IN A PREVIOUS article, I thought it unlikely that Russia will invade Ukraine. I was wrong. Vladimir Putin’s Russia did invade Ukraine.
Russian forces stormed Ukraine, seizing key areas in a matter of days. Russia is now diplomatically and economically isolated, but that is not stopping them. Preventing Ukraine from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was an existential matter for the Russians, and so we have this war.
All countries that may have supported Russia have turned on it. Kazakhstan has refused to send troops, for example, and Turkey has closed the Black Sea from Russian Ships. China has also been quiet. Despite this, the Russians have done tremendously well in Ukraine.
For now, though, all we can do is wait and see.
Russia’s actions, I think, marks the limits of the liberal world order, its institutions and, most importantly, its power.
NATO, which is to say America, had tried to expand into Russia’s traditional spheres of influence right up to its backyard. The fact that it was Ukraine, and not the US, which suffered invasion doesn’t change the fact that at its core this war was about NATO and Russia, not Ukraine and Russia.
Additionally, Russia’s invasion marks the end of relative peace. It’s true that there have been wars, but these are tiny affairs, ones which don’t directly affect world events. Ukraine has the possibility of triggering a third world war, if not a European regional war.
Russia is a peer competitor of the United States, and it has not done anything particularly overt for decades. There was Georgia in 2008, but Ukraine, I think, is more serious, not only because the conflict involves NATO, but also because of the degenerating geopolitical situation all over the world, not to mention the coronavirus in the background.
Regardless of what happens next, I think we will look back 2022 and maybe mark it as the end of a chapter of World History./PN
