Going forward...how does the invasion of Ukraine change things?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I know there are a ton of Ukraine threads, but I haven’t seen one on this specific topic. Basically, what changes now that this has happened? Some thoughts I’ve had:

The west needs to be clear and concise as to the ramifications to countries that look like they are planning another adventure, or threating one. One of the failures, I think, was the less than clear picture the west was giving to Russia as to what, exactly, would happen if they invaded Ukraine. I kind of get why that happened. Several in the west simply didn’t believe it would happen, that it was all scare mongering. Whatever the reasons, though, I think it played a non-zero role in Russia going ahead and pulling the trigger on this thing. Maybe Putin would have, regardless, but he would at least have known what, exactly would happen, and the response would have been more immediate and organized.

Another thing will probably be a lot of nations that might be in the crosshairs of some sort of adventure are they will take it more seriously, earlier, and take steps to prepare to the best of their abilities, asking for aid from countries they trust. One of the things I noticed in the run up to this cluster fuck was that Ukraine didn’t seem to be taking this as seriously as they should have been. Russia troop buildups were months in the making, after all. Now, there were limits on what Ukraine could do…but I think they could have been better prepared. I think, going forward, such threats are going to be taking much more seriously.

Next, I think that countries who are trying to sit on the fence are going to be noticed a lot more. I see this already happening. I mean, this issue couldn’t be more cut and dried…Russia is invading Ukraine simply because they want to. It’s naked aggression with the goal of conquest, either in the form of direct annexation or to install a puppet that will do what Moscow tells them, and move the country into Russia’s sphere of influence going forward. That was the plan, anyway, as near as I can tell.

Finally, I think that what Ukraine really should be showing everyone is that invasions are a lot harder than people and even countries seem to realize…and should only be done in the most dire circumstances, not at the whim of some asshole in charge.

The US made the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan look easy (even if the occupation phase was a nightmare). I’m making no statements about whether the US should or shouldn’t have done that, but I think what the world saw was that a major superpower could just waltz in and crush the military of a nation state and take over. But these two countries were autocratic dictatorships without that much popular support, and, frankly, the US had a terrifying military compared to anyone else. And…well, I doubt we could do that today, even if there was the political will for it. Russia? They have a very good military…on paper. But it’s not enough to have a bunch of tanks and planes, artillery and missiles. Your people need to be trained, need to be motivated, and the equipment maintained. Your logistics, something I’m sure most folks never gave a second thought to needs to be on point, trained and well run. Russia, simply, wasn’t and still isn’t firing on all cylinders. They are probably still going to win…they simply have too much military might not to. But…it’s been and will continue to be very, very ugly. And the civilian causalities, already rising steadily, will be off the charts.

2

A lot depends on how severely Russia is damaged by sanctions (and thus how deterred anyone else would be by the prospect of similar sanctions).

3

Agreed, though already Russia is being hurt pretty bad by what has happened to date. But…will the west keep it up, and for how long? Will they be extended? Will they be increased, and if so…on what? ETA: And can we get some of the non-aligned countries on board, such as India? Will they stay on the fence? And what will China do? Are they going to allow Russia to mitigate the sanctions by increasing their own purchases of gas, oil and coal (and wheat)? And will secondary sanctions be put in place at some point for countries who are still trading with Russia?

4

The biggest change is that the post WWII era is over. Since 1945, the west was based on the idea that the great powers might fight proxy wars in Asia, South America and Africa, but they did not engage in direct warfare on the European continent. This balance was maintained by a guarantee of stability in Europe from the US. That period, which defined the world for the past 7 decades is over and no one knows what comes next.

5

I think Europeans, especially European citizens, thought that they really didn’t need militaries anymore, that at least as far as Europe was concerned peace was the norm and would remain so. This goes even beyond Europe…I think that most people, before this, didn’t think that wars of pure conquest were a thing anymore. Oh, sure, the US invaded Afghanistan and later Iraq, and in the latter case on pretty shady pretexts, but it’s not like Saddam’s regime was well thought of…or a democracy. Or well liked by his people. And, despite what many seem to believe, it’s pretty clear that in neither case was it a war of conquest or resource grabbing…it was a misguided attempt at regime change, but the thought was to change an autocratic dictatorship to a democracy. It didn’t work, obviously, and it was stupid, but it’s not anything like what is happening in Ukraine.

I think this has fundamentally shifted the perspective of many people that this sort of thing is not only possible, but is happening. And I think this will have a ripple effect going forward. If Putin were to stop right now, were to halt his advance and seriously call for peace, maybe things would go back to the way they were…somewhat. But the longer this goes on, the more the lesson is going to burn in.

6

That era has been over for the last twenty-odd years, replaced by what self-described realists refer to as “liberal hegemony” i.e. the efforts primarily lead by the United States (with and without allies) to impose liberal democracy on various nations in the ostensible interest of stability (although astute observers will note that the largest of such efforts neatly pincered Iran, which is incidentally the perpetual ire of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, et al). We are now in the post-hegemony period where the United States has returned to limiting involvement to drone wars and covert action.

Russia has somewhat predictably returned to its default position that the Belarus and Ukraine (and although it hasn’t said so explicitly, the Baltic states) are within its historical sphere of influence and should essentially be client states that serve as military and economic buffers against the Western powers. The timing of this invasion is peculiar—one would expect that Russia would wait until spring after the Rasputitsa had dried out and the planting season was over to both facilitate movement and guarantee that crops would be available to harvest—and Russia’s heavy dependence upon gas and petroleum exports as well as manufactured imports would seem to make it obvious that this was an ill-advised military adventure, but for reasons that are unclear to both military and economic analysts Putin has had a bug in his shorts to move out, ready or not.

As for the implications on the Pacific Rim and Indian Ocean:

Stranger

7

What ought to change, and what will change, will be very different.

  • Small nations that face threat, ought to arm up big time, but I’m not sure at all they will.
  • The Western world needs to stop being so extremist in terms of assuming that any direct intervention will lead to all out MAD nuclear holocaust, but I don’t think they will.
  • NATO has been totally revitalized.
  • This war has hopefully debunked the progressive wishful narrative that human nature had turned a corner and naked unprovoked aggression was an act of the past and that we had “moved beyond” that barbaric historical phase. Human nature has not changed, not one bit.
8

That’s a good video, though I disagree with the first panelists analysis, namely that the Chinese governments actions by not better informing their people in Ukraine and by telling them to fly the Chinese flag indicated Xi didn’t know. I think just the opposite, in fact…I think this is a strong indication Xi knew, but thought this thing would be over very quickly, and that Chinese people were going to be protected by the flag by the Russians. It’s actually something of a meme in China…that merely flying the flag would protect their citizens from just about anything. Anyway, I haven’t gotten to the India analysis yet, but I’m interested to see what they have to say, as India is…complex. They are probably the most complex of the countries currently, and their own population really has a lot of emotional ties to Russia dating back to the cold war, so their own response hasn’t been that unanticipated, and I think the US particularly is going out of its way to not pressure India to do more than they feel comfortable doing. I think this puzzles a lot of people, but, really, it’s the best way the US could walk the tightrope with them currently.

Anyway, thanks for embedding the video. I wish I knew how to do that. :flushed:

9

Just copy the URL directly into your post on its own line. Discourse automatically produces the title and image if the metatext of the page provides for it.

Stranger

10

Oh. I need a smacking the forehead emoji. Thanks!

11

I agree, but the power has shifted from the US to Europe. The new leader of Europe that is emerging is Germany as America’s leadership continues to recede. When Trump et al complained about Europe not paying their fare share for their security, I remember thinking be careful what you wish for. America had a lot of clout in Europe because of its role in its security, as that role di is he’s, so to does its influence.

Having said that, this crisis has also made it clear that the US still has a major role in European security. In many ways, it’s a gift from Putin to the US, making it clear that Europe still needs a functioning US in the theater. Putin also somehow got Switzerland to abandon its neutrality for the first time in 200 years, which is wow, just wow, but a subject for another thread.

12

Hm. I see it a bit differently. Myself, I think the US was wanting to pull out of Europe and become more disengaged. While I won’t say the US wanted to completely cut ties, the way I was seeing it is since Obama we were wanting the Europeans to take on more and more of their own defense, while we focused more on Asia…specifically, on China. And built-up relationships and alliances to balance against what we perceived as a growing Chinese threat. Trump, of course, didn’t get any of this, and didn’t understand that the basis of US power is our alliances…and so, did what he did best, fuck things up.

I do agree that this has underscored to the Europeans (most of who’s governments I don’t think ever actually forgot this) that it’s still vitally in their interest to keep the US on board and at least equally focused on the European continent. They need us. And we need them.

I also agree that there have been several shocks wrt how various European countries have reacted to events in Ukraine, not the least being Switzerland as you mentioned. And this is the thread for that too, so feel free to give your thoughts on that. Wow! is definitely the least of it. Germany to I’d put in the ‘Wow!’ category.

13

I’m off to bed, but I need to chime in that I think that Trump was dumping on NATO because he was doing Putin’s bidding, not because he was pushing a misguided understanding of US goals. He had accepted some kind of payoff.

I think that US disengaging from Europe to engage China is a little simplistic. The US was hoping to shift assets, but keep its leadership role. Another wow, just wow moment are reports that Putin’s overreach seems to have scared the crap out of China and has them putting the invasion of Taiwan on the back burner, another win for the US leadership.

14

Thanks for the input on this…appreciate it. I will just say wrt Trump that I disagree, but can see your view point, and probably the majority of our fellow 'dopers agree with you on that. It’s all good.

I agree the US wanted to (and was in fact continuing too) keep it’s leadership role in Europe…but I think since Obama, and maybe even before that, the US was wanting Europe to pick up its own defense more and more. This doesn’t mean we didn’t want to continue to be the leader. Germany and the other NATO countries upping their military spending to 2% still means the US is the biggest contributor to NATO. I don’t think it’s simplistic to say the US was wanting to focus less on Europe and shift more and more focus…not just assets…into the Indo-Pacific, and away from Europe. You could see that in much of what Obama was doing in his second term, with the implications that the US would continue down this path going forward. Trump derailed that to a degree, though I think the professional parts of our government (the non-elected parts) were still pushing us that way.

If you watch Stranger’s video (if you have 45 minutes) there are some good points made about China’s reaction to this, including the implications towards Taiwan. I definitely think this SHOULD give the Chinese government some pause in any thoughts towards a Taiwanese adventure. The trouble is, as with Putin, Xi and his faction are autocratic, and often they hear what they want to hear…and have a lot of folks that tell them what they want to hear. Still…I think that, at least for this year and maybe for several, this will be back-burnered for China. At least, I think it should be.

15

This has been a sharp reminder to the world than wars of conquest are still a possibility even with the Cold War ended. I think we’ll see a strong shift towards the formation of defensive alliances. And other countries will be looking to the United States to back up these alliances.

I agree that this will give China pause in their expansionist plans. I’m betting the Chinese government was surprised at how strong the reaction was to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and will be rethinking any plans they have regarding Taiwan.

I also think this will hurt whatever chances Trump had in 2024. His decision to publicly support Putin was far out of touch with public sentiment. His statements after the invasion will be an easy sound bite to use against him if he runs. It can be run alongside his statements about covid.

16

Here ya go!

17

To me, the reaction of the country formally known as West Germany and East Germany seems somewhat predictable.

18

I curious. If Russia would just turn around and go home, what happens with the sanctions?

Will we continue to punish for a while? Or say no harm no foul and lift the sanctions.

19

My WAG is that many sanctions would go poof. And if so the impact to Russia would still be long lasting. The EU is going to do whatever they can to minimize need for Russian natural gas going forward and most Western companies will be slow to reinvest there.

As for China? They now have a junior partner dependent on them and a great source for all the natural gas they may desire. They pretty much own Russia now.

Assume more broad economic collapse occurs in Russia. That’s a scary prospect too. The big strategic nukes may not go missing but the smaller tactical ones? And a flailing Russia may try to bring down others with it, by cyber attacks if nothing else.

20

I certainly hope so, however, do you think that his base’s members have changed whatever Russia opinions they’ve had during the Trump era?

And @XT, really good thread idea btw.