Dr. Safia Swimelar, professor in the departments of political science and policy studies and coordinator of the international and global studies program, offers insight on the nearly one-month war between Russia and Ukraine.
She discusses the use of social media, the refugee situation and indirect engagement by the United States as peace talks are set to resume between the two nations.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Why should students put a focus on the war in Russia and Ukraine?
“I think students should care in terms of just being citizens. As students, they're learning and so they're learning about how the world works. I think one of the things that this was teaching us is that, you know, there are certain international norms that we've established that the U.S. established with other countries at the end of World War II about territorial boundaries, about state sovereignty, about how states should act and what Russia has done with invading a neighboring sovereign state is against all of those norms.
As a major power in the international system, the United States is expected to try to uphold those norms, even though sometimes we violate them ourselves. I think all students and citizens should care when the international system is kind of disturbed in this way. We benefit from stability from the political side, from the economic side. Something like this with a major power that has nuclear weapons, that's a major power in the Security Council that is a major part of the global economy. When they engage in this kind of aggression, like they have, then it affects everything, right. I mean, we're seeing it affect our economy. I saw a meeting just today, a panel on how this is affecting the boardrooms of America, right. So whether you study finance, or whether you study politics, or whether you study really anything, you should care that there's this kind of instability happening in the world that could affect the whole rest of the world.
We also know that conflicts that happen in Europe, if we just go back historically, they spread out right — the refugee crisis spreads out. Europe is our major trading partner, it's our major ally. So when Europe is disturbed and has instability, both economic and political, it's going to have an effect on us. And then I think, lastly, I think we have a responsibility to care on the moral level, right, when we see that a country is totally unprovoked and millions of people are being forced from their homes. We claim to be a major human rights supporter around the world. When we see war crimes and crimes against humanity, which is probably what we're seeing in Ukraine now, I think we have a moral responsibility to be aware of what's going on to try to help if we can, and of course, to respond the way that we have been responding.
One thing I might add about the connection to young people is just sort of globalization and social media, that this is the first really major war where we've had social media. I think we're seeing that in two ways, one, that those involved in the war can use social media for their own perspectives on the war, right. Russians are using it to sort of convince people that their side is right. But I think more so it's allowing young people to get involved and to learn about what's happening through social media in a way that, you know, back in the 90s or so we wouldn't know what's happening. And now we're getting to see videos of a mother and her child leaving Ukraine heading to the border or people who were injured in the rubble in a particular attack. I think that's making us feel closer to the conflict in a way that previous generations, like my generation when I was in college, couldn't feel connected to an international event in the same way that we are now. Hopefully that means people would pay attention more and maybe care more because they're hearing about it more, but It also shows that all sides are sort of using digital technology and media to kind of communicate and actually to fight the war in the digital realm. I mean, we talk about information warfare and kind of media warfare, and that's kind of another aspect of the war is sort of a competition about the narratives in the space of social media in the digital world.”
When responding to human rights conflicts, do you think some of these major global powers, including the United States, are responding how they're supposed to?
“I think the U.S. and our allies are responding as much as we probably can… you haven't seen this kind of major coordinated global transnational response to something probably since South African apartheid system in terms of sanctions on all sides, right — cultural, economic, political, diplomatic. So I think it's definitely the right response. I think some of it hasn't gone far enough. There are hundreds of other Russian elites who benefit from the regime who are not under sanction. So some have called for that for those to be sanctioned. So I think it's the right amount.
I understand the calls that people are making for more military intervention, like for, let's say, delivering fighter jets, or actually getting involved directly. I think that becomes way more complicated because it would cause the United States and NATO allies to be directly engaged in conflict with Russia and we're sort of indirectly engaged right now. I think it is another level to talk about direct engagement, so I think we're at the right level of engagement, and if Russia goes even farther, which it looks like it is, then we will need to continue to put pressure the way that we already have been on again, on the economic front, the political, diplomatic and cultural front.”
Is history sort of like looking to be set up to repeat itself in a sense?
“I guess some people have compared this to the Cold War, saying this is like Cold War 2.0. I think it's too early to say that. But I do think that Russia has positioned itself as anti-Western, that it's positioned its own identity, as sort of distinct from Europe and the West because of its illiberal, undemocratic nature. That is a little bit similar to what we had during the Cold War.
You could say Ukraine is kind of a proxy war, where we are engaging with Russia, but again, in an indirect way. So there's a little bit of overlap but the system has really changed. We don't have two centers of power, you know, the communist center and the capitalist center, we really have one global economy, and capitalist Russia as part of that. So there's a lot of things that are different about it, and we also have different kinds of norms. The norms about human rights and war crimes were not the same in the 1960s as they were today. If you look at the interventions that we have done in the name of human rights in the 1990s, that kind of changed a lot of our thinking on that. So there are some similarities, but I think there are probably more differences.”
Is there anything students should be on the lookout for in the next few weeks?
“The war is kind of stalled right now. The Russian army is not able to take the capital, but they have pretty much taken a good part of the south. I think we should watch and see how that's going to progress because we've already heard that there might be 10 to 15,000 Russian troops that have died, which is a very high number for a war that's only been in its fourth week now. I think people should be watching for some kind of opening or some kind of, a situation where peace talks or a compromise might be possible because the war is not going the way that Russia thought it might. But I think students also need to be on the lookout for continuing to put on the pressure. If you are really into an international brand that is making millions of dollars in Russia, send them a tweet or you know a message on whatever social media or email them to say ‘hey, you're supporting a regime that is breaking all fundamental norms and laws of society and you should not be making money off of that. I think there are things we can do on that side, in terms of people's power to put pressure on companies and things like that.
I think the other might also be to just continue to look at the refugee situation. There are lots of Ukrainians that live in the United States who have heritage and are even directly from Ukraine, and a lot of them are hoping to bring their family over who are not able to stay in Ukraine. It's not that we are hosting Ukrainians in our house the way that Polish people are because we're very far away. But I think being on the lookout for people here who need our help and our support who may have family from there or may be from there themselves.”