Hello again, as usual inspiration to write comes in bursts. The topic at hand here is the hottest and most controversial happening thus far in 2022. The violence and destruction of war is horrible. Although war is my favorite thing to study, it is often the worst human activity to take place. This particular post will focus more on the geopolitics of this conflict taking place in the Ukraine. The Russian/Ukraine conflict isn’t a random invasion. There are some very specific reasons why its taking place. Fortunately for you, dear reader, one of my expertise is geopolitics and international relations.
History Of Conflict
Let’s start with NATO or North America Treaty Organization. It was established in 1947 with signing of the Treaty of Dunkirk after World War 2. NATO’s stated goal is achieve a peaceful alliance with its members. But the understated, ulterior goal is to act as a buffer to the Soviet Union at the time. (Remember 1947 was the very beginning of the cold war) NATO is one of the players in this chess game.
Now let’s focus on Ukraine, the country being currently invaded by Russia. Ukraine is an eastern European country with a long history. Many Ukrainians have Russian heritage. The most significant history to know about Ukraine as it relates to Russia, is that from the end of the Russian Revolution in 1919 onward until about January 21, 1990, the Soviets held power in Ukraine. For nearly 71 years, Ukraine was Russian controlled. Ukraine has struggled with corruption and economic problems since being free. Ukraine is also a candidate to become a NATO member. I should also note that Ukraine borders Russia on the North and East sides.
The last thing I want to touch on is precedence of Russian PM Vladimir Putin actions against and in the Ukraine. Most notably, the annexation of Crimea in 2014. (its a long complicated event so I will briefly summarize, you can research more if you’re interested) The Crimean annexation started much the same way that this current conflict started. Putin announced the invasion of Crimea. After taking over the Crimean government, they held a referendum to decide if Crimea would become “independent” or stay with Ukraine. The Ukrainian government obviously objected. The referendum passed with an 83 percent voter turnout. (I don’t believe that for a second) The newly minted Crimea Republic was recognized by Putin then swiftly declared a Russian controlled federal state. The rest of the story involves a treaty and controversy galore.
This will conclude the history portion which is necessary to at least understand some of. Now for the fireworks of this post: Geopolitics.
The Geopolitical Nature of the Conflict in Ukraine
I think in order to achieve the proper understanding of the Geopolitics, we should lay out the extreme options. These options are usually circulated on social media for fear mongering purposes. Typically in Geopolitics, and in Game Theory there are some baseline assumptions made about the players. One of those assumptions is that actors (Actors are the parties involved, could be countries, groups, individuals) are rational. There are also other technical terms like one-sum and zero-sum game. We don’t need to go that far, for the sake of simplicity, I’ll stick to layman words.
The extreme situations that could play out in the Ukraine/Russian conflict are zero-sum (meaning ends badly or lose-lose). The first and most popular is a nuclear war. The Russians have an estimated 4,448 nuclear weapons. Meanwhile in NATO, the members have 7,500 total spread across three countries. The United States holds the most. In terms of strike capabilities, only first strike matters but in a lengthy nuclear war, the US would come out on top in a numbers game. This option would kill everyone or nearly everyone on the planet. Earth may become uninhabitable. I sincerely doubt that PM Vladimir Putin would push hard enough to make this reality.
The second option would be unlikely to occur and would be proceeded by nuclear war. This extreme option would be all-out NATO alliance boots on the ground war of attrition against the Russia and its allies. On social media, this is the World War 3 option. Fortunately, nuclear weapons make it outdated and a waste of time. Putin would be irrational to risk millions of deaths for what amounts to a buffer state.
With these options clearly being irrational and out of context for what’s really happening, now we can look at why Putin chose to invade. All of the history and elements come together. Given the history of NATO being anti-Russian, along with the fact that Russia formerly ruled the Ukraine. Putin sees the need, much like in 2014 Crimea, to protect his borders from NATO influence. Not only that, Russia also its own sphere of influence. (Sphere of Influence: It’s the sum of a country’s soft and hard power and the way it can influence or change the behavior of other countries, often surrounding countries.) The state of Russia is a much weaker power than it was during the Cold War. You have to keep this mind when you see Putin making foreign policy moves.
The invasion of Ukraine is very similar to the one that occurred in 2014 in Crimea. I believe that Putin intends to do three things with this “special military operation” (Putin’s words):
- Neutralize and Exile the current Ukrainian government
- Hold a vote, (rigged) to see if the pro-Russia parts want to join Russia
- Install a Puppet Leader and Annex Donetsk and Luanhsk.
(List is my words)
These are very similar events to the 2014 Crimea annex. They also unsurprisingly do require some force. The Ukrainian government objected to the Crimea annex. You might be wondering why Putin would use 170,000 to 190,000 troops to annex a small pro-Russian part of Ukraine? Well, now we come back to NATO. Since the end of the Cold War, Russia lost some of its buffer states from the powerful German war machine. Now a days, Germany has been mostly neutered and its NATO that is a thorn in Putin’s side. NATO keeps trying and fortunately for Putin failing to make NATO countries along the Russian border. I believe without NATO’s meddling, Putin might have been able to use a little soft power to make Ukraine hand over those pro-Russian areas and act as a buffer from the west.
The nature of geopolitics is that one group or event can influence a whole bunch of things. The existence of NATO has forced Putin’s hand. Also Putin is rational (I believe) and he knows that it’s suicide to push too far. Putin has leverage even with sanctions coming in all directions. Russia is the European Union’s biggest supplier of oil. This means that any sanctions on oil or if Putin decides to cut off Europe that could mean serious consequences. Sanctions are an example of negative soft power. (Soft power is economic, social or cultural interactions as opposed to hard power which is military force or sanctions)
Conclusion
To sum up what I’ve just explained, is very simply that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a defensive act against NATO. Putin understands he’s riding a fine line before pushing into the extreme options. I also believe Putin will annex the pro-Russia areas based on my experience in the nature of international relations and the history concerning the annexation of Crimea in 2014. I also think Putin wants Ukraine to be a buffer state against NATO. Although should the buffer state fail, he will at the very least need to annex those pro Russian areas of Donetsk and Luhansk to gain anything positive. He considered the sanctions that would come and the costs associated with war and it made sense for that added security. I believe that Putin is acting out of weakness and might turn to more a heavy handed strategy if Ukraine can re-buff him.
We shall see how it plays but keep an eye on how the events line up with the 2014 invasion and consequent annexation of Crimea. I hope you enjoyed and maybe learned something from this post. Thank you for reading!
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