Fareed Zakaria argued eloquently on CNN against those saying that the only reason the world cares about the invasion of Ukraine is that Ukrainians are white and European.
Zakaria appeared on Don Lemon's show Friday where he addressed why the Ukrainian war was unique in its importance to the global order.
"There are people who say why are we, why this conflict," asked Lemon, "there are conflicts, there are skirmishes all over the world. Why is this one so different? Why are we involved with it, why should we upend our lives, the price of our gas, and so on and so forth, you understand what I'm saying."
"I totally understand, and here's the simplest way to understand it," Zakaria replied.
"A skirmish that takes place between two small countries in Africa, the Middle East, in Latin America, they don't threaten to upend the international system. When you have a nuclear power, the largest nuclear power in the world, Russia has more nuclear weapons than the United States, a great power with a veto in the security council, when it threatens its neighbor what you are reverting to, is a pattern of great power politics that is more reminiscent of the age of Hitler and Mussolini, more reminiscent of 19th century Europe, where the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must," he explained.
"That is a very different world than what we've lived in for the last 70 years, and certainly, ever since the end of the Cold War, so its not, to put it directly to people who think about this and they say, why are Ukrainians, why do we pay so much attention, is it just because they are white?" Zakaria continued.
"No, it is not because Ukrainians are white or European, it's because their aggressor, their invader, is a nuclear armed superpower, that's the danger. That if Russia can get away with this, it can get away with invading Poland. It can get away with invading the Baltic states. China can get away with invading Taiwan," he added.
"You essentially tear up the rule book on international relations," Zakaria concluded.
Many global analysts believe the timeline for the Russian invasion has been significantly stalled by the unexpected efforts of the Ukrainian military and civilians fighting back.
Here's the latest on the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
Russian attacks escalate across Ukrainewww.youtube.com
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