Positive/Negative Ties in Global Conflict
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/26/us-ukraine-allies-weapons/
As has been covered extensively in the news, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia earlier this year continues to cause mass destruction and untold havoc towards the innocent Ukrainian citizens. What has followed since the February conflict began has been heavy sanctions from Ukraine’s allies, including the United States. In addition to these trade restrictions and sanctions, the US and other allies of Ukraine, mainly NATO members, have been providing direct aid to Ukraine and trying to negotiate a solution with Russia. This includes shipments of heavy artillery and drones from the United States, armored vehicles from Canada, anti aircraft artillery from Britain, and additional high-powered anti aircraft tank-like technology from Germany. This local conflict has, due to networks of alliances and allyship, evolved into a global issue, captivating the world stage for months at a time. Overall, the denial of basic facts surrounding what is happening in Ukraine is the largest barrier to peace, as Putin and Russia seem to disagree greatly about what has happened in the region.
Clearly, the interconnectedness of our current global environment has led to positive outcomes to this conflict. First, it is helpful to remember that nearly all of the countries that were first to directly support Ukraine are a part of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), a military alliance of 28 European countries and 2 North American countries. According to Heider’s structural balance theory, a graph of relationships can only be balanced if all of the triangles within the graph fit into one of two possible categories. They either have to have all positive connections or one positive connection and two negative connections. In our case, positive connections would represent military allies and negative connections, or edges, would represent military enemies. As you can see below, the graph of NATO allies against Russia in this conflict is balanced. All of the triangles that are created in the graph are either fully positive, with 3 NATO allies all connected, or one positive and two negative, with two NATO allies positively connected and united against Russia, thus creating two negative connections. This current conflict shows the validity of this principle.
