The World Is Not Washington’s or Europe’s to Decide

There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the Western international order: the United States and European powers routinely invoke democracy, sovereignty and the rules-based international system, yet their own conduct raises a persistent question. Do these principles apply equally to every country, or only when the outcome serves Western interests? From the Korean Peninsula to the streets of Kyiv, from the oil-producing states of the Middle East to the resource-rich lands of Africa, the recurring problem is the assumption that powerful countries possess a special right to determine the political and strategic futures of others.

The Korean War established one of the defining patterns of the Cold War. Korea became a battlefield on which competing powers pursued their strategic interests, leaving the peninsula divided and its people living with the consequences decades later. Japan’s postwar experience offers another example of the enduring influence of American power. Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the United States occupied Japan and helped shape its postwar political and security arrangements. The US-Japan security treaty continues to provide for American military facilities on Japanese territory. Japan is a sovereign country, and its government has entered into these arrangements, but the history raises a legitimate question about how much strategic autonomy states possess when their security depends heavily on a more powerful ally.

Ukraine presents a more recent and deeply contested case. In 2014, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland became a central figure in Washington’s engagement with the political crisis in Kyiv. A leaked telephone conversation between Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, exposed American officials discussing preferred political outcomes and the composition of a future Ukrainian government. Nuland’s now-famous dismissal of the European Union, “Fuck the EU,” revealed the tensions between Washington and its European partners. The conversation is evidence of American involvement in shaping political outcomes; it is not, by itself, proof that Washington single-handedly orchestrated the entire uprising or the removal of President Viktor Yanukovych. Nevertheless, it illustrates the uncomfortable reality that powerful governments often regard other countries’ political transitions as matters in which they are entitled to intervene.

The same questions arise elsewhere. Somalia has endured repeated American military strikes, justified by Washington primarily as counterterrorism operations. The security threats posed by armed groups are real, but so are the questions of civilian harm, accountability and the long-term consequences of a foreign power repeatedly exercising lethal force on another country’s territory. In Romania, the annulment of the 2024 presidential election by the country’s Constitutional Court, following allegations of electoral interference, raised serious questions about democratic legitimacy and public confidence. The court’s decision was a domestic legal act, not proof of an American-directed coup. Yet the episode illustrates why the integrity of elections, the evidence used to overturn results and the public’s right to scrutinise official decisions must matter regardless of whether the outcome is welcomed in Brussels or Washington.

Africa has particular reasons to be wary of external powers presenting their strategic ambitions as universal principles. Nigeria’s 2015 election, which brought Muhammadu Buhari to power after Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat, unfolded amid significant international diplomatic engagement and domestic political pressure. The election was widely recognised as a landmark democratic transfer of power. Claims that foreign interference determined the outcome require specific evidence, rather than inference from the fact of Western involvement. The broader concern remains valid: Nigerian democracy must be judged by the choices of Nigerian voters, the integrity of Nigerian institutions and the accountability of Nigerian leaders, not by the preferences of foreign governments. The same principle applies to every subsequent administration, including that of Bola Tinubu.

South Africa faces another form of external pressure through claims from American political circles that white South Africans are victims of a campaign of genocide. Violent crime and farm attacks deserve serious attention, but the allegation of a white genocide is not supported by credible evidence establishing a systematic campaign of extermination. Inflating a disputed claim into a defining international crisis risks distorting South Africa’s domestic realities and turning human rights into an instrument of geopolitical pressure. If the protection of minorities is a universal principle, it must be applied through evidence and consistent standards, not selective outrage.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, decades of conflict, mass displacement and competition over mineral wealth have repeatedly exposed the gap between international declarations and the realities experienced by ordinary people. International agreements involving the Congolese government, foreign states and commercial interests may offer opportunities for investment or security cooperation. But any arrangement involving the country’s resources and strategic future must be transparent, accountable to Congolese citizens and designed to benefit the population rather than merely secure external access to minerals. The question is not whether the Congo should cooperate with foreign countries, including Israel, the United States or European states. It is whether Congolese people retain meaningful control over the terms of that cooperation.

The Middle East exposes perhaps the clearest contradiction in Western rhetoric. American and European governments frequently condemn authoritarianism while maintaining close security, commercial and diplomatic relationships with authoritarian monarchies and other unelected governments in the Arab world. Such relationships may be defended on grounds of stability, energy security, counterterrorism or regional strategy. Those considerations do not erase the inconsistency. If democratic accountability and human rights are universal principles, they cannot become optional whenever a government is a strategic partner. Nor can they be invoked selectively against adversaries while abuses by allies receive diplomatic indulgence.

North Korea, too, has spent decades under American pressure, sanctions and military deterrence, alongside a history of war that remains formally unresolved by a peace treaty. Its government’s repression and restrictions on its own population should not be excused. But condemning those abuses does not grant foreign powers unlimited authority to dictate the country’s political future or disregard the risks of military confrontation. The people of North Korea are not identical to their government, just as citizens elsewhere should not be reduced to the policies of those who rule them. Sovereignty and human rights must be considered together, rather than selectively deployed to justify whichever policy a powerful state already favours.

Across North Africa and East Africa, the same questions recur wherever external military partnerships, security interventions, political pressure and competition over strategic resources shape domestic choices. The historical record is not identical in every country, and neither is the evidence of foreign interference. But the underlying principle remains consistent: the interests of powerful states must not automatically take precedence over the political agency of the people who live with the consequences.

Nigeria must be especially careful. Its size, population, resources and strategic position make it an important partner for outside powers, but importance is not permission for control. Foreign embassies, intelligence cooperation, security assistance and military agreements must be assessed on their actual terms, with full regard for Nigerian law, democratic accountability and national security. Claims that the United States is about to establish military bases in Nigeria, or that particular information about a Nigerian president is being withheld to create foreign leverage, require verifiable evidence. They should not be treated as established facts merely because they fit a broader suspicion of Western intentions. Nigeria’s sovereignty is too important to defend through allegations that have not been substantiated.

The principle is not that America and Europe should have no relationships with other countries. International cooperation, trade, diplomacy and collective security can be valuable. Nor is sovereignty a shield that governments should use to escape accountability for repression, corruption or abuses against their own citizens. The principle is that no external power should enjoy an exemption from the standards it demands of everyone else. Elections should not be sacrosanct only when the preferred candidate wins. Civilian lives should not matter only when the perpetrators are geopolitical adversaries. International law should not be invoked against enemies and ignored for allies.

Ultimately, the destiny of a country belongs first to its people. Koreans, Japanese, Ukrainians, Nigerians, Congolese, South Africans and the people of the Middle East are not pieces on a geopolitical chessboard awaiting instructions from Washington, Brussels or any other capital. They have the right to make political choices, negotiate international partnerships, reject foreign pressure and determine their own futures, subject to the same standards of human rights and international law that apply to everyone.

A genuinely rules-based international order cannot be built on the assumption that some nations make the rules while others must live with them. If America and Europe want their declarations about democracy, sovereignty and human rights to command respect, they must accept those principles when the outcome is inconvenient to them, too. The world does not belong to the West, and no Western government has a divine mandate to decide the destiny of other peoples.