The Russian–Ukraine war and a polyphonic geopolitics

This contention sets out some of the key contradictions and tensions surrounding Russia's invasion of Ukraine. There is no master variable that can offer a resolution as to why this war came about or how it will play out. However, analysing its contradictions, inconsistencies and tensions can yield critical insights into the far-reaching consequences of the conflict. The war takes place in a world in flux where modernist territorial structures and norms collide with imperial spatialities, a territorial taboo shifts from Washington to Moscow, multiple versions of sovereignty confound authoritarian modes of governance, marginalised voices signal the end of empire, drones reformat warfare, NATO sustains Putin's legitimacy and East-West binaries unravel while axes of global inequality persist. These contradictions are part of a reconfiguration of world politics as dramatic as the end of the Cold War, and this Contention advocates for a more polyphonic reading of geopolitics to understand it.