Prof. ST Hsieh
Director, US-China Energy Industry Forum
626-376-7460
October 31, 2022
A long and indecisive war in Ukraine is dangerous, but it looks like a reality now. The war is entering the 9th month already. It is difficult to imagine how long Ukraine can last! It is indecisive because it is a proxy war, the US alone holds the key to any cease fire.
Russia or Putin, of course is also paying a price of the war. However, Putin will not stop the war without a security guarantee from NATO. Even though Europeans are already facing an energy crisis and financial ruins, they must listen to calls from the US. The rest of the world powers, including China, India and Japan are neighbors of Russia and warned by the US not to support Russia in this war.
But the Ukraine war has already done enough damages to Europe nations. The energy crisis will take years to overcome, and if this winter is bitter cold, social instabilities could pop up here and there. It means that Russia and Europe, both weakened, will face years of confrontations. The future of Ukraine as a nation is precarious.
Russia, facing pressure from the US and Europe, will have no choice but close rank with China. Japan and India need Russia fossil energy. The US Indo-Pacific strategy of containing China will be tested.
The major risk of an indecisive war in Ukraine is a global nuclear war. For this reason alone, Ukraine war has to be stopped as soon as possible. The US public can pressure President Biden “finishes” the war before he leaves office. After all, the Ukraine war started under his watch.
Counter Punch
The Long, Indecisive War in Ukraine is Reshaping the Political World Map
BY PATRICK COCKBURN OCTOBER 31, 2022
“The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time,” British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey famously remarked to a friend in August 1914. He was, of course, dead right about the longevity of the First World War, which did not end decisively in 1918 but went on sparking crises and wars up to 1939. The Second World War ended with the total defeat of Germany and produced a frozen peace in Europe which largely stayed in place, with the exception of the break up of Yugoslavia, for 77 years, until the Russian invasion of Ukraine this year.
The Ukraine war is the third of these great pan-continental conflicts sucking in the rest of Europe and the US. Most European states are not directly involved in the military conflict, but they are fully engaged in political and economic warfare against Russia which is as important as anything happening on the battlefields.
Ukraine appears more like First World War
So far the Ukraine war looks more like the First than the Second World War, in that it is likely to be long and indecisive. (1918 Germany had sought an armistice but no Allied troops had crossed the German frontier). Neither Russia nor Ukraine are likely to win a total victory, though both have the will to go on fighting in the hope of doing so.
The prospect of an endless war in Europe should not be surprising, since this has been the pattern in recent wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya. In the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even the direct engagement of US and UK ground forces backed by overwhelming airpower were insufficient to defeat the enemy. The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban last year only took place after the country had been ravaged by war for over 40 years.
Ukraine may appear different as a poor but modern state, but so too were Iraq and Libya before their infrastructures were destroyed. Much the same could happen in Ukraine and Russia. International attention is over-focused on the risk of nuclear war, possibly starting with the use of tactical low yield nuclear devices. The risk is getting higher since Putin needs to give substance to his nuclear sabre-rattling by practical preparations, as when Russia last week staged its first nuclear drill since the start of the war.
Alarm at the possible use of weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine is understandable since the rest of Europe fears becoming the next target. Few pay attention to the fact that a revolution has taken place in aerial warfare in the last 40 years, enabling precision-strike conventionally armed missiles to cause immense damage, something demonstrated in the last four weeks as a Ukrainian official said Russia severely damaged 40 per cent of Ukraine’s electricity generating capacity, largely by the use of cheap drones. No doubt Ukraine will be tempted to retaliate in kind against the Russian infrastructure.
Tectonic shifts in the political map
A long war in Ukraine means tectonic shifts in the world political and economic map, some of which were already underway. Even after a temporary ceasefire – and there is not sign of one – permanent confrontation between the Nato powers and Russia looks unavoidable. Aside from issues in dispute, fear and hatred generated by the fighting will take at least a decade to dissipate. Each side will foment proxy wars and exploit any weakness among the other side’s allies, as happened during the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union.
Confrontation will be all the sharper if a weakened Russia acts in combination with China. So far, China has kept its distance from Putin and not supplied him with arms, presumably to avoid secondary sanctions – and President Xi Jinping has been negatively impressed by the rout of Russian ground forces in several battles. Nevertheless, in the long term, Russia and China may feel forced to embrace to face a common Western enemy.
Putin is seeking to give an anti-imperialist gloss to his Ukraine war, saying this week that Europe is at the beginning “of the most dangerous, unpredictable and, at the same time, most crucial decade since the end of the Second World War.” This may be true enough, though Putin evidently did not foresee these historic developments at the time when he launched his under-resourced “special military operation” on 24 February in expectation of a Ukrainian collapse.
Putin says that “the West’s undivided dominance over world affairs is coming to an end.” But the trend has, if anything, gone in the opposite direction as the Russian military machine blundered from defeat to defeat over the last eight months. Yet there are plenty of countries in the world who see Russia as a counter-balance to Western hegemony and will not want to see it removed as a powerful piece from the international chess board.
Russia will not be the only great power weakened
Putin’s personal ineptitude as a war lord has been repeatedly exposed. But he is not the only leader to make strategic mistakes, and Russia will not be the only great power weakened by the war. By launching an all-out economic war against Russia, the EU played against the Kremlin’s strong suit as an oil and gas producer, inflicting immense self-harm on itself without sufficiently damaging Russia to bring down the regime or make it change course.
A long war is bad for both Russia and Ukraine since the level of destruction will escalate without either side being able to land a knock-out blow. But the rest of Europe also suffers by facing a permanent confrontation with Russia, increased defence spending, high energy prices and decreased European competitiveness with the rest of the world. As during the Cold War, there is likely to be an increase in proxy wars between the two sides fought out in what used to be called the Third World.
Conceivably, all could come right for Ukraine and the Nato powers if the Russian armed forces suffer a complete collapse. Possibly, some putsch in the Kremlin will lead to Putin being given, as the saying is, a “choice between a suitcase and a coffin.” But there is no sign so far of this benign outcome, from the Ukrainian and Nato point of view, being more than wishful thinking.
Without a decisive military victory by one side or the other, the only means of ending the war is through diplomacy, yet anybody suggesting such an approach is treated as a pariah, if not a traitor. This happened recently to progressive Democrats in Congress who were forced to withdraw a letter suggesting talks with Russia after a furious backlash from other pro-war Democrats.
Diplomacy is unlikely to get anywhere until the two sides have fought each other to a standstill, but even then ceasefires are likely to be temporary and confrontation permanent.