Friends, my latest article, based on some of my reflections on the Russia-Ukraine mess over the last several days, laments just how much we've allowed the U.S.-Western dominated global order to unravel. China was already a major question mark. Now the estrangement between Russia and the West will complicate matters further. You know, NATO has been the bulwark of Western security since the late 1940s. It's one of history's most successful alliances. It's also an alliance that's essentially never been tested. Could it be tested soon? Let's hope not, because I, for one, repose no great confidence in it, and I'm not at all sure that it hasn't outlived its usefulness. Be that as it may, European politics are getting lively and interesting once more, after several decades of relative quietude. That will keep us on our toes.
A Disaster of Our Own Making: How We're About to Lose a Lot More Than the Friendship of Ukraine
Let's begin with the obvious: Ukraine is toast. There is little or no chance that the country will be able to endure, given Russian military superiority. Thus, the Western “strategy”, such as it was, to tempt Ukraine progressively closer to NATO and the EU, all while shielding Ukraine against potential Russian aggression with (mostly idle) threats of “severe economic sanctions”, has failed, and spectacularly so!
The key question now is: what penalty will Russia pay for its impertinence, as the West sees it? And how long will it pay? Will sanctions be mild or severe? Will they last weeks, months, years, decades?
The U.S. and the West hesitated initially to place sanctions on Vladimir Putin personally. Moreover, Russia's access to the SWIFT banking system has not been curtailed. To me, though, the really important question is whether there will be any significant disruption to Russian oil and gas sales to the West. If there isn't – and early signs indicate that Russian sales of oil and natural gas will continue unabated – then Russia is likely to weather this storm just fine.
This (lily-livered) approach will minimize economic pain in the West, of course, by keeping energy costs down, but it will simultaneously send a clear message to Russia (and China) that the West's bark is worse than its bite. Simply put, we may pity those poor struggling Ukrainians, but we won't sacrifice our own material comforts to ease their plight. Not a chance.
It all makes you wonder what precisely we'd be willing to do if Putin marched into Warsaw or Riga (the capitals of NATO members Poland and Latvia, respectively)... The answer could well be: not much of anything! A sobering thought.
The fate of Ukraine, however, or even Poland or the Baltic states, is not, and never has been, of paramount importance to the U.S. and its key Western European allies. In the midst of the carnage in Ukraine, we should at least try to see the forest for the trees. Small, weak, impoverished nations are but playthings in the hands of the great powers. What's far more important than events in Kiev, therefore, is the long-term arc of relations between the U.S., Russia, and China – the world's three biggest powers, by far.
What we appear to be witnessing on that score is the rejuvenation of Cold War tensions between Russia and NATO, on the one hand, and increasing signs of an alliance between Russia and China, on the other – and both of these developments are highly troubling and hugely consequential.
Russia's intense jealousy of Western dominance has been evident at least since Vladimir Putin took the helm of state. China, though, seems recently to be no less aggrieved by U.S. and Western hegemony, as its peevish communiques about U.S. policy and even domestic affairs prove.
It's important to recognize, though, that Russia's estrangement from the West, and its marriage of convenience to Red China, are the result of a long series of high-handed and harebrained moves on the part of a succession of U.S. and European leaders. Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, we treated Russia like a pariah and like a threat. During the Trump presidency, the Left went as far as to make Russophobia a fashionable trend, and it became de rigueur among the woke.
Russia, over many years, got the message: it would never be respected by the West or welcomed into NATO, the EU, or the global establishment. Simultaneously, Russia got clear signals from both the Trump and Biden administrations that, while the U.S. applauded Ukraine's shift towards the West, we would under no circumstances actively commit ourselves to the country's defense. The Western shield over Ukraine, in other words, was 80% rhetorical, 15% economic, and maybe 5% military – consisting of desultory shipments of armaments and supplies that would never come close to altering the balance of forces in the region.
The predictable consequence? Russia has seen these Western protestations and “guarantees” for what they are: a farce. It has thus invaded Ukraine, and, in the long run, it will reorient its economy and its military away from the West and towards a pact of some kind with communist China.
And China may, as some have suggested, learn a thing or two from this crisis about the rewards for military aggression, especially strategic and reputational, and about the pusillanimity of the West, that will make the world going forward a far more dangerous place. After all, if the West's response to a Russian invasion of “sovereign” Ukraine is this timid, how much more feeble would be our collective opposition to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which virtually the entire world recognizes as the rightful territory of the PRC?
All in all, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the events of the last days and weeks are highly injurious to U.S. national security and to the strategic posture of the West -- and that is doubly unfortunate, because almost everything that has happened in and around Ukraine, and between the swooning lovers Russia and China, is the result of U.S. and Western blunders.
There is, in the end, a strong argument to be made that, despite Russia's proprietorial attitude to its “near abroad”, the West and Russia ought not to be enemies at all. On the contrary, we are natural allies, based on our cultural and historic ties, against China, which promises to be the single greatest threat to the current, Western-dominated global order. Instead of circling our wagons and preparing to meet this unprecedented challenge, the West is reprising the essentially tribal rivalries and bloodletting that beset us, and our Russian cousins, during two world wars, and throughout the Cold War. A more congenial environment for the rise of communist China as a nascent superpower would be difficult to imagine!
A tantalizing opportunity has thus been lost – or, more accurately, squandered. Now, we and the Russians face a grim, uncertain future.
Dr. Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com. He appears on the Newsmaker Show on WLEA 1480/106.9.
See this article also at Townhall:
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Here's the latest on the tragic events in Ukraine. I'm impressed that the Ukrainians are fighting so valiantly, but it seems to me that futile resistance is just that: futile. I don't advise anyone to die for a lost cause.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/02/26/russia-ukraine-invasion-update/6947419001/
Did Biden's energy policies enable Putin to attack Ukraine? Quite possibly. The rise in oil and gas prices since Biden took office have given Putin financial leverage, without which he might well have decided that invading was too great a risk.
Finally, Sleepy Joe has announced his pick for SCOTUS. She's a...(drumroll, please) black woman! She's also a solid, reliable judicial leftist. What a shock!
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/supreme-court-nominee-ketanji-brown-jackson-biden-carrie-severino
Dr Waddyfrom Jack: For my own part only: I am at a loss for further words to offer in comment on the soul stirring fortitude of Kiev and Ukraine and their President.
ReplyDeleteJack
DeleteNo need for words. You need to suit up and go to the Ukraine as a volunteer in The Ukrainian Army. They need all the help they can get, regardless of age. So let's get packing Jack and be on your way to the East.
Jack,
DeleteYou know I'm just joking around with you. Yes, there is a lot of courage and heroism involved in the Ukrainian resistance. But the bottom line is that Russia was planning to do this for some time, and that time has arrived. A year from now, the average American will have forgotten this. I suspect a year from now we will have so many problems in this country, that many people won't even remember where The Ukraine is.
Does anyone now give a damn about the Cambodian "holocaust"? Does the average American now even know where Cambodia is?
What a shame and a disgrace that nations devote so much time, and talent, and energy, and money killing each other! Look at Afghanistan. It's now a "place of the past" with no meaning to anyone except those who were there.
Does anyone even remember all those U.S. Marines in Lebanon who were killed by terrorists driving a truck filled with explosives during Reagan's presidency.
Does anyone even remember that Russia (then the Soviet Union) was bogged down in a bloody war in Afghanistan all during the 1980s?
Very sad how short memories are. How about all those now old Vietnam veterans walking around in their embroidered baseball caps. Does anyone care? Once in a while a see a Korea War Veteran. Could any American on the street find Korea on a map.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Ray: You are right. How many now recall the Afghan defiance of murderous Russian heliocopters?
ReplyDeleteJack,
ReplyDeleteYes, you mean the Afghan defiance supplied and trained by our CIA, and who later became terrorists and our enemies, and led by a man by the first name of Osama.
Jack, I'm less in awe of Ukraine's President. It seems to me that he's led his people to utter disaster. He may go out in a jingoistic flourish, but he's doomed all the same, and so are thousands of his countrymen, quite unnecessarily.
ReplyDeleteInteresting take on military conflict, Ray. I tend to agree that life is precious, and the stakes are few that genuinely merit fighting and dying. Plus, so many conflicts are based ultimately on misunderstandings. I don't believe Russia intends to dominate the West, or vice versa, and yet we may back ourselves into WWIII all the same, based on miscalculations. Welcome to the human race, am I right?
As for Ukraine, once it's under Russian sway, one does have to wonder how long the West will keep punishing the Russian people. We have short attention spans.
Ah, Afghanistan! How silly the huge Russian and American investments in that tin-pot little country seem, in retrospect. Ukraine, I guess, is a prize marginally more valuable, which partly explains Russia's interest there.
Nick,
DeleteI think the next area on Putin's list will be Belarus, not right away, but in the next few years. He really wants to become "Tsar of All The Russias" and that of course includes Belarus, also referred to as "White Russia". However, Vlady Daddy will never get those Muslim countries back that were once a part of the Russian Empire. Don't know about places like Georgia, Armenia and that area. My guess is he will stay away from the 3 Baltic countries. One thing for sure, I doubt if he will ever attack The Holy See (Vatican City). Ha!
Ray, as I understand it, Belarus is already deep in the Russian orbit. Now, whether Vlad the Impaler seeks to incorporate some of these areas directly into Russia itself, I don't know. It's easier to set them up as vassal states, I would think. And my impression, BTW, is that the "stans", like Kazakhstan, are all still very friendly to Russia. Here's a thought: maybe, to seal his victories, Putin will reconstruct some version of the Warsaw Pact? Heck, you could even call it the Warsaw Pact again, just to scare the Poles...
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I might disagree in this: the Soviets conscripted probably many hundreds of thousands of Asiatic soldiers into its existential fight in WWII, against the very European krauts! And given heavy handed Russian adminstration of Russia itself, why assume any regard for the Rus?
ReplyDeleteg
Dr Waddy fromJack: First, I think yourcomments above to be highly plausible. But if...if Russia is somehow denied Ukraine, BY UKRAINE, I think
ReplyDeleteNato is safe.
a js
Ah, you introduce a major question mark there, Jack: how would Russia respond to DEFEAT in Ukraine? I find that virtually unimaginable, and probably only feasible if the Russians suffer a major loss of nerve. Who knows. It could unfold in a variety of ways. They could accept only partial victory after a few weeks in the field. They could win a pyrrhic victory and after a few months or years of occupation retreat back to Russia, having suffered unacceptable losses. Assuming they capture eastern Ukraine, though, and obliterate the rest of Ukraine's economy, they might well regard it as a success. If they didn't, though, I shudder to think what their next move might be. A wounded bear strikes me as a dangerous one.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: Yes, the very creditable Gen. Petraeus agreed! He was quoted approximately " Be very careful who you back into a corner specially if he has nukes! "
ReplyDelete