'What used to be called the Global South does not always share the priorities and perspectives of Yale Law School.'

Another sign of what a man I know (Matei Paun) calls the great decoupling, from the Wall St Journal.

'In a development that suggests trouble ahead, China’s basic approach—not endorsing Moscow’s aggression but resisting Western efforts to punish Russia—has garnered global support. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa blamed the war on NATO. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, refused to condemn Russia. India and Vietnam, essential partners for any American strategy in the Indo-Pacific, are closer to China than the U.S. in their approach to the war.

'Western arm-twisting and the powerful effect of bank sanctions ensure a certain degree of sanctions compliance and support for symbolic U.N. resolutions condemning Russian aggression. But the lack of non-Western enthusiasm for America’s approach to Mr. Putin’s war is a phenomenon that U.S. policy makers ignore at their peril. Just as Western policy makers, lost in fantasies about building a “posthistorical world,” failed to grasp the growing threat of great-power competition, they have failed to note the development of a gap between the West and the rest of the world that threatens to hand the revisionist powers major opportunities in coming years. The Biden administration appears not to understand the gap between Washington and what used to be called the Third World, the degree to which its own policies contribute to the divide, or the opportunities this gap creates for China.

'Opposition to Russia looked like a global slam dunk to many in the West. World opinion would so robustly oppose Moscow’s attack that countries like China would pay a high political price for failing to jump onto the anti-Russia bandwagon. 

'That is not how it is working. Some countries, like America’s disheartened and alienated Middle East allies, worry about backing a withdrawing Washington against an ascendant Russia. Others balance their detestation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine against other concerns. Many non-Western countries fear the consequences of Western responses to Russia’s behavior more than they fear Russia, don’t trust the West’s willingness or ability to manage the economic consequences of the war in ways that protect the interests of non-Western states, and are shocked by the imposition of sanctions on Russia’s central bank—a weapon they fear will one day be directed against them.

'While enthusiastic Western liberals hail the imposition of sanctions on Russia, the increased willingness of the Western powers to weaponize the global economic system horrifies leaders in many countries who think the West is too powerful already. Many Brazilians have long feared that Western environmentalists intend to block the development of the Amazon basin. They worry that climate activists might force the Federal Reserve and other Western banks to “save the planet” by imposing sanctions on Brazil. Policy makers in India and elsewhere share many of these fears as they see environmental campaigners using global economic institutions to impose their agenda on countries with different priorities.

'Mr. Putin’s claim that an overpowerful West seeks to use its economic and institutional leverage to impose a radical worldview on the rest of the planet strikes Western liberals as self-serving propaganda, but his arguments resonate more widely than most liberals understand. The Trump administration’s unilateral imposition of tough sanctions against Iran heightened international awareness of how much power the global economic system gives the U.S. But woke Democrats using economic sanctions to impose their views on climate, gender and other issues are even less welcome in many countries than Trumpian populists.'

If you read the whole article note that the WSJ, a Republican paper, hedges with caveats the terms Global South or Third World and is frightened of being attacked for indifference to climate change or gender issues. The left-wing conscience doth make cowards of us all.