Philip Bump writes:
[H]ostility to our traditional allies was made manifest at the United Nations this week, as the U.S. sided with Russia and against our erstwhile allies on a vote centered on fixing the damage done to the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown site during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
I was curious whether there was a change in the pattern of votes at the U.N. that reflects this shift in loyalties. Happily, the U.N. has a repository of voting data that facilitates such analyses.
As is the case with most things geopolitics, this was tricky. How do you measure conflicts with other nations? What constitutes “Europe”? I decided that a conflict was any vote in which Europe (defined as at least two-thirds of the E.U.’s current membership) and Russia (or the U.S.S.R.) were on opposite sides of a yes-no vote and the U.S. aligned with one or the other.
I guess it could be worse but the trend in this second term is pretty clear.
And that doesn’t even count the effect of Trump and Vance’s rhetoric which clearly favors Russian interests. This could not be more obvious.
Happy Hollandaise everyone!