The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 changed everything not only for Ukraine, but also for Europe and for global politics. The world entered a new era of great power rivalry. in which war could no longer be excluded.
Aside from the immediate victims, the implications of Russia's aggression were what worried Europe the most. A great power seeking to forcibly extinguish a smaller, independent country challenges the basic principles on which the European order of states has been organized for decades.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's war stands in stark contrast to the self-dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, which occurred largely nonviolently. Since the 'Gorbachev miracle' – when the Soviet Union began implementing liberalizing reforms in the 1980s –, Europeans had begun to imagine that Immanuel Kant's vision of perpetual peace on the continent might be possible. It was not.
(Read more: 'What I have seen in Gaza surpasses anything one can imagine': Doctor)
The problem was that the interpretation of many Russian elites of the globally significant events of the late 1980s could not be more opposite to Kant's idea. They considered the demise of the great Russian Empire – which the Soviets had recreated – as a devastating defeat. Although they had no choice but to accept the humiliation, they told themselves they would do it only temporarily until the balance of power changed. Then they could begin their great historical review.
The return of a scourge
Therefore, the 2022 attack on Ukraine should be viewed simply as the most ambitious of the revisionist wars that Russia has waged since Putin came to power. We can expect much more in this regard, especially if Donald Trump returns to the White House and effectively withdraws the United States from NATO.
But Putin's last war not only changed the rules of coexistence on the European continent; It also changed the global order. By triggering a radical remilitarization of foreign policy, the war has seemingly returned us to a time, in the 20th century, when wars of conquest were a staple of the great powers' toolkit. Now, as then, might makes right.
Even during the decades of Cold War, there was no risk of a 'new Sarajevo' –the political fuse that detonated the First World War– because the confrontation between two nuclear superpowers subordinated all other interests, ideologies and political conflicts.
(Also: Why does the report warn that the world faces a 'most dangerous decade'?)
What mattered were the superpowers' own claims to power and stability within the territories they controlled. The risk of another world war had been replaced by the risk of mutually assured destruction, which functioned as an automatic stabilizer within the bipolar system of the Cold War.
Behind Putin's war against Ukraine There is the neo-imperial objective that many Russian elites share: make Russia great again by reversing the results of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
On December 8, 1991, the presidents of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine met in Bialowieza National Park and agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union, reducing a “superpower” to a regional power (albeit still nuclear-armed) in the form of Russian Federation.
(Read on: Why does the UN chief warn that the world is entering 'the era of chaos'?)
Now Putin does not want to revive the communist Soviet Union. Today's Russian elite knows that the Soviet system could not sustain itself. Putin has embraced autocracy, oligarchy and empire to restore Russia's status as a global power, but he also knows that Russia lacks the economic and technological prerequisites to achieve this on its own.
Putin's stakes
For its part, Ukraine wants to join the West, that is, the European Union and the transatlantic security community of NATO. If he were to succeed, Russia would likely lose him forever, and his own embrace of Western values would pose a serious danger to Putin's regime. Ukraine's modernization would lead Russians to ask why their political system has failed systematically similar results.
From the perspective of “Great Russia,” it would aggravate the 1991 disaster. That's why there is so much at stake in Ukraine and that is why it is so difficult to imagine that the conflict ends through a compromise.
Even in the event of an armistice along the frozen front line, Neither Russia nor Ukraine will distance themselves politically from their true war objectives. The Kremlin will not give up on the complete conquest and subjugation (if not annexation) of Ukraine, and Ukraine will not abandon its goal of liberating all of its territory (including Crimea) and joining the EU and NATO. An armistice would therefore be a volatile interim solution involving the defense of a highly dangerous “line of control” on which the freedom of Ukraine and the security of Europe depend.
(Also: Red Sea: the importance of the Mandeb Strait, where Houthi attacks on ships occur)
Under the Chinese umbrella
Since Russia no longer has the economic, military and technological capabilities to compete for first place on the world stage, Its only option is to become a permanent junior partner of China, which implies an almost voluntary submission under a kind of second Mongol vassalage.
Let us not forget: Russia survived two attacks from the West in the 19th and 20th centuries: those of Napoleon and Hitler, respectively. The only invaders to conquer it were the Mongols in the winter of 1237-38. Throughout Russia's history, its vulnerability in the east has had far-reaching consequences.
The main geopolitical division of the 21st century will center on the Sino-American rivalry. Although Russia will occupy a secondary position, it will play an important role as a supplier of raw materials and – due to its dreams of empire – as a permanent security risk. Whether this will be enough to satisfy the self-image of Russian elites is an open question.
JOSHKA FISCHER
© PROJECT SYNDICATE
BERLIN
#Putin39s #aggression #changed #global #order