An assessment of the ongoing conflict and its implications, one month in.
An assessment of the ongoing conflict and its implications, one month in.
O ne month into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the outcome of the war remains unclear, and any number of scenarios are possible. However, the scenario for which Russia planned — a quick and thorough political subjugation — is not achievable, because of the tenacity of the Ukrainian resistance and the support flowing to the Ukrainian government from so many countries.
It is still possible that Russia “succeeds,” but painfully and slowly. And it is possible that Ukraine’s current counteroffensives could repulse the Russian incursion into much of the country. It is possible, too, that Vladimir Putin could escalate the war both inside and outside of Ukraine in a desperate attempt to achieve a better outcome or stronger position. A peace deal or armistice, perhaps like that in Korea in 1953, is likely, and it could take many different forms. But it looks difficult for even an exhausted Ukraine to accept any peace deal that might reward Russia’s naked and indiscriminate aggression.
Other scenarios are possible, too; the war and its attendant suffering do not look close to ending, and the war aims of both sides are far off. Even so, one month into the war, clear outlines have emerged now of some larger geopolitical implications for the U.S. and the rest of the world that will affect global security far outside Ukraine and Europe, likely for the next decade or more.
China is likely discouraged, not encouraged, in its own territorial ambitions. The many ways in which Russia has been surprised will weigh heavily on China. The ineffectiveness of an untested invading force; the ferocity of unanticipated resistance; the astonishingly rapid and universal opprobrium from a world that yawned over Georgia, Crimea, and the Donbas; the unprecedented level of sanctions; the outpouring of military and other aid to Ukraine; the ability of Ukraine to overwhelmingly and quickly win the information war; the lack of any operational advantage from cyber warfare (supposedly an area of Russian innovation); and opposition to the war at home will all likely give pause to Chinese thoughts about Taiwan.
We could be witnessing the death-throes of a superpower. Russia was already declining in so many measurements, from crippling demographic trends to waning economic vitality, some of which its status as a petro-power masked. But now Russia is isolated and discredited; its strategic goals vis-à-vis Ukraine, Europe, and NATO have all spectacularly backfired; its leader is an international pariah; and it could possibly face a reparations penalty for years after the conflict ends in Ukraine. This would be a country whose power and influence could dramatically fade, as it becomes a bigger North Korea with natural resources prized mostly by China.
There is no retirement home for old dictators, but beware an unhappy, unsuccessful, nuclear-armed Putin. You’ve perhaps heard that quip about old dictators — it’s true enough. Autocratic leaders who drive their ship of state onto the rocks invariably end up like Nicolae Ceausescu, Moammar Qaddafi, or Saddam Hussein. Perhaps the Putin dilemma is solved domestically, but if not, an embittered, embattled Putin in a declining nuclear state is a different actor from Putin the expansionist regional leader.
For aggressor states, being in the nuclear club is a must-have. Speaking of nukes, it’s not hard to see Iran’s major takeaway from NATO’s help-from-a-distance posture with Ukraine. Serbia, Iraq, and Afghanistan were not nuclear powers, and the U.S. and European powers rapidly attacked those countries directly to counter their aggression. To date, no country has comprehensively attacked or invaded the homeland of a declared nuclear power. Seems an odd time for the U.S. and Europe to be adopting any policy that might make it easier for Iran to get the bomb.
Time to go back to deterrence school. Some practices that seemingly worked during the Cold War have been forgotten or abandoned and need to be relearned. It seemed there was no end to the Biden administration’s willingness to articulate what it would not do in Ukraine both before and during the Russian invasion. Our clearest policy seemed to be describing what was “off the table.” President Biden’s “minor incursion” gaffe was another anti-deterrent moment. Deterring the use of tactical nuclear weapons or even chemical weapons hardly even has a doctrine or policy, let alone the systems and forces to enforce it. There is much work to be done here.
Energy policy will be more firmly anchored to security policy. Countries will be channeling more Otto von Bismarck than Greta Thunberg in their energy policy. Germany’s decision to mortgage its energy future (and economy) to Russian oil and gas looks to be a strategic blunder of the first order — achieving neither energy security nor a more climate-friendly outcome. Leave aside the squalid spectacle of a former German chancellor on the boards of Russian energy companies. The rapid and sudden movement of much of Germany’s energy supply away from its own nuclear plants to Russian oil and gas made much of this conflict possible by encouraging Putin to believe that he did indeed have Europe in a vise. Our country’s own bad decisions vis-à-vis domestic production and Russian imports to the U.S. also rise to the level of a national-security scandal. Watch for every country to hew its energy policy to its national security in a way we have not seen since the 1970s.
Economic globalization is not dead, but we might be able to see its end from here. In its purest form, economic globalization would mean, among many other things, that no one really cares where his supply chain operates, just that it operates in the most economically efficient way. The resurgence in the past years of protectionism, the onshoring of key capabilities and the addressing of supply chains vulnerable to disruption, and the rethinking of everything from food security to technology and manufacturing resilience will create more-secure regional and civilizational economic blocs, both organically formed and forced (see China’s Belt and Road Initiative).
Time to dust off your Samuel Huntington. Yes, I used the word civilizational. In 1996, legendary political theorist Samuel Huntington of Harvard published The Clash of Civilizations as a counter to the prevailing wisdom of The End of History. Our delicate sensibilities in the West recoil from notions that civilizations offer histories and a present that represent greatly differing and clashing values, ways of understanding the world, patterns of belief, and systems of behavior. Perhaps a more useful geostrategic way to think about it is in Professor Stephen Kotkin’s description of a civilization as being composed of a package of institutions. The free institutions that arose almost exclusively out of Western civilization are a rapidly shrinking minority on the globe — with Freedom House noting that less than 20 percent of the world’s population lives in political freedom. China, Russia, Islamists, and others unapologetically offer an alternative system for political, economic, and social order to their own people and those around them that they aim to influence. We’ve been Pollyannaish about this reality for too long. The neoliberal tradition of the West, and its answers to the timeless question of how societies should organize and run their affairs, is a global minority position, not history’s universal answer to human evolution. Our strategies to bolster our unique civilizational traditions need to recognize this competitive dynamic in a way we have not for the past 30 years.
The opportunity is there for the Biden administration to not just help end the war in Ukraine on the best terms possible, but also to reframe U.S. leadership around confronting some of these trends and developments spurred or accelerated by the war on Ukraine. We are under-led and under-equipped for many of these issues. Vision and energy from the administration, the restoration of civilizational self-confidence from our leaders and our polity, and an articulation of an American role in the world that can win broad domestic support could help the U.S. to reshape the global playing field in a manner advantageous not only to Americans first and foremost, but to global stability and prosperity as well.