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The West and Russia have sailed into uncharted waters. Crimea has de facto
declared independence from Kiev. Russia has intervened to effectively secure
the new entity without, so far, a shot being fired. The Ukrainian police,
security, and military forces on the peninsula have been neutralized, many of
them pledging allegiance to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. In Kiev, the
new government talks about Russias aggression and orders mobilization
even as it loses control over some of the key cities in the countrys east and
south. Meanwhile, the West has responded with suspension of preparations
for the G-8 summit in Sochi. The U.S. president has talked about Russia
paying a high price for its actions, and the U.S. secretary of state has laid out a
menu of possible sanctions and other measures.
Thus, the post-Cold War may now be seen, in retrospect, as the inter-Cold War
period. The recent developments have effectively put an end to the
interregnum of partnership and cooperation between the West and Russia that
generally prevailed in the quarter-century after the Cold War. Geopolitically,
this period saw a massive reduction of Russian power and influence in Europe
and Eurasia, along with the arrival of new states, many of them carved out of
the historical Russian Empire. Instead, the United States became the
dominant power in Eurasia, and the European Union, while no great power or
even a strategic actor itself, turned into an economic magnet for its eastern
neighbors. The Russian Federation, the core of the former empire, was
essentially left out of the new system, mired in an increasingly awkward,
uneasy relationship with the United States and Europe.
The system had been fraying on its eastern edge for almost as long
as it had been in existence, but it took a crisis in Ukraine to lead to
its clear breakdown. The successful, Western-supported revolution in Kiev in
February fatally undermined the delicate balance in the key state between Russia and the
West, leading to domestic turmoil in Ukraine. But perhaps more importantly, it also marks the
end of Russias post-Soviet passivity. Make no mistake: Putins actions in Crimea and the
powers he received over the weekend from the Russian parliament allowing him to using
military force in Ukraine writ large return Moscow as an active player in Europe for the
first time since 1989.
European market, the Russian gas company may have to agree to sell gas to China.
Significantly lower prices offered to Beijing would be compensated by the emergence of an
alternative market. With Russia likely to be excluded from the G-8, Moscow will have to
make more use of the worlds remaining global platforms, such as bilateral summits with
China or forums with fellow BRICS countries or with Shanghai Cooperation Organization
countries. In all these forums, however, Beijing, rather than Moscow, will be the senior
power. As a result, Moscow will lose its unique position of being present in all major
multilateral organizations, both Western and non-Western.
Its not a pretty picture. Thankfully, some of the worst things of the first Cold
War will never likely be resurrected. Officially sanctioned Russian patriotism,
even with an anti-American bent, will not be tantamount to a new ideology.
The state-dominated capitalism that controls the economy will be more like its
more distant czarist rather than its immediate communist predecessor.
Political liberties will continue to be curtailed by an authoritarian government,
but personal liberties will remain. Russia will stay mostly open to the outside
world, and Russians with some means will continue traveling around the
world. The superrich, however, might have to park their assets in Russia or
stay with those assets, away from Russia. In terms of historical analogies, in
other words, the internal situation in Russia would resemble the early 1850s
under Emperor Nicholas I rather than the 1950s under Joseph Stalin.
U.S.-Russia geopolitical competition will not be confined to Ukraine, but a
string of proxy wars is also not in the offing. However, U.S.-Russia
collaboration on Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan will suffer. The United States
might use economic sanctions against Russia in an effort, Iran-style, to split
the Russian elite and provoke the resentment of ordinary Russian people
against their government. Although the static military confrontation is
unlikely to be resurrected, nuclear deterrence will be reaffirmed, and
competition in the military sphere will spread to other areas, from cyberspace
to conventional prompt global strike.
This will be the dawn of a new period, reminiscent in some ways of the Cold
War from the 1940s to 1980s. Like with the two world wars, the failure to
resolve the issues arising out of the imperfect peace settlement and the failure
to fully integrate one of the former antagonists into the new system are leading
to a new conflict even if a large-scale war will again be safely avoided. This
new conflict is unlikely to be as intense as the first Cold War; it may not last
nearly as long; and crucially it will not be the defining conflict of our
times.
Yet, it will be for real. Competition between two unequal parties carries
additional risks of underestimating the other side or overreacting. Keeping the
world safe in the uncertain times ahead will be a bigger challenge than many
thought only two weeks ago.