The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December struck a blow to Russia’s project to reshape the international order toward greater multipolarity. After nine years of military and economic support for the regime, Moscow — overstretched in Ukraine — abandoned the regime as rebel forces approached Damascus, offering no support beyond asylum for Assad and his family.
The rebel takeover has cast doubt on whether Russia will be able to go on accessing its air and naval bases in Syria, a fact that could limit its power in the Mediterranean and beyond. Meanwhile, Assad’s collapse also undermined Russia’s reputation as a reliable security guarantor for its partners.
Yet despite this setback, Russia’s attempts to overturn the international order are still finding success elsewhere, and resisting Moscow’s efforts is no small order for the West. It will have to both safeguard multilateralism and address accusations of double standards.
“Axis of Upheaval”
In Russia’s eyes, the prevailing order reflects Western hegemony. Moscow has ambitions to revise that at both the global and regional levels.
On the world stage, Russia has steadily undermined international law and institutions. Moscow regularly vetoes UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions aimed at upholding the rules-based order — including recent efforts to cease hostilities in Sudan, prohibit weapons of mass destruction in outer space, reauthorize humanitarian aid for Syria, and condemn its own annexation of occupied Ukrainian territory.
Russia often coordinates with China within the UNSC, which both countries view as a key battleground for their broader joint mission to overturn the global order. Outside of the UNSC, Russia and China are working with Iran and North Korea to achieve their revisionist goals, forming an emerging “Axis of Upheaval.”
On the world stage, Russia has steadily undermined international law and institutions.
At a regional level, Moscow aims to weaken Euro-Atlantic institutions including NATO and the European Union. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks an attempt to prevent Kyiv from determining its own future within the West. Russia has also attempted to halt the Euro-Atlantic integration of Georgia and Moldova. The Kremlin is additionally carrying out increasingly blatant hybrid attacks on current NATO and EU members, orchestrating sabotage, and supporting far-right politicians.
Undermining the cohesion and enlargement of the EU and NATO is part of Moscow’s desire to enhance its status as a great power, discredit key pillars of the liberal international order, and assert an illiberal governance model abroad.
A New Multipolar World
For Russia, breaking the existing order goes hand in hand with establishing a new multipolar world where it can work with other powers to counterbalance the West. Its relationship with China is essential in this respect: both countries emphasize the concepts of indivisible security and the centrality of state-determined political rights. Yet Russia has expanded its alternative order-building efforts recently, using emerging groupings such as the BRICS to promote its vision for such an order.
This year, BRICS welcomed five new members and 13 “partner” countries — illustrating the forum’s increasing appeal to countries who feel sidelined by what they see as the Western-dominated international order. On top of dispelling the notion that Russia is globally isolated, promoting the BRICS serves Moscow’s aim of reshaping the international financial system and reducing the efficacy of Western sanctions through initiatives such as an alternative global payment system.
A major challenge for the West in combating Russia’s vision for a new world order is this vision’s appeal for many countries. The Global South is poorly represented in multilateral institutions such as the UNSC, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, fueling resentment and calls for reform that have largely gone unheeded. More worrying yet, both the pandemic and the Ukraine war have demonstrated how vulnerable these countries’ are to changes in global supply chains over which they have no influence.
Exploiting Discontent
The Kremlin is exploiting this discontent, claiming that Western sanctions against Russia have prevented it from exporting grain and fertilizer to the Global South as well as denouncing the West’s “neo-colonial” activities at the UN.
Four hundred delegates joined Russia’s 2024 “for the freedom of nations” conference to discuss Western neo-colonialism, and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has visited numerous countries across Africa and Latin America in recent years. Many countries see Russia (and China) as promoting a multipolar world — a vision supported by respondents in all nine Global South countries recently surveyed by the Munich Security Conference (MSC).
As well as feeling that the current world order fails to serve their interests, countries in the Global South are increasingly frustrated by perceived Western hypocrisy in the selective application of supposedly global rules and norms. In most of the countries the MSC surveyed, the United States scored worse than China on perceptions of rule compliance, and in four of the nine countries respondents perceived Washington’s rule compliance more negatively than Moscow’s.
While this criticism is longstanding, having been fueled by previous US-led interventions such as the 2003 Iraq war, the contrast between the ways that the United States and its allies have treated the wars in Ukraine and Gaza has laid bare this perceived hypocrisy.
Divided World
The West was swift to condemn Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — a stark contrast to what many perceive as implicit support for Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine and the deaths of tens of thousands as a result of the war on Gaza. When the US vetoed UN Security Council resolutions calling for a Gaza ceasefire, it showcased these perceived double standards. In turn, Russia seized on this narrative, vocally proclaiming its support for a “full-fledged state of Palestine” and criticizing Israel’s actions more publicly than many Western states.
The momentum behind Russia’s alternative order-building project presents considerable risks to the West. A world divided into opposed geopolitical blocs would struggle to find multilateral solutions to pressing transnational challenges, including climate change, migration, and the impact of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Beyond stymying cooperation, the dissolution of the rules-based order could lead to increased conflict, as states no longer feel bound to fundamental norms governing sovereignty and the legitimate use of force.
Looking Inward
Averting these risks will require renewed Western commitment to multilateralism alongside efforts to look inward and address accusations of double standards. However, the West must also more effectively call out the flaws and contradictions in Russia’s actions. For instance, despite its claims to be acting on behalf of all non-Western countries, Russia frequently engages bilaterally with these countries in ways that further its own narrow national interests at their expense.
This approach undermines Moscow’s credibility as a broker of multilateral cooperation, limiting the ability of its alternative institutions to concretely deliver. For instance, despite Armenia’s membership in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization at the time, Moscow failed to come to Yerevan’s aid during the Second Karabakh War due to its prioritization of economic relations with Azerbaijan. This decision has led Armenia to freeze its membership in the body and undoubtedly made other members question its value.
The reelection of Donald Trump does not bode well for the future of US multilateral engagement. During his first term, Trump consistently exhibited a destructive approach toward international institutions, withdrawing from various UN agencies including UNESCO, the Human Rights Council, and the World Health Organization, as well as disparaging the EU and NATO. In the first 24 hours of his second term President Trump pulled the US out of the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accords.
Predicting Trump’s second term is impossible, but his track record suggests other Western countries may need to pick up the slack in safeguarding the multilateral system — or else see Russia succeed in its efforts to break it and replace it with an alternative order.
