Published on 12th February 2022
As fears over an invasion of Ukraine become palpable, Russia is wielding the threat of aggression as a stick, whilst dangling the prospect of negotiation as the carrot in a pivotal assessment of Western resolve.
Europe is at an inflection point. After nearly three decades without war on a major scale, the continent is having to relive some of its old traumas as Russia mobilises its military towards Ukraine, sparking global tensions about a possible occupation. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Russian politicians have never been shy about their belief that Ukraine is a part of Russia, and the fall of the Russian-leaning Government in 2014 led to a swift infiltration of the bitterly contested Eastern region of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. Despite this, the West has been completely blindsided by Russia’s hastened military buildup, leaving NATO in a scramble to come up with a cohesive response to the crisis. It didn’t have to be this way, but now that it is, the West cannot afford to wither in its response.
The History of the Crisis
Since the Middle Ages, the fate of the Ukrainian peoples has been kicked about between competing empires. The emerging Russian state formally took over Ukraine in 1654, when Ukrainian Cossacks and representatives of the Tsar formed the Pereyaslav Council and agreed to absorb Ukraine into Russia, divorcing it from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. To this day, Russia uses this antiquated agreement to assert its historical claim over the region, declaring that Russia exists to unify the East Slavic peoples. Throughout their combined history, Ukraine was always an exceedingly productive region for the Russian Empire, with lots of fruitful soil called Black Earth which made it a major producer of grain and foodstuffs. It was also a hub of industrial development in the 19th century thanks to its natural resources as well as its river and port cities. Despite being such a key contributor, Ukraine was constantly given the short end of the stick in return. Between 1932 and 1933, Stalin was complicit in orchestrating a famine which led to the deaths of millions of Ukranians. When Nazi tanks rolled into Ukraine in the Second World War, Soviet troops took as much grain and cattle as they could and destroyed infrastructure as they retreated. The history of Ukraine in the Russian Empire was marked with disdain and devastation.
Throughout this period, Ukrainian national identity persisted through literature, culture and academia, even in spite of Russian attempts to repress local identities and coerce a homogenous culture on the Empire. In 1917, Ukranians took advantage of the chaos in Russia to set up a Rada (Parliament) and declared independence. The Bolsheviks used the Russian Civil War to repress the uprising and drag Ukraine into the Soviet Union, but a national spirit had awoken which couldn’t be erased. This spirit was finally realised when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine became independent. For the first time, Ukraine’s sovereignty was, for at least a period of time, secure, but the question of allegiance remained unsettled for decades. Russian loyalties clashed with Western desires, sparking two revolutions which finally settled the question in 2014, as Ukraine pivoted decisively towards the West. Bitter in defeat, Russia consolidated its power in the region, embedding an environment of hostility which could take a very long time to heal.
Putin and the Russian Bear
Fast forward to the present day, and this crisis demonstrates that relations between both nations might be broken beyond repair. More importantly, however, the crisis is being manufactured by the Russian Government as part of their long-term strategy. For Putin, power has always been about returning Russia towards its destiny. In his 2005 annual address to the Russian assembly, Putin proclaimed that:
“the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory.”
The belief which goes right to the top of Russia is that the core of the Russian Empire is historically and legitimately Russia, and the current crisis is not the first time that Putin has signalled his intent to take back what he thinks rightly belongs to them. The question the West is now puzzling over is whether Putin is prepared to bet heavily on an endeavour to restore his vision of Russia, which would require invading NATO countries and throwing down the gauntlet to the alliance’s superpowers. The short answer is that he is prepared to, but that doesn’t mean that he will do it. This combination of threat and caution has caused Western policymakers confusion over how to prepare for Russian aggression territorially.
It’s hard to know what Putin’s physical ambitions are, but it’s much easier to discern his abstract ambitions. Putin’s ultimate goal is to shift global leverage away from the West and back towards Russia, reestablishing Russian might on the world stage. A lesser known part of his 2005 address is much more revealing of his political psyche:
“Many thought or seemed to think at the time that our young democracy was not a continuation of Russian statehood, but its ultimate collapse, the prolonged agony of the Soviet system. But they were mistaken.”
For Putin, the greatest tragedy about the collapse of the Soviet Union was not the loss of land, but the loss of Russian dominance on the world stage. The East-West politics of the 1990s were a humiliation, as a triumphant West proliferated its influence across Eastern Europe and rebuilt Russia in its own image. One of the major breakthroughs was the withdrawal of Russian-controlled nuclear weapons from Ukraine, which was particularly humiliating as the United States to this day has nuclear weapons scattered across Europe. Appalled but not dispirited, Putin has embarked on a path of vengeance, stratigerising over decades to eventually turn the tide against the West and to reassert Russia’s power on a global level, pouncing on Western complacency and bringing an end to their victory celebrations.
A Forked Path
In trying to understand Russian foreign policy, Western nations have put too much focus on the geographical and not on the political. Whether Putin wants to reoccupy the territory of the Soviet Union is not essential. What is essential is that he wants to create the conditions which would make it possible. From the 80s to the mid-2000s, the wider goal of Western foreign policy was to ‘teach’ nations who didn’t comply to Western values the error in their ways and inspire, or force, a change of heart. Now that this agenda has collapsed, Western nations are having to reassess how they view the world, with some rather radical political implications. In recent years, sentiment has moved away from global policing and towards internal priorities, which has become convenient for Russia. Drawing a line under the end of the Cold War and failing to recognise its continuities has made an extremely damaging contribution to our politics.
When analysing this crisis, one should not lose sight of the wider context. Western nations recently suffered a humiliating defeat in Afghanistan, China is upping the temperature over Taiwan, and Iranian-backed militias continue to fire missiles at U.S. troops in the Middle East. Across the world, the West is on the defensive. Putin has built the foundations for his assault by moving into Crimea and the Donbass region, he’s netted a strategic victory over Syria, secured the puppet status of Belarus, and is now making his major chess move. This escalation has been years in the making, but it is also opportunistic in the circumstances.
With the West floundering for a coherent approach, Russia has deployed a strategy of threatening Ukraine in order to promote its continent-wide demands aimed at rolling back NATO. Primarily; Russia wants to bar Ukraine from ever joining NATO, but they have further demanded that NATO troops are withdrawn from Romania and Bulgaria, and that U.S. nuclear weapons are withdrawn from European host nations. Evidently, Russia’s end goal extends beyond Ukraine. It seeks to make sovereign Eastern European countries more vulnerable to exertions of Russian aggression. Russian ministers have already been open about wanting to revert back to the situation in 1997, before any Eastern European nation had joined NATO. Furthermore, it seeks to exploit divisions between nations in NATO and crumble the organisation’s defensive commitments.
Such plans are not unfounded. Deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Turkey has recently brought into question the placement of U.S. nuclear weapons there. Across the other NATO nations which host nuclear weapons, a 2019 poll found that a majority or large plurality of people support their removal. In Germany, 66% support their removal, and a 2020 poll found that 47% support a reduction in U.S. troops. Over these issues, waning resolve can be strained. Public opinion has perhaps contributed to Germany inching away from the Western response and becoming more dovish in its approach, with Chancellor Scholz suggesting that any sanctions should be “prudent.” French President Macron didn’t improve matters when he stood up in the European Parliament and stated that the European Union should have a separate security pact with Russia. He believes that a friendly-faced approach will pay dividends. Such discrepancies play right into Russia’s divide and conquer strategy.
The biggest asset Russia has is fear. They have already shown their willingness to up the stakes and will continue to jeopardise peace in Europe in order to claim a victory. Ironically, Russia is employing America’s Cold War strategy of brinkmanship against them. The problem is that Russia will not deescalate without some sort of victory, but this is no reason to conciliate. Negotiations need to be used as a means, but there should be no illusion about them leading to any sort of desirable agreement. Hopeful aspirations for diplomacy are foolish. Most critically, they wrongly assume that Ukraine is Russia’s end-game. Some politicians have misconstrued this crisis as a security issue, leading to the impression that cooperation will lead to deescalation. On the contrary, offering up deals won’t restore peace, it will only embolden Russia’s long-term plans. There are suggestions that common ground could be found on a balanced deal over short to medium range missiles, but this can only happen if Russia concludes that it can not get anything better. Negotiations, therefore, can only succeed from a position of strength and unity.
What about Ukraine? Determined to remain liberated from its past, Ukraine is building up a large army of reserves. The scars of their history mean that there is a strong determination to fight, but the situation is precarious. Russia’s air force massively outmatches the Ukrainian air force, and Ukraine’s anti-air systems are small in number and mostly Soviet-era. The easiest and most effective attack, therefore, will come from a massive bombardment which would leave Ukraine reeling before any troops are moved in, despite the warnings of Russian bloodshed from Western leaders. Ukraine is also strategically disadvantaged by its largely flat terrain and having its major cities, including the capital, close to the borders that are controlled by Russia, which makes the country more difficult to fortify and more vulnerable to capitulation.
Compare it with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a mountainous country with an environment unfamiliar to Russian soldiers. Even though the Soviets managed to capture Kabul swiftly, resistance formed in large swathes of the country, and the fortified nature of the terrain made it impossible for the Soviets to complete the invasion despite 10 years of efforts. Ukraine is not like this. The main deterrent to a full Russian occupation is the possibility of mass guerilla resistance which would be extremely costly to police. In order to maintain that deterrent, Western nations must ensure that the Ukrainian people have a reason to maintain belief in a better future. Understanding the realities of an invasion need to be balanced with the optics of an abandonment, and firm commitments to the protection of Western values is, inadvertently, the only stance that will keep Russia at bay.
The West has been blindsided over Ukraine, and is now having to furiously trash out a response to avoid humiliation. This has been caused by an attitude of complacency, stemming from a failure to observe the bigger picture in East-West relations, and a failure to prioritise foreign policy politically. Now that there are new administrations with inexperienced politicians dotted across the West, Russia is ideally placed to challenge Western strength. It is crucial that the West does not bow to fear or succumb to internal pressures. This crisis proves that the West should not disown the memory of the Cold War, but should utilise the important lessons that were learned and refine the ideas to suit the challenges of today. Nobody wants to see a return to misjudged invasions or underhand meddling, but firm foreign policy is needed to take control during times of crisis. More than ever, the West needs to find its resilience.
Cover Photo Credit: Ian Betley
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