Die Rückkehr des Imperialismus?
Yuval Noah Harari hat einen Gastkommentar für den Economist geschrieben. Zwei interessante Ausschnitte:
For most of history the term “imperialism” referred to cases when a powerful state such as Rome, Britain or tsarist Russia conquered foreign lands and turned them into provinces. This kind of imperialism gradually became taboo after 1945. While there has been no shortage of wars in the late 20th and early 21st centuries—with horrendous conflicts ongoing in Palestine and Israel, and in Sudan, Myanmar and elsewhere—there have so far been no cases when an internationally recognised country was simply wiped off the map owing to annexation by a powerful conqueror. When Iraq tried to do that to Kuwait in 1990-91, an international coalition restored Kuwaiti independence and territorial integrity. And when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, there was never a question of annexing the country or any part of it.
Russia has already annexed not just Crimea but also all the territories its armies are currently occupying in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin is following the imperial principle that any territory conquered by the Russian army is annexed by the Russian state. Indeed, Russia went as far as annexing several regions that its armies merely intend to conquer, such as the unoccupied parts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk oblasts.
If Mr Putin is allowed to win in Ukraine, this kind of imperialism will make a comeback all over the world. What will then restrain Venezuela, for example, from conquering Guyana, or Iran from conquering the United Arab Emirates? What will restrain Russia itself from conquering Estonia or Kazakhstan? No border and no state could find safety in anything except armaments and alliances. If the taboo on imperial conquests is broken, then even states whose independence and borders won international recognition long ago will face a growing risk of invasion, and even of again becoming imperial provinces.