The West cannot stand aside from Russia’s war on Ukraine. Moscow’s attack on the core interests and values of the transatlantic community has global repercussions, while arguments that fighting Russia reduces scope for climate action or containing China present a false dilemma.
Fallacy
The notion that the war in Ukraine is a faraway territorial dispute with few ramifications for the transatlantic community is upheld by segments of the Republican right in the US, notably the ‘MAGA’ faction unofficially led by former US president Donald Trump, as well as by anti-war movements in several European states. A corollary of this mistaken assumption is the idea that Western expense and effort dedicated to defeating Russia in Ukraine are a distraction from more important geopolitical concerns, such as managing an adversarial China or responding to climate change.
Analysis
At a time when democracy is in decline by all measurable indicators, the transatlantic community cannot afford to allow the regime in Moscow to make imperial aggression and annexation an acceptable form of politics. If Western nations do not fully embrace the war in Ukraine as their own fight to achieve a Russian defeat, there is a risk of creating a future in which petro-tyrants are allowed to rewrite the world order.
If Western nations do not fully embrace the war in Ukraine as their own fight to achieve a Russian defeat, there is a risk of creating a future in which petro-tyrants are allowed to rewrite the world order.
Allowing Russia to remain in control of any Ukrainian territory could lead to further land grabs by Moscow, just as allowing the annexation of Czechoslovakian territory in 1938 did not halt Hitler’s Lebensraum campaign. While it is highly doubtful whether Vladimir Putin’s regime has the ability to battle a NATO member successfully, the non-NATO states of Moldova and Georgia would be vulnerable to attack after a period of Russian regeneration.
How the US’s position develops will be particularly important, given its domestic divisions over continued support for Ukraine. Some US analysts have argued that such assistance ‘remains squarely in [America’s] own self-interest’, reflecting the fact that US economic and strategic agendas have been deeply intertwined with Europe’s security and prosperity for decades. But theirs is not the only voice, and increasingly strident postures on the right wing of the US Republican Party in particular could endanger solidarity against Russia. Statements by Trump that he will ‘end the war in Ukraine in a day’ if re-elected to the US presidency in 2024 risk prolonging the conflict by signalling to Moscow that the Russian leadership perhaps only needs to ride out the last 18 months of Joe Biden’s presidency before Kyiv is forced to the negotiating table by its Western supporters.
There is also the matter of Western responsibility for the situation in Ukraine. Aside from the obligations of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on security assurances, which persuaded Ukraine to surrender what was then the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal, European NATO allies form the most proximate major Western power to Ukraine. And Russia’s full-scale invasion has exposed Germany’s misguided Wandel durch Handel (‘change through trade’) approach, according to which economic interdependence was supposedly an impediment to war. Instead of making conflict impossible, poorly diversified trade with Russia gave Moscow the leverage to weaponize energy flows.
The war in Ukraine has precipitated supply chain disruptions, soaring energy prices and wider inflationary pressures. Global food insecurity has increased dramatically. Russia’s invasion has also created one of the largest displacement crises since the Second World War: according to UNHCR, at the end of 2022 a total of 11.6 million Ukrainians had been displaced (5.9 million within their country, and 5.7 million abroad). All of these repercussions have been keenly felt in the West and beyond.
Yet a large part of the non-aligned world is still sitting on the sidelines of the war in Ukraine. Many states will either resist pressure to pick a side or attempt to play Russia and China off against each other. A solid Russian defeat in Ukraine would increase Western influence in the Global South, making it harder for Russia or China to broker international alliances in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East in the future, and helping countries in these regions to ‘multi-vector’ their foreign relations more effectively.
Rather than distracting attention from other global issues, focusing on the threats posed by Russia may enable Western policymakers more effectively to address geopolitical concerns deemed by many to be of greater importance, such as climate change and Chinese revisionism.
Moreover, rather than distracting attention from other global issues, focusing on the threats posed by Russia may enable Western policymakers more effectively to address geopolitical concerns deemed by many to be of greater importance, such as climate change and Chinese revisionism. For example, the war in Ukraine has prompted many Western countries to reduce their dependency on imports of Russian fossil fuels, increase energy efficiency and accelerate the move to renewables (although some countries are seeking new sources of fossil fuels to make up for the interruption of supplies from Russia).
The supposed choice between the strategic challenges presented by China and Russia is also a false one, given that certain of these challenges are interconnected. First, Moscow’s diminishing international influence is in any event an undesirable development for Beijing. Without a strong Russia, it would be much more difficult for China to achieve its own objective of revising the world order. Second, strong Western resolve to defeat Russia is much more likely than diplomatic entreaties to temper Chinese foreign policy behaviour. Third, the faltering course of the war for Russia has made conflict in the Indo-Pacific region less likely in light of China’s surprise at the unity of the West in resisting Russia. Not least, a Russian defeat in Ukraine would underscore for Beijing the high risks and costs that a potential Chinese military invasion of Taiwan would incur, thereby lessening the chances that the West could be required to support two theatres of war simultaneously.
The way forward
As Russia’s military shifts to a defensive stance, the transatlantic alliance is at a critical juncture. Allied leaders must arm Ukrainian fighters for a strategic win instead of a stalemate. Western arms deliveries have steadily grown in both sophistication and volume. But rather than arguing about the depletion of weaponry stocks, NATO should shift into full wartime production. In addition to securing Ukraine’s sovereignty and deterring further aggression, only a clear defeat for Moscow will allow Russia the possibility to eventually discard its imperial mentality and thus shed its international pariah status.
Despite the impact of the war on global food supplies, many of the countries enduring acute hunger remain susceptible to Russian disinformation that would seek to place the blame for shortages and price hikes on European sanctions rather than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Black Sea blockade. At a time when Russia is bolstering its relations with the Global South, including by selling more hydrocarbons to India, the transatlantic community can better exert its influence in the non-Western world – and counter potential Russian narratives on responsibility for international problems – through increased re-engagement initiatives, such as debt relief and reallocations of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). Reallocating SDRs to the most vulnerable middle- and low-income countries could increase their resilience to global shocks and help to offset their reliance on Russia and China.
Surrender on unjust terms does not translate into lasting peace. Ukrainian resistance has presented the West with an historic opportunity to deal Russian imperial ambitions a fatal blow, and to pre-empt further open warfare as well as the ongoing low-intensity hybrid operations that undermine European security and peace. Only then can the process of reconstructing Ukraine and fully integrating it into the transatlantic community begin in earnest.
