Oliver Meier and Maren Vieluf respond

Abstract

describe as the dominant tendency of nationalist-populist leaders to “weaken international alliances and multilateral institutions.” Instead, in this case the Ukraine war has had the dramatic effect of strengthening NATO and the European Union, bolstering transatlantic unity, and prodding the United States to reconsider the value of the International Criminal Court. Stalemate in the UN Security Council forced a creative move to a UN General Assembly vote under the Uniting for Peace principle to condemn Russia, while the UN Human Rights Council took the rare step of standing up to a great power and expelled Russia. In other words, Putin’s war has brought about precisely the outcomes he has sought to counter. It has strengthened, rather than weakened, multilateralism and international institutions. Needless to say, however, if Donald Trump were president now instead of Biden, this outcome would have been very different. There would be no Ukraine and no NATO, at least in their current forms. Trump would have given Ukraine to his friend (and creditor) Putin and pulled out of NATO. Two nationalist-populist leaders of great powers, working in tandem, could indeed likely dismantle the transatlantic institutional order.