UKRAINE REPORT #9
ANALYSING THE CURRENT SITUATION 2/2: INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS & GEOPOLITICS 101
GEOPOLITICS 101
Geopolitics is a term widely used in media and by political commentator each interpreting the concept differently. This section serves as a brief introduction to how a geopolitical analysis —as well as how Russia’s (as all states do) perspective on a geopolitical spectrum influences decision making. People often see the foreign policy decision making process of a state akin to that of a single person. This assumption of states’ behavior by many media and pundits includes moral judgements which often obscures more important mechanisms at play.
We see Western media portray Russian foreign policy often as irrational and solely based of Putin’s ‘evil’ personal ambitions. While he is certainly in control of the political system, he has to take into consideration the core imperatives and constraints unique to the Russian state. Certainly now that the Kremlin has opened Pandora's Box in Ukraine, which isn’t closing anytime soon, the past two weeks should not be viewed as a horrible single event but rather as a continuation of geopolitical mechanisms decades in the making.
Geopolitical analysis is more concerned with how states behave among each other in the international arena. Geography defines countries’ different imperative and constraints, the former alluding to the basic needs of a state including food, energy and security while the latter sets limits on how they can acquire and defend those heavily sought after resources. While each country is different, all have imperative and constraints and knowing them can be far more useful in understanding or predicting state behavior then what politicians state in speeches for example. Let’s look at Russia to identity it’s imperative needs to survive and what constraints it has to deal with.
RUSSIA’S GEOPOLITICS
Historically, Russia’s unfavorable geographical situation, due to lack of natural barriers like mountains, deserts and seas drove it to improve its strategic defenses. As we currently see, this drive for security enables conflict to arise in many regions surrounding Russia.
Expansion eastwards, all the way to the Bering Strait provided Russia with an enormous hinterland where it could wait out invasions such as the famous Napoleon campaign forcing the French retreatment.
Encompassing both Asia and Europe, the Ural mountains are strategically extremely important functioning as a boundary between eastern and western Russia. This goal has been achieved due to their expansion eastward.
To the southwest of Russia is the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountain. The Caspian Sea is oil-rich and thus economically important but can also serve to project power by Navy ships active there. In 2015 Russia launched missiles at Syria from these ships forcing the USS Theodore Roosevelt to exit the Persian Gulf showing its strategic importance and effectiveness.
The Caucasus mountains act as natural defenses on the small corridor connecting Russia to its southern neighbors. Every Russian leader, Putin not excluded, would have an imperative to expand towards it and defend this crucial area. The two Chechen wars in 1994 and 1999 as well as the 2008 conflict in Georgia were mainly aimed at keeping the country in Russia’s sphere of influence as an exposed southwestern corridor leaves it defensively vulnerable.
The southwest is also crucial as it gives Russia access to its only warm water port in Sevastopol located in the Crimean peninsula. The 2014 annexation of Crimea was mainly for geostrategic reasons as shown by the figure above. Not being able to project power in the Black Sea, Russia fears Turkey and other NATO member states ability to take advantage and threaten its security.
To its west, the North European Plains have historically been Russia’s achilles heel having served as the path for most attacks on the country. Stretching from France to the Ural mountain range, it is at the narrowest near Poland at about 300 km explaining Russia’s strong interest in Poland and causing them to station military forces in the Kaliningrad enclave to counter invasions from the western flank.
The Baltic states - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - are also important as all three countries were part of the USSR protecting the areas north of the European Plain. In 2004 all three states joined NATO which contributed enormously to Russia’s distrust of the organization as this broke Western promises of not expanding eastwards. It also explains why the Baltic states are currently on edge regarding their fragile position vis-a-vis Russia doubting NATO’s guaranteed protection in case of an invasion. However, invasion of Russia via the North European Plane is not likely due to its enormity making it a natural deterrence.
THE CURRENT CRISIS IN THE WORLD ORDER
This finally brings me to Russia’s current situation in Ukraine and more general their perceived weakness in East Europe as NATO has broken all promises of not expanding eastward and letting many former Warsaw act countries joint its security framework. During the 1990’s Russia went from one of the two great powers to a basketcase with its economy being downgraded to that of a third world country.
The U.S. instead of helping Russia on a path to stability where democracy and improved bilateral relations could prevent another Cold War like scenario (of which Germany is an example of succes in that regard), humiliated the country and pillaged its resources dividing them among criminal oligarchs while taking a cut for itself. States experiencing these levels of chaos often (un)willingly get a strongman authoritarian style leader in power as to unite the different warring factions in order to bring at least some semblance of stability.
Russia got its strongman in the form of ex-KGB officer named Vladimir Putin and while I do not agree with many of his actions, policies or general outlook on life he did succeed in helping Russia back on its feet. Europe and the US in particular never took the former super power serious again on the international stage which I view as an enormous and arrogant blunder. Even when discussing Europe’s security framework, in which Russia plays an inherent part if one likes it or not, the Kremlin would be excluded to great frustration of the Russian leaders.
Displaying even greater level of ignorance and arrogance, the US and European states waved away Russia’s repeated statements of concern over vital topics, like Ukraine’s desire to join NATO and US covert support of pro-Western groups in countries on its border, that it perceived as threatening to their security. In no way am I excusing the despicable decision of invading Ukraine as a permittable measure to alleviate Russia’s perceived security concerns. But the West should look at their own actions over the past decades and as itself where we could have solved things diplomatically instead of demonizing Russia to the point of obscuring their goals allowing it to unleash forces beyond comprehension.
Now that the West in open economic war with Russia, it is still dependent on the latter’s oil and gas to provide energy, politicians are quick to spout aggressive rhetoric of increased sanctions further alienating the Russian economy. It should be known the West will pay a heavy price once Putin retaliates with sanctions of its own. Russia has enormous reserves of natural resources crucial for almost all industries ranging from titanium needed in the construction of airplanes to specific components used to manufacture computerchips.
This is excluding vital export of oil and gas from Russia to Europe as we seriously miscalculated our ability to quickly transition into a green economy closing nuclear plants and cancelling long-term gas contracts with Russia causing incredible spikes in energy prices. If you think last year’s prices were bad wait until Putin starts hitting back economically with sanction on the export of wheat, fertilizer and minerals needed for microchip production.
It seems as if Russia had been preparing for a decoupling form the Western economy instead seeking trade with countries such as India, China and Brasil to name a few. Even transitioning to China’s less effective but workable international payment method Union to replace the SWIFT system indicates Russian efforts to make its economy less dependent on the West. However, no country can prepare for the economic and soft power might of US and Europe, setting Russia back at least 20 years as it becomes isolated, increasingly authoritarian and living standards drop.
It is a shame it had come to this but with both sides pot-committed, this hand will be played out as war will continue to destroy Ukraine and conflict ravages the international economy creating dire situations we are currently unable to comprehend. Who will supply the 30% gap in Egypt’s wheat imports as the politically unstable country will run out of bread in the next four months? Or what about Brazil’s ability to produce food as it will expectedly fall short of fertilizers from Ukraine and Russia?
We are heading for a transformation of the world order and this rarely goes without some blood-letting. Lets hope we can keep it to a minimum.
While this update is different than the ones I previously posted I hope you found it useful. These newsletters take quite some time but will continue to post as often as teaching/thesis work lets me.
As always, thanks for reading!