The world stands on a precipice right now. The question is whether Democracy will stand or whether it will fall. Russia is massing troops on the border with Ukraine, threatening a war (it’s the only reason a state ever does this military maneuver, let’s be honest) and now its NATO’s turn to act.
There are two major schools of thought in international relations, and each of them have lessons to teach us about what will happen next. They are the liberal school of thought and the realist school of thought.
The liberal school of thought believes that democratization, trade, and dialogue help mitigate conflict. The basic idea is that countries which are engaged in trade are less likely to go to war. Also, democracies are also less likely to go to war. Research supports both theories. Non-state actors matter, and international institutions matter. Read the Wikipedia article for more detail.
But the liberal school of thought fails in the Russia case fully, because Russia trades a lot with Europe, which brings in large amounts of cash in exchange for natural gas and oil. It is useful only to a point, and isn’t enough to really understand what is happening in the world right now.
The other major school of thought in international relations is realism. TLDR, states are the only institutions which matter, the international system is anarchic, states act within their own rational self-interest, and states desire power.
Now this does explain Putin’s behavior closely.
Now we have to focus on for multiple reasons the people of Ukraine do not want to be part of Russia. They used to be occupied by Russia, and 80 years ago over 10 million Ukrainians died in a famine caused by the Soviet government (which of course was dominated by Russia). For that reason in particular, Ukrainians have a lot to lose and nothing to gain if they are invaded and annexed by Russia.
So looking deeper into realism international relations theory (the relevant school of thought in this scenario) it discusses what happens when states face a hegemon together. In the absence of American leadership, Russia is without a doubt a hegemon over Europe. With the United Kingdom trying to distance itself from Europe (a geographic impossibility) we must realize that Russia has a population as large as Germany and France combined. Germany and France are the richest and largest countries in the European Union, and they equal Russia’s power. If Russia invades Ukraine and the European Union defends, it will be a long and bloody war. If the United States joins it will be relatively short. We’ve seen this before.
If you look at a map of Europe in 1960, half of the continent was capitalist, and half was communist. Today, the map looks like this:
Dark blue: European Union/Eurozone
light green: European Union, no Euro
light blue: candidate countries
light purple: Central European Free Trade Agreement
Dark purple: Schengen Treaty
Red: Union state
Half of Europe used to be under Soviet control (de facto). Today the only satellite state Russia still controls in Europe is Belarus. Georgia wants to be a member of the European Union and NATO, as does Ukraine, and Azerbaijan is part of GUAM with Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova. This leaves Russia with influence over only Armenia.
It didn’t have to be this way. If Russia had democratized and respected freedom of the press, Europe would be more than willing to have deep ties with the largest country in the peninsula. Democratization would have certainly led to economic growth, and a reduction in inequality, and Russia would be far better off than it is today. Unfortunately over the last 22 years Putin has done everything in his power to stop all political opposition, actively used his foreign diplomacy to undermine democracy abroad, and has repeatedly threatened democracies on the periphery of his empire.
It’s a real shame, I really believe that if Russia were to democratize it would prosper economically, Western Europe would happily build democratic integrations with Russia, and there would be peace in Europe where disagreements would be solved through dialogue, and frequent trade between countries would make no real economic benefit for anyone to attack each other.
But this is where the whole situation gets really confusing (at least from a liberal point of view).
Russia has three major gas pipelines which pass through Ukraine into the European Union. Even the South Stream pipeline passes through Donetsk (which probably explains why Russia wants to capture that territory in particular) Russia and Ukraine are already deeply intertwined politically, and Russia is absolutely dependent on Ukraine for its own economic survival. If you cut off the gas pipelines into Europe, Russia will fall into an economic depression overnight. Russia is absolutely reliant on good relations with the rest of Europe. While it is of course difficult for Europe to cut ties with Russia, because of their reliance on Russian natural gas this also explains another part of Russian strategy. it is the depths of January right now with Russia attacking Ukraine. The last attack on Ukraine in 2014 was in February. Russia does not attack Ukraine during the summer because at that point Western Europe can survive if the gas is cut off for a few months and Russia’s economy tanks. The timing of Russia’s military invasions into Ukraine is no accident, because it reduces Europe’s ability to retaliate through economic means.
Russia has invaded their former colonies twice before, and there is no reason to expect that they will not stop right now without significant pushback from NATO and the European Union.
The main point is it is clear that Putin is not content with just having economic ties with his neighbors, he wants political control. He believes Eastern European countries have a choice, be in Russia’s sphere of influence, or Germany’s sphere of influence. He is stuck in a Cold War mindset, unable to see past his KGB training, and that is what makes him such a dangerous person.
It’s also important to understand that Germany has a new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who is also the first SPD chancellor in 17 years. Both Scholz and Biden have never had to deal with Putin invading a NATO candidate before. Putin is testing both politicians in a very dangerous game. On top of this, America’s surrender in Afghanistan has made Putin wonder whether Biden will defend his allies at all. Since we know Biden let Afghanistan go back to the situation it was in back in 2001 when the twin towers attacked, how will Biden respond when a country in Europe is attacked by the largest country in Europe? With the United Kingdom out of the European Union as well, Putin has divided the west. There is a lot of evidence pointing to Putin wanting to separate Britain from the rest of Europe. On top of this, we know that Putin supports internal opponents of European Union integration. By sowing discord among people in Europe, supporting candidates like Trump, la Pen, Alternativ fur Deutschland, and possibly Johnson, Putin has been attacking the foundations of democracy in every major NATO member.
A quick search on Google shows there have been mixed messages from Ottawa and Washington, and the only major leader in the West giving a strong line on support for Ukraine is Macron. If the rest of the Western Alliance of democracies (NATO) gave a similar strong message that Putin should not mess with Ukraine, Putin would probably back down. Almost a billion people live in the member states of NATO today, Russia would be crushed if they were to go into a direct conflict with NATO, and China does not want to cut its ties with the United States. Russia knows this. But, with an American President who surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban, a British prime minister who detests Europe, along with mixed messages from Berlin and Ottawa, what might be perceived as a desire for peace by major world leaders might give Putin a free pass. But despite how much Boris Johnson hates Europe he is saying he will send troops to Ukraine. We will see if that actually happens.
But it doesn’t much looking at history to understand it has nothing to do with a general desire for peace.
In order to understand Biden’s actions we need to look at this screenshot.
This picture is a snippet of the vote to invade Iraq in 2002.
This vote tells me a lot about the current situation and Biden’s unwillingness to use military force to fight terrorism or hold back Russia from invading and conquering Europe, which is what the Cold War was all about really. When the United States has not had access to a country’s natural resources, they have been more than willing to invade and start a conflict. When anti-democratic forces have invaded countries with little oil, the President of the United States doesn’t care.
Which brings us to the only reasonable conclusion.
Biden doesn’t care about world peace. Biden doesn’t care if other democracies fall. He just doesn’t want to use our military for anything besides acquiring oil reserves.
That’s the theme of Joe Biden’s half century long career. Its a pursuit for economic benefits for the richest Americans (see his history on student loans) and making America less dependent on trade. Joe Biden is a mercantilist. He always has been. He doesn’t care about democracy (hence the lack of interest in the voting rights act, which could easily cost him congress in November), and that leaves Europe on its own. The German chancellor has only been in office for three months. The first week of this crisis saw Biden downplay it. But we have seen a shift in the last couple of days, probably with pressure from European allies.
At least that’s how it looks until a couple days ago.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/28/politics/us-russia-ukraine-invasion-warning/index.html
The first few news reports I saw of this showed Biden skeptical of whether Russia would take this seriously and several scathing criticisms from European allies towards our President. Looks like peer pressure from our closest allies in the world has helped President Biden change his 50 year old song and we will defend our partner democracies around the world with sufficient pressure from our allies.
After all, the motto of the United States is e pluribus unum. Out of many, one. A rallying call of the Revolutionary war was united we stand, divided we fall. The United States was founded on the principle of democracy, and is the oldest standing democracy in the world. The United States is one of the only countries which turned into a democracy from armed conflict, and we should always remember that democracy sometimes comes with a cost. With NATO troops in Ukraine, this will hopefully be enough for Russia to back down and not invade Ukraine.
If it isn’t enough, Putin will likely pay with his life.