Mapping the votes of December 12 at the UN General Assembly (where every state has a single, equal vote with no veto powers) reveals massive support across the Global South (but also among many European states and U.S. allies in Asia, Japan and South Korea) for an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza.
This is as clear a diplomatic message as it gets: that Washington, now starkly isolated on the issue, should be using its leverage to end Israel’s relentless bombing campaign in Gaza. The support was even greater than the October 27 resolution which called for a “humanitarian truce” — with, among others, India, Philippines, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Fiji coming over to a ceasefire in the latest vote.
However, the Global South had varying preferences on the amendment introduced by the U.S. condemning Hamas (but not Israel) by name and its “heinous terrorist attacks” on October 7.
Here a divide is apparent between mainly Muslim-majority states — almost all of which voted against the amendment — and other Global South states. Thus a contiguous belt stretching from Mauritania in western Africa to Pakistan opposed the amendment, as did Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia. They were joined by South Africa, Cuba, Bolivia, Uganda, and a few other non-Muslim majority states.
The rest of the Global South — including India, Philippines, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Ghana, and Kenya — abstained, did not vote, or supported the U.S. amendment.
Sarang Shidore is Director of the Global South Program at the Quincy Institute, and member of the adjunct faculty at George Washington University. He has published in Foreign Affairs and The New York times, among others. Sarang was previously a senior research scholar at the University of Texas at Austin and senior global analyst at the geopolitical risk firm Stratfor Inc.
Dan M. Ford is a junior research fellow at the Quincy Institute's Global South Program. Previously he served as a research and communications associate at the Global Interagency Security Forum in Washington, D.C.
“I think we are closer to…peace than we think.” That’s what Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told ABC News amid his tour of the United States ahead of his speech at the U.N. General Assembly this week.
Zelenskyy appears to believe we are closer to peace in Eastern Europe because of a plan he says is a blueprint to win the war, one that he presented to President Biden on Thursday.
“Partners often say, ‘We will be with Ukraine until its victory.’ Now we clearly show how Ukraine can win and what is needed for this. Very specific things,” Zelenskyy told reporters ahead of the trip. “Let’s do all this today, while all the officials who want victory for Ukraine are still in official positions.”
There are reportedly military, economic, and diplomatic components of the plan which reportedly includes asks to authorize the use of U.S./UK suppliked long range weapons inside Russian territory, to put Ukraine on a path to NATO and EU membership, and increase sanctions on Russia.
While some European leaders are encouraging the Biden administration to okay long range weapon use, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — who is facing domestic pressure to help wind down the war — said this week that “Germany will not support lifting restrictions.”
As for Zelenskyy’s so-called “Victory Plan,” the Wall Street Journal reported this week that “the Biden administration is concerned that the Ukrainian leader’s plan for winning the war against Russia lacks a comprehensive strategy and is little more than a repackaged request for more weapons and the lifting of restrictions on long-range missiles.”
European and U.S. officials also said the plan offers no clear path to victory with the most developed part being, according to the Journal, “the first phase — the requests related to weapons — while the rest of the key elements have fewer specifics.”
“I’m unimpressed, there’s not much new there,” one senior official told the Journal.
Meanwhile, President Biden got ahead of his meeting with Zelensky on Thursday, issuing a statement “on U.S. support for Ukraine.”
“I am announcing a surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war,” the president said, including allocating all remaining security assistance and including an additional $2.4 billion in aid, providing more long range weapons and air defenses, expanding training for F-16 pilots, and offering tools to combat Russian sanctions evasion and money laundering.
The statement does not say anything about allowing Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia with U.S. weapons.
In other Ukraine war related news this week
— Ukraine accused Russia this week of “seeking to illegally seize control of the strategically important Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait, as hearings opened in a high-stakes arbitration case between Kyiv and Moscow,” according to the Associated Press. The hearings — which take place at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague — are the latest in a series of similar cases involving the two sides since Russia’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.
— Canada’s Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said this week she’s confident that the West can help fund Ukraine’s war effort with the use of Russian assets, according to Politico. “I’m very confident Ukraine will start getting the money in the coming months,” she said. “At this point what we’re talking about is the technicalities.”
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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visits the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 22, 2024. ( REUTERS)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s trip to Pennsylvania on the eve of the U.N. General Assembly elicited a medley of reactions straddling the ideological spectrum.
The commentary, which encompasses everything from ebullient praise to pointed criticism, is entangled with a number of broader phenomena: namely, Kyiv’s continued prosecution of the war in the face of what even its most ardent allies acknowledge to be harsh battlefield realities, Zelensky’s increasingly beleaguered political position at home and abroad, the U.S. presidential election, and state politics. It is no surprise, given these disparate strands of inquiry, that Zelensky’s trip has become something of a rorschach test for how Americans view U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war.
Yet it is possible to rescue something approaching a lucid assessment from this muddled affair. It starts, as all dispassionate inquiries should, with a precis of the basic facts of the matter. Kyiv, as everyone up to and including President Zelensky acknowledges, overwhelmingly relies on U.S. military, financial, and diplomatic support to sustain its war effort. The Biden administration not only committed itself to the indefinite provision of this support but Vice President Kamala Harris has made a campaign issue out of it, casting former President Donald Trump’s desire to bring the war to a negotiated conclusion as a form of surrender to Vladimir Putin presaging Russia’s subsequent invasion of countries on NATO’s eastern flank.
These effusions have seeped into battleground state politics, with Harris warning Polish-Americans in Pennsylvania that deviation from the current Western approach to Ukraine invites a Russian assault on Poland. It is in this politically-tinged context that Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, as well as Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) — both of them running for re-election — met with Zelensky and Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant six weeks out from the election, proclaiming support for the administration’s Ukraine policy as Shapiro autographed freshly-produced artillery shells to warm applause.
Let us recapitulate. A foreign head of state who relies on and is actively courting continued American support to sustain his nation’s war effort was flown out on a military transport aircraft to a Scranton munitions plant that at least partially benefits from continuation of military aid to Ukraine, located in a crucial battleground state, to meet with the governor and local politicians running for reelection.
Under any circumstances, this kind of collaboration between foreign leaders, the federal government, and state politicians blurs the lines of domestic politics and foreign policy in a way that should make Americans uncomfortable regardless of the specificities surrounding the Ukraine conflict. It is especially concerning when this collaboration is officiated in the final inning of an election season where Ukraine is one of the issues being presented to voters as a potential source of contrast between the two campaigns, with Zelensky simultaneously echoing Harris campaign messaging in denouncing GOP vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s views on how to end the war as too “radical” and ignorant of history.
Any sort of creeping balkanization of Ukraine policy along partisan lines is not only obviously detrimental to U.S. security interests, but, in the long run, also hurts Kyiv by subjecting it, even by its leaders’ own volition, to the vicissitudes of domestic politics.
A new poll finds that 66% of Americans want a NATO-U.S. push for a negotiated settlement in the Ukraine War and less than 24% believe that weapons and aid should be given to Israel unconditionally in its war on Gaza.
But interestingly, not Ukraine, Gaza, or even China, are the biggest foreign policy issues on the minds of Americans this election season, at least according to a new survey by the Institute of Global Affairs (IGA). In fact, ahead of those hot button conflicts and global pressure points, immigration (39%), climate change (34%), and terrorism (32%) are ranked among respondents’ top three concerns. Israel’s war in Gaza (18%), the rise of China (16%), and the Ukraine war (13%) were far down in the list.
But that doesn’t mean Americans don’t have strong opinions — many along partisan lines — about the U.S. role in the world, its military footprint, and who they trust to do a better job as the next president.
IGA and YouGov polled a national sample of 1,835 voting-age Americans between August 15 and 22 with over-samples in swing states in the Rust Belt (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin) and the Sun Belt (Georgia, Arizona and Nevada) regions. Questions covered an array of foreign policy topics from ongoing wars and conflicts to more general issues of militarism, immigration and soft power.
The poll found that a slight majority of voters on a national level (53%) trust Harris more to represent America’s interest on the global stage. However, voters in swing states trust Trump more not only in this category (53%), but also in his ability to reform immigration (56%), end the Ukraine and Gaza Wars (58%), and respond effectively to a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan (58%).
Also according to other results, 58% of Harris supporters stated that the U.S. should maintain or increase its number of overseas troops, while 58% of Trump supporters think that number should decrease. Some 75% of Americans agreed that the president should be required to obtain congressional approval before ordering any military action overseas, a check required by the Constitution but increasingly ignored in the post-9/11 era.
Another point of agreement among most Americans across party lines centers on the U.S. and NATO pushing for a negotiated settlement as a means to end the war in Ukraine. 70% of Republicans, 71% of Independents and 60% of Democrats marked support for this approach.
Stark ideological divides made themselves clear, however, regarding the situation in the Middle East. A strong majority of Democrats said the U.S. should either stop supporting Israel’s war efforts entirely or make that support conditional on a ceasefire (67%) — compared to just 41% of Republicans. While only 23% support unconditional aid to Israel, this too split along partisan lines, with only 8% of Democrats and 42% of Republicans agreeing with the idea.
Age also came in as a factor, with twice as many voters under 30 as those above 65 (23% vs. 11%) thinking the U.S. must stop supporting Israel’s war in Gaza altogether.
Opinions on President Joe Biden’s foreign policy record as he exits office are mixed. Americans cited NATO expansion and the release of American prisoners from Russia as key successes, with addressing climate change being the top choice among Democrats specifically. Republicans and Democrats saw immigration as Biden’s top foreign policy failure, and Democrats pointed most often to his administration’s handling of the war in Gaza as a key failure. Republicans widely see Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and bringing the troops home as his biggest failure next to immigration.
On China, a majority of those polled (58%) say the U.S. should prepare for a Cold War, including 52% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans. As far as Taiwan goes, 40% say the U.S. should defend the island if militarily attacked by China, though 39 percent say they have “no opinion.”
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