I’ve turned into a voyeur of grotesque proportions. Images and videos from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have flooded my social media and news channels. I see Ukrainian grandmas and grandpas scolding Russian troops like they were their own children; homemade Molotovs being thrown on armoured personnel carriers; ordinary citizens with locked and loaded AK-47s; civilians rushing to cross the border, some only to be denied safe passage because of their race and colour; and missile strikes and other gory images that the West once only associated with conflicts in the "third world" (how I despise that term!). I see brave Russian citizens protesting the war despite being flooded with propaganda justifying the war; white journalists reveal their true colours faced with war in "relatively civilised, relatively European–I have to choose those words carefully, too–city" as compared to "Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades" (as if the wars in these countries were of their own making!); Ukrainian civilians with anti-tank launchers being hailed as courageous warriors fighting occupation (while Palestinians doing the same with stones are labelled terrorists); the double standards of the developed world all too apparent, now that war has come to their backyard.

In just a week, Europe’s hard-earned peace of 80 years has come crashing to the ground. Only time will tell how Vladimir Putin’s gambit in Ukraine will play out. But a few contours are already apparent. Europe has united against Putin’s Russia in ways he did not expect, and the Ukrainian resistance even fiercer. If anything, the European and NATO military build-up Putin had been resisting will grow from hereon. For instance, Germany, scarred by the Second World War towards pacifism, has said it will upgrade defence expenditure to more than 2 percent of its GDP, a major policy shift. Hard power–a vapid term that really means the ability of a nation to unleash its firepower on another–is back on the menu for great powers, and not just against countries in the global south. And the United States faces its first real test of supremacy in the post-Cold War unipolar era. Until now, it was mostly dealing with, as a former president, George Bush Jr. declared for Afghanistan, "empty tents" and "camel’s butts"; the choice of American military intervention seems to come far easier when it has to deal with countries in Asia and Africa.

Cursed legacy

War is among history’s most cursed legacies. Historical grievances are often the excuse upon which most wars are conducted. South Asia is only too familiar with the burden of history and borders drawn by white men who had never visited the subcontinent before. India and Pakistan are brothers forged in blood, the Partition’s furious legacy shaping both their present and their futures. The Second World War was founded on Hitler’s belief that Germany had been robbed of its wealth and prestige in the aftermath of the First World War. Putin’s claims of "demilitarising and denazifying" Ukraine may seem ironic, given that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a descendant of Jewish Holocaust survivors, but his grievances about the post-Soviet world order, in which the US and other countries have not assured Russia of its security, have struck a chord with authoritarian leaders who look to history to justify their actions.

Putin’s war on Ukraine holds up a stark message to smaller nations like ours. The contemporary world order is predicated upon the fact that all nations are equal in standing, but it’s long been evident that is not true. While the choices may have been starker in a US-led unipolar world (to not annoy the US), countries like ours will now face more troublesome dilemmas in the years to come, especially as US hegemony itself is challenged on multiple fronts. The emphasis on an independent foreign policy based on national interests–and not individual interests–couldn’t be clearer. In this regard, Nepal’s clear stance on the Ukrainian invasion–and its support towards upholding the United Nations charter on sovereignty and territorial integrity–is commendable.

The narrative of war

The war in Ukraine has also revealed the deep-seated Eurocentrism that drives global media and information networks. Beyond the racism on display in not allowing non-Ukrainians to cross borders safely, Western commentators have suddenly been forced to come to terms with a refugee crisis where "European people with blonde hair and blue eyes" are now appearing on their borders seeking safety from conflict. The Islamophobia that drove anti-refugee sentiment after the Iraq and the Syrian wars is all too clear in retrospect.

Another casualty of war–beyond truth–is semantics. Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion has come to be framed in a heroic narrative of protecting one’s homeland. Make no mistake–the courage of an ordinary citizen to take up arms against a superpower is the stuff heroic epics are made of. Should the same standards not apply to other resistance movements in the many wars raging across the world at this very moment? What makes one war, or one resistance movement, greater than the other?

There’s a famous quote from Korean War television series M*A*S*H that explains why war is worse than hell: "There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them—little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander." While none can really predict the outcome of this war, one can be sure it will be innocent bystanders who will once again face the brunt of supersized egos. If, however, we learn nothing from this conflict–as from the others in our past–we will be doomed to repeat history, both as a farce and as a tragedy.