This War was not Inevitable
Nobody dares claim they know how Russia’s cruel and expanding war in Ukraine will end. Or what the ramifications will be for Ukraine, Russia and the world. But several things mark this war as different from others.
It’s the first war in which one side has invaded another country ‘traditionally’ with ground troops, and the other side, the West/NATO, is responding using sanctions, isolation from global financial systems and freezing overseas reserves to punish the aggressor. Look at it as a conventional war with another all-out economic war super-imposed over it. Ironically, Ukraine is also fighting a proxy war between NATO and Russia without the security guarantees of the former and with only Ukrainians and Russians dying. NATO wins big time by studying the glaring ineptitude of the Russian army.
The economic warfare of the West seeks to weaken, maybe destroy, the Russian economy, but in the process it is causing gyrations in the global financial system, with economic dislocations far beyond the immediate effects of the ‘hot’ war between two European countries. Commodity prices are skyrocketing. Ukraine and Russia supply 1/3 of global wheat exports, so bread, an essential staple of most countries, especially the poor ones, will be expensive and scarce. Rapidly rising gas prices affect everyone.
The war draws our empathy for the Uranians, but it’s still distant. We are detached from the killing, and can feel a bit like spectators in the Roman Coliseum watching gladiators fight to the death. Yet it’s much more than the simplistic David vs. Goliath picture the media and politicians draw. After three weeks, the war is so ugly that heads of state are falling over each other pitching peace proposals or acting as mediators.
A consensus among those ‘in the know’ is forming that says, in the end, Ukraine will officially declare itself neutral, joining neither NATO nor any Russian security pact. That alone won’t appease Russia but why Ukraine and Russia could not agree to even this one plank to prevent a costly invasion is an open question. What happens to the Dobas and Crimea - whether they stay under Russian control, become independent, or win more autonomy within Ukraine is not settled
Distorted assumptions of one Great Power about the other define this war. As written below, NATO and the US underestimated Russia’s opposition to expanding NATO to its back door. Russia underestimated Ukraine’s resistance to an invasion (hard to believe). Ukraine overestimated how much help it would get from NATO.
One the other hand, Putin’s actions are semi-maniacal. Both NATO and Russia are armed to the teeth with conventional and nuclear weapons. The crude rhetoric thrown around by both guarantees years of deeper distrust and more misjudgements. The world is a great deal more dangerous today than it was last month.
This war was not inevitable and could have been avoided. Instead, it’s revealed the calibar of global leadership we have today. If they can’t contain a Russia-Ukraine border dispute, even if it is left over from the Cold War, how would they manage a nuclear crisis.