Despite nearly eight years of deteriorating relations, catalysed by the Euromaidan revolution and ideological shift to the West in Ukraine, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a completely unanticipated event in the West’s geopolitical consciousness, and caught Western politicians deeply unprepared for its ramifications. In fact, some European countries were still holding onto cosy arrangements with Russia, trading luxury goods or relying on Russian oil and gas for domestic energy output. The situation now, two years later on, is starkly defined. The West considers ties with Russia to be irreparable in the visible future, whilst Russia considers the West to have made itself a hostile enemy – involving itself in the destruction of Russia’s military. The resulting situation has led to an underlying tension about broader military hostilities across the European sphere, agitated by the threat of nuclear weapons.
As a result of this, the West’s strategy has been underpinned by a sense of caution – seeking to avoid reaching the point of no return in their relations with Russia. This leaves a tricky balancing act – essentially juggling between plotting Russia’s demise and containing the wider geopolitical situation to prevent an all-out war with Russia. Looking to judge the situation appropriately, much has been made in the West of Russia’s ‘red lines’, with the West delaying and even in some aspects withholding support for fear that Russia would interpret the West as being in direct confrontation with them. Western countries have frowned upon attempts by Ukraine to take the fight to Russia, with the United States recently advising Ukraine not to strike oil refineries in Russia, as it could cause instability in the global energy market and provoke a response from Russia. This shows how Western frailties have allowed Russia to take control of the narrative and gain an advantageous position in the conflict. Until recently, for example, the West denied Ukraine permission to use their weapons to fire upon Russian territory, which allowed Russia to fire artillery, rockets and air defence missiles from sites inside Russia, from where they could bombard Ukraine with little threat of a response.
Western opposition to Ukraine taking the fight to Russia seems to be based upon a nervousness that Russian retaliation would put Ukraine in a more disadvantageous position. These fears seemed to have been confirmed by Russia’s response to Ukraine’s strikes which have successfully knocked out power plants and substations in Ukraine, doing much more immediate damage to Ukraine’s energy industry than Ukraine could do to them. For some this may have confirmed that further attempts to take the fight to Russia would only lead to further aggression from Russia, and should be avoided. Yet it should not be overlooked that Russia’s recent increase in air strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure has come at a time when Ukraine is desperately short of Western-supplied air defence missiles, and can no longer shoot down enough missiles during Russian barrages. In fact, Russia’s strikes on energy infrastructure started back in the winter of 2022, attacking the civilian population when it was most vulnerable. It was only reigned in when Ukraine was able to defend its skies, and the damage done by the few missiles that got through no longer justified the millions worth of missiles and drones that Russia was losing.
Indeed, it is a fallacy to believe that Russia is more dangerous when provoked. This is a misjudgement which has long been at the heart of the West’s failure to understand Russia. Some have argued that Russia’s actions in Ukraine have been provoked by NATO expansion and the Euromaidan revolution; which brought a Western government to power in Ukraine, concluding that Russia sees itself as under threat from the West. On the contrary, Russia has always sought to assert itself as the dominant power in its sphere of influence when it has been encouraged by Western weakness and disunity, as argued by Nataliya Bugayova, Kateryna Stepanenko, and Frederick W. Kagan from the Institute of Study for War. The failure to provide a firm response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia, along with the failure to provide a path towards NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia in 2008, gave Putin the freedom to move into Crimea and the Donbas in the belief that the potential consequences were not enough to deter his geopolitical aims. It was further Western dithering over the issue of NATO membership and the slowness to train the Ukrainian army up for war which then created the conditions for Russia’s full invasion. This was also mirrored by Russia forcefully crushing resistance and upholding Assad’s regime in Syria. If the West’s strategy going forward continues to appease Russia, it will only lead to further conflict.
For the West to ensure a favourable end to the war for Ukraine, and to dampen down the prospect of further conflict, it must show Russia that its aggression will not pay off, rather than simply making vague promises of Ukraine’s victory. Russia’s actions are determined by a trade off between benefits and costs, and at present, the West’s reluctance to keep all its options on the table is convincing Russia that its efforts are still worthwhile. The recent decision to allow Ukraine to use Western weapons to strike military targets directly attacking Ukraine from Russian territory; after Russia’s renewed offensive in the Kharkiv Oblast, is a much needed moment of boldness which provides a way forward. It is an example of how the West can enforce its own ‘red lines’ and respond to Russian escalations with retaliatory measures of their own. Here, the West still has a number of cards to play. It can choose to escalate its response to Russia by allocating frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, green lighting the use of long-range missiles against infrastructure targets deeper inside Russia, or deploying troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian soldiers or secure supply lines. A different approach which could be brought back to the table is the possibility of enforcing a limited no-fly zone over Western and Central Ukraine, which would enforce international law and put a stop to Russia’s attacks against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.
Such retaliatory measures can be used to scale the West’s approach and place the focus firmly on Russia’s aggression, using these options if and when Russia for example expands the scope of the war by re-opening new fronts as it did in Kharkiv, or in response to Russia’s recent bombardments of Ukraine’s cities. The fact that Russia was able to reinvade the Kharkiv oblast without any specific response from the West exposes a failure to adequately prepare for every eventuality, and a lingering naivety in the West about Russia’s intentions. The recent decision by the United States to loan Ukraine $50 billion from frozen Russian assets provides the West with an impetus to be more bold, but it would be a wiser judgement to use such measures in response further escalations from Russia, setting a clear narrative to the international community of Russia as the aggressor, and sending Russia a message that it will be punished for its aggression.
This leads onto the final issue, which is how a peace settlement can be negotiated, and how wider conflict across Europe can be averted. An obvious rebuttal of this essay would assert that a more aggressive strategy towards Russia would only worsen relations further and heighten the risk of a wider conflict in Europe. General fears over Russia, particularly Putin, being desperate for success and therefore potentially becoming volatile in defeat are often overstated. A Russian defeat in Ukraine will likely lead to increased tensions over Europe, potentially defined by a buildup of both armies on NATO-Russia borders and a new era of ‘Cold War’ politics, but the risk of all-out war is contained by NATO’s combined military strength and the deterrence of nuclear weapons. The ‘desperation’ narrative is often assumed based on personal theories about Putin, whether he seeks ideological vengeance or is suffering from ill mental health.
In reality, however, Russia is being driven by a determination to tip the geopolitical scales against the West, believing that Western policy failures in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and the rise of populist, anti-interventionist politics in the West have signalled that an inflection point has been reached, where the West is losing its control over global politics. To put a stop to Russia’s plans, the West will need to prevail against its adversary’s expectations, doubling down on its bold foreign policy approach and maintaining its resolve in the face of hostility. This also correctly implies that there is no good end to the conflict in the foreseeable future, and no comfortable return to the previous global order based on rules and boundaries. For any strategy to succeed it requires long-term commitment from all parties involved, rather than a rush back towards the old instincts of peace and stability, which has been responsible for many a number of frozen conflicts and destabilising political vacuums around the world.
It is, however, not so simple for the West to reassert its dominance over global events. Russia has not been alone in its determination to challenge the Western-dominated world order. Russia, China and Iran all share similar views on the West’s hypocrisy in global affairs, and a sense of injustice over the West’s dominance of global institutions. Some see this as a new ‘Axis’ of powers, who together are conspiring to destroy the West, yet this is a somewhat alarmist view which overlooks the areas of competing interest between these nations. Central Asia, for example, is an area which both Russia and China are jostling for influence, and the Middle East is a theatre of geopolitical events where each country has its own interests, with Iran’s aggressive approach yet to be stress-tested against Russia’s ties with Israel.
Russia’s global connections are more wide-reaching than some would like to admit, but also more fragile than the alarmist warnings of an anti-Western coalition taking foot. For the West to negotiate a settlement that re-establishes global stability and international standards, it must show assertiveness towards Russia whilst taking a conciliatory approach towards the global community. Whilst states such as Iran and North Korea are unlikely to drop support for Russia, many other states which continue to trade and cooperate with Russia have called for a peace settlement and the reestablishment of international norms. Many of these nations seek a peaceful global order based on the rule of law, but have acted on their resentment of the post-Cold War order, prioritising bilateral ties and regional organisations in countenance to Western hegemony. Here, the West must take a more pragmatic approach, realising that the current status quo has created needless divisions between different blocs of countries and diminished the authority of the UN. A return to a truly global community, built on a consensus which recognises the rule of international law and the ascendancy of national sovereignty, would isolate Russia politically and place pressure on it to accept the international norms which it has so far rejected.
Indeed, the true state of Russia-West relations this massively widens the geopolitical scope of this topic, and poses a lot more new questions – questions which will become extremely important as the world navigates through a period of new superpower tensions. For now, the focus must be on achieving victory for Ukraine, ensuring its self-determination against Russia’s imperialist attitudes. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine was started by politics, the result of a simmering of tensions between the West and Russia over the global state of affairs in the post-Cold War era, particularly in Eastern Europe, where Russia has felt as though its natural sphere of influence has been encroached upon. It can therefore only be ended by politics, ending once and for all this geopolitical competition, and asserting the right for Ukraine to decide her own destiny as above all else.
Photo Credit: NATO Multimedia
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