Us today; you tomorrow

A useful parallel can be drawn in contemporary international relations between 1935, when former Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

The comparison suggests that the war in Ukraine has broader systemic implications and that a direct confrontation between Russia and the West is more likely than a comparable war between China and the West in the near future.

The Second World War is conventionally dated to September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. But its origins can reasonably be traced back to 1935, when Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia. That episode exposed the weakness of the League of Nations and the limits of interwar collective security. In hindsight, Ethiopia was a warning that went unheeded.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 may serve a similar role. The danger today lies not only in the act of aggression itself but in the international system’s limited capacity to deter or reverse it. Large wars often result from accumulated failures of response.

Europe’s reaction to Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia was hesitant. Sanctions were imposed on Italy but were limited and inconsistently enforced. No military assistance was provided to Ethiopia and Italy’s use of chemical weapons produced little more than condemnation. Mussolini concluded that the costs of aggression were manageable.

This reluctance reflected familiar concerns: fears of pushing Italy toward Nazi Germany, imperial double standards and the memory of the First World War. But the outcome was clear. The League of Nations was unable to uphold its own rules and the norm against territorial conquest was weakened.

Ukraine presents a comparable challenge for the post-1945 international order. As with Ethiopia, the central issue is not only territorial control but the credibility of the principles of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. Veto power, geopolitical divisions and selective enforcement have limited the United Nations’ ability to stop or reverse Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

This also matters in Africa and other regions. Regional stability depends less on formal collective security arrangements or bilateral agreements. It depends more on normative consensus and shared expectations about acceptable behaviour. When violations of sovereignty go insufficiently punished elsewhere, the effects are unlikely to be confined to one region.

Russia and China are often described together as revisionist powers but their approaches to the international order differ in important ways. These differences affect the likelihood of major-power war.

Russia’s revisionism is reactive mainly and confrontational. Its leadership increasingly frames relations with the West in zero-sum terms and presents the war in Ukraine as a response to Western encroachment. This framing reduces diplomatic options. Russia has also shown a readiness to accept economic sanctions and political isolation, suggesting a declining commitment to the existing international order.

China’s approach is different. Beijing seeks to adjust aspects of the international system while remaining embedded within it. Economic interdependence, access to global markets and technological exchange create incentives to avoid direct military conflict with the West. A major war would undermine China’s development goals and long-term strategic plans.

This does not imply that China totally avoids risk or that it is non-coercive. Instead, it suggests that China’s leadership remains cautious about actions that could destabilise the broader system. For East Asia, this distinction matters. In the short term, the risk of a direct great-power war is higher in Europe than in the Indo-Pacific.

The historical comparison of Ethiopia and Ukraine is instructive. In the 1930s, the international system did not unravel first because of Germany’s rise but because Italy tested the system through aggression against a weaker state. That test revealed the limits of collective security. Today, Russia plays a similar role by openly challenging the norm against territorial conquest.

Russia can therefore be seen as the immediate stress test of the post-1945 order, while China represents a longer-term structural challenge. Past experience suggests that systemic wars are more likely to be triggered by actors willing to break rules and accept costs than by those focused on long-term systemic advantage.

In his 1936 address to the League of Nations, Haile Selassie framed Ethiopia’s plight as a test of collective security. And his famous warning — “IT IS US TODAY; IT WILL BE YOU TOMORROW”— captured the systemic implications of unpunished aggression. 

Volodymyr Zelensky has made a similar argument since 2022, portraying Ukraine’s war as a referendum on the post-1945 norms of sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The outcomes differ. Haile Selassie’s appeal failed and the League’s authority was undermined. Zelensky’s appeals have resulted in significant, though incomplete, military and economic support. This suggests that some lessons have been learned, even if institutional constraints remain.

In both cases, however, moral arguments ran up against structural limits. Unanimity rules and imperial interests weakened the League. The United Nations is constrained by veto power and great-power rivalry. Haile Selassie highlighted the failure of the interwar system. Zelensky is testing whether the post-1945 order can still defend its core principles.

For East Asia, the implication is straightforward. Regional stability depends not only on local power balances but also on whether aggression elsewhere is deterred and penalized. The experience of the 1930s shows that major wars are rarely unavoidable — but sustained inaction can make them more likely.

Seifudein Adem is a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Research and Education, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan