In August of 2008 Russia invaded Georgia. Russia had de facto control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia since 1991, but the 2008 war reinforced this already existing reality on the ground. Russia officially recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent. There was significant deterrence still from the United States since we were involved in two wars and it was widely believed that NATO would come to Georgia’s aid, and Sarkozy followed through by brokering a peace agreement after the 8 day war ended.
6 years passed and in 2014 the Euromaidan protest in Ukraine overthrew their pro-Russian president Yanukovich. The more western oriented Petro Poroshenko became president and in retaliation Russia annexed Crimea at gunpoint, falsely claiming their soldiers were locals. Russian backed separatists in Donbas and Luhansk then successfully gained control of the region. NATO did not supply Ukraine sufficiently to block Russia’s annexation, settling for a status quo in a peace agreement, demonstrating that just like in Georgia, Russia could take territory at gunpoint. The United States could have demanded more of Russia, but the Obama administration was still under the delusion Putin could be bargained with.
In August 2021 the United States surrendered to the Taliban and the Taliban took over Afghanistan. There were now serious doubts about whether the United States would uphold its end of defending smaller democracies, so Putin tested this theory with Ukraine in February 2022. Despite a Democratic Trifecta, NATO did not supply Ukraine with sufficient firepower to prevent the Russian invasion, despite months of warning from satellite imagery. This entire war was completely preventable. It could have been prevented in 2014, which could have been prevented in 2008 through less compromising with Russia in both circumstances.
Despite the claims for “rule based world order” and maintaining existing international boundaries, these rules clearly do not apply when Russia wants territory.
There is fear now that we are facing a world without nuclear deterrence and a free for all if Trump is elected President, but I fear we are already living in a world where the deterrence created by NATO as we saw with the intervention in the Kosovo War is no longer the reality of the world today. America’s unwillingness to confront Russia, and the willingness to put the interests of Ukrainians and Georgians to the side has led to a far more dangerous world. The Budapest Memorandum only empowered Russia by reducing Ukraine’s nuclear deterrence, but most importantly, it did not grant Ukraine any protection when they were forced to give up weapons. While on paper it guaranteed Ukrainian protection from Russian invasion, because this was already foreseen as a possibility even in 1994, it did not grant Ukraine any de jure mutual protection pacts but instead stated Ukraine was a “neutral country”. We now know how well that has worked out.
The two main schools of thought in international relations are liberalism and realism. Liberalism sees the power of international treaties like NATO as major deterrences to war. It also views the spread of democracy and trade as reducing, but not eliminating, the probability of war. These theories are good, and explain a lot of behavior between nations very well, but trade does not guarantee there will be no war, it merely reduces the probability of war. The structure of governments also matters as it says with democratic peace theory, and by 2008 Russia no longer met these requirements. Russia also was not sanctioned in response to their invasion of Georgia, and by this they learned they would not suffer economic consequences for military invasions. Sanctions against Russia leading to the removal of Putin in 2008 could have prevented the current war in Ukraine according to Liberalism. Democratizing Russia along with their already existing trade with Europe would further reduce the probability of conflict.
By 2014 it became obvious there would be no economic consequences for Putin and given the promise of President Biden that America would focus on our dire problems here at home despite our treaties, that gave Putin the green flag that the Biden presidency was the perfect time to attack Ukraine. He has suffered sanctions from the EU and US, but enough other countries have continued to trade with Russia in order to keep his economy afloat. Given this lack of military support and international framework to protect Ukraine, liberalism did not predict Ukraine would not be invaded by Russia.
We come to the same conclusion even easier with Realpolitik. Realism also sees the power of alliances in order to prevent war through a balance of power. It is all about Balance of Power. With the United States surrendering in Afghanistan and how we did not give Ukraine enough aid back in 2014 to repel Russia, it was clear the balance of power in Eastern Europe was not balanced, so realpolitik does predict that the situation of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 made it ripe for invasion.
Realpolitik and liberalism agree that a formal alliance with Ukraine as a NATO member would prevent war. A strong Ukrainian military according to Realpolitik would prevent a Russian invasion. Further Russian dependence on trade with countries friendly to Ukraine would prevent war, but there is too much trade with China, India, Israel, and Iran to counteract the sanctions from the US and EU.
There are multiple tools which would prevent more war in Ukraine, but our leaders have not listened to international relations theory and here we are today. We are now paying the price by not listening to experts in international relations.
I do not believe the Ukraine war is 100% the fault of NATO. Putin is the penultimate cause of the war. He chose to invade Ukraine. He chose to see it as an integral part of Russia, which it clearly is not. I believe the refusal to quickly grant Ukraine and Georgia membership in NATO in 2008 substantially contributed to the wars in each though, by preventing a clear consequence to Putin if he invaded, so we are not blameless. Ukraine and Georgia should be members of NATO, and they should have become members in 2008. I also believe that joining NATO increases the security of member states, and I will believe this until NATO is attacked.
What we are seeing now in Ukraine is where there is not enough deterrence to prevent Russia from invading. Russia is suffering a demographic crisis due to severe poverty which is felt by most Russians. The invasion of Ukraine is a way for Russia to temporarily solve its demographic crisis and make Putin look like a strong leader, given his belief that the West is weak and does not want to get involved in another war. So far he has been proven right. Despite there being a Democratic trifecta in the United States when the war began, we did not provide sufficient aid to Ukraine to prevent the Russian invasion, so Putin is correct in his belief that NATO protection ends at NATO’s borders.
It is not the 1990s anymore.
As long as Biden or Trump is President, we are living in a world without sufficient deterrence. The willingness of Obama and Bush to stand up for Ukraine and Georgia during those conflicts is absent in the administrations of Biden and Trump. If it wasn’t for evangelical support for Israel, they wouldn’t care about Israel either. Israel is currently switching alliances anyways to Russia due to these two men.
Nuclear bombs do not matter nearly as much as the willingness to use conventional weapons to counter invasions on the borders of democracies. Everyone knows that using a nuclear bomb today would bring global condemnation to the launching party which would effectively end that government’s standing in the global order. Conventional weapons are effective at containing dictatorships, but without that military support, we are truly in the anarchic world as portrayed by realpolitik.
The anarchic world is a world of war and danger, and until we rebuild our military support of countries like Ukraine and give them official membership in NATO, we are already living in a world without sufficient deterrence, nuclear weapons be damned, and we will only see more war.