By Mandeep Tiwana, Chief Officer - Evidence and Engagement at CIVICUS
U.S. President Joe Biden, in his rousing State of the Union speech last week, warned that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is on the march, “invading Europe and sowing chaos throughout the world.” There’s no doubt that Russia is a rogue, nuclear-armed state which crushes dissent at home, exports war abroad, and endangers what the United States and its allies call the “rules-based international order.”
But many people around the world — especially civil society activists from the Global South — are not just concerned about Putin’s threats to the rules-based order. We also worry about Biden’s commitment to it. As Israel’s death toll tops 30,000 in Gaza with Washington’s material support and diplomatic cover, many of us shake our heads at Biden’s moral dualism on international norms.