers who don’t exist, armed with weapons not yet produced, and paid with money that isn’t there. The second is public opinion. A few years ago, the narrative of “Western values” and the “orderly garden” might have been compelling, but today even the most inattentive are beginning to sense its emptiness and falsehood.
Reality is knocking ever more loudly. And this time it doesn’t seem willing to wait. It will not be stopped by propaganda, censorship, sanctions, or new military alliances. What is needed is a new approach to international relations—based on respect for the law, the sovereignty of states, and the recognition of a truly multipolar world.
Francesco Sylos Labini
Francesco Sylos Labini 