Russia-Ukraine War, Blinken and Mariupol News: Live Updates

The geopolitical landscape following the Ukraine invasion has often been likened to that of a new Cold War. While the main antagonists may be the same — the United States, Russia and, increasingly, China — the roles played by much of the rest of the world have changed, reshaping a global order that held for more than three-quarters of a century.

Governments representing more than half of humanity have refused to take a side, avoiding the binary accounting of us-versus-them that characterized most of the post-World War II era. In a United Nations General Assembly vote this month to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council, dozens of countries abstained, including Thailand, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and Singapore. (The resolution succeeded anyway.)

Once proxy battlegrounds for superpowers, swaths of Africa, Asia and Latin America are staking their independence. The return of a bloc of nonaligned nations harks back to a period in which leaders of the post-colonial movement resisted having their destinies shaped by imperialism. It also points to the confidence of smaller countries, no longer dependent on a single ideological or economic patron, to go their own way.

“Without a doubt, the countries of Southeast Asia don’t want to be pulled into a new Cold War or be forced to take sides in any great power competition,” said Zachary Abuza, a security specialist at the National War College in Washington. “As they say in Southeast Asia, when the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.”

Having to align themselves with one power or another, Mr. Abuza added, left many nations around the world “desperately poor and underdeveloped at the end of the Cold War.”

As a result, even the United States, the Cold War’s victor, cannot count on the support of some of its traditional partners in vocally condemning Russia for its attack on a sovereign, democratic nation. The NATO-led intervention in Libya in 2011 and the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 have only heightened mistrust of the West. Both military actions left countries in those regions struggling with the political fallout for years after.

“The crux of the matter is that African countries feel infantilized and neglected by Western countries, which are also accused of not living up to their soaring moral rhetoric on sovereignty and territorial sanctity,” said Ebenezer Obadare, senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Indonesia, a sprawling democracy once ruled by a dictator favored by the United States for his anti-communist stance, has said that it will welcome President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia when the country hosts the Group of 20 meetings this year. It, too, abstained in the U.N. vote to remove Russia from the Human Rights Council.

“Our government has adopted the questionable strategy of trying to ignore the biggest geopolitical earthquake in 70 years in our agenda as this year’s G-20 President, which kind of blows my mind,” said Tom Lembong, a former trade minister.

Other U.S. allies have characterized their decision to diversify as a function of American absenteeism. Last year, as China spread its vaccine diplomacy around the world, the United States was seen initially as hoarding its pandemic supplies.

Before that, during Donald J. Trump’s presidency, the United States pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an expansive trade pact that was meant to counter China’s way of doing business. Countries like Vietnam that had staked their reputations on joining felt betrayed, once again, by Washington.

Mexico, a longtime U.S. ally, has emphasized its neutrality, and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has rejected sanctions on Russia.

“Mexico’s neutrality is not neutral,” said Tony Payan of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “Mexico is poking Washington in the eye.”

About one-third of American ambassadorships in Latin America and the Caribbean remain unfilled. The vacancies include Brazil, the largest regional economy, and the Organization of…