Not since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 has the prospect of armed conflict between the great powers come so close. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in disregard of international law and binding agreements, the first step has been taken.
But is that the end of this confrontation, or is it just the beginning? What is there now to stop Vladimir Putin from seizing the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania?
What, for that matter, is to prevent an emboldened China from taking Taiwan? Using the Winter Olympics as a distraction, Beijing and Moscow last month signed a far-reaching pact aimed at America and the West.
The agreement declared the beginning of a “new era” in the global order, and endorsed the two countries’ respective ambitions in Ukraine and Taiwan. The time of glasnost (openness) is officially over. Stealth and duplicity are now the rule.
However things turn out, this was a massively destabilizing turn of events. And it brings into sharp focus several disturbing trends.
In recent years, China has embarked on a major buildup of its naval and land forces. While on paper the U.S. still retains the largest navy, China has nearly caught up, and its ships are more sea-ready. It also has the largest standing army.
Russia is modernizing its nuclear weapons, and Putin has threatened a nuclear missile strike if NATO intervenes in Ukraine. His nuclear troops are on “high alert.”
The question is what, if anything, can be done. The U.S., several EU countries and Canada, among others, have all imposed or called for sanctions against Russia.
Among these measures are attempts to paralyze Russia’s central bank by shutting it out of the SWIFT international payments system, freezing the overseas assets of top Russian oligarchs, and banning Russian airlines and private jets from European airspace.
Germany is proposing to extend the life of its coal-fired power plants, and even nuclear power stations, in a bid to limit that country’s dependence on Russian fuel sources.
These measures have begun to bite. The ruble is in free fall, and Russia’s economy is headed for a recession.
Yet most economists doubt that sanctions alone will reverse the tide of Russian and Chinese expansionism. One reason is that both countries, China in particular, are an important part of the global supply chain.
If their exports are strangled, we all pay a price. Coming on the heels of the COVID crisis, that could further destabilize the global economy.
The U.S. has implicitly acknowledged that fact. President Joe Biden has declined to sanction Russian oil and gas exports, the one measure that might bring Putin to a halt.
Indeed, Biden has said: “No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening. This is going to take time.”
Nor does it help that Russia is now, for the time being, chair of the UN Security Council. Putin’s ducks are all in a row. What is there to prevent him exhuming at least part of the Soviet empire?
The answer could lie in the perilous state of Russia’s economy and the ability, even willingness, of its army to fight a long and costly guerrilla war in Europe’s second-largest country.
The Ukrainian armed forces may be forced to capitulate, but it seems likely that a popular uprising will carry on the struggle. Can Putin survive domestic unrest if the conflict drags on?
For now, the critical question facing the NATO countries is whether they can present a united front, and if need be suffer economic hardship as the price of staring down Russia and China.
Putin is betting the West will consider the assault on Ukraine “a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing,” to quote Neville Chamberlain.
Xi Jinping believes American isolationism will hand him Taiwan.
Even if time, ultimately, is not on their side, both men believe possession is nine-tenths of the law. By the time the West rallies, they hope, it will be too little, too late.
What is at stake here is nothing less than the readiness of the western democracies to stand up for their beliefs. If that readiness cannot be mustered, we are indeed looking at a new era in the global order.
