A long-expected invasion

In spite of weeks of media briefings from officials in the United States warning that the Russian Federation was about to invade neighbouring Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send tanks and missiles across the border seemed nevertheless to have been a surprise. Perhaps it was the scale of the invasion that was a surprise because — in spite of the US’ insistence — most seemed to believe that at most the Russians would seek to extend the borders of the Russian-speaking separatist enclaves of the Donbass in eastern Ukraine, and perhaps connect them to the vulnerable Crimean peninsula with some sort of land bridge.

In the weeks since Russia attacked on several fronts — from the Donbass, from Crimea, south from Belarus towards the capital of Kiev, and from Kursk — the site of famous tank battles during World War II — southwest towards the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, many global actors appear to have been caught somewhat flat-footed. The People’s Republic of China, which had previously declared there were “no limits” to the Sino-Russian relationship, did not criticise Russia; but its statements on the subject also carried an unfamiliar sense of hesitation and equivocation. Beijing’s appeal to smaller nations worldwide has always been that it respects sovereignty much more than does the West; the sight of it supporting naked aggression by a vast nuclear-armed country against a smaller neighbour somewhat undermines that pitch.
 

The US and the European Union, meanwhile, may have over-reacted somewhat but without a clear sense of long-term effects. Having ruled out the possibility of direct military intervention in defence of Ukraine — into which category they have also included the imposition of a no-fly zone over Ukraine’s skies, although that country’s leaders have asked for one — they find their options are limited. They have thus sought to sanction Russia’s economy widely. The fallout of these sanctions will be as much on the rest of the world as on Russia’s leaders, who are nominally being targeted. The price of oil has risen. Global utilities such as the SWIFT interbank network and the International Monetary Fund’s lending windows have been harnessed in service of war aims, without any thought of what message such unilateral decisions send to the rest of the world. Over time, the Russian economy will find it is not quite as sanctions-proof as Mr Putin probably thought when he okayed the invasion. But the chances that this economic pain will bite deep enough and soon enough to alter the military facts on the ground are low.

India, meanwhile, is suffering from a chronic inability to make up its mind. Its choice to abstain at the United Nations has been interpreted — incorrectly perhaps —  as support to Moscow. Indian policymakers insist that such decisions are made in the national interest, and then helpfully fail to specify what exactly the national interest is here. If defending sovereignty, even rhetorically, is not in the national interest, then what is? India is now in the position of managing the negative fallout of this invasion — from high oil and commodity prices to instability in global markets, from a retreat from risk in global finance to a high rupee — not to mention micromanaging the escape of tens of thousands of Indian students from a war zone. It should be worrying that the Indian government appears willing to absorb all this pain without once delivering itself of an unkind word to those in Moscow who caused this destabilisation.

There will be very few winners from this invasion. Russia has been denied the quick victory it craved and stares at a long and painful period in the global doghouse. The Europeans will have to deal with the reality of the threat to their east and begin to spend money on their military again. The United States has been demonstrated to be powerless once again — although its intelligence community will have recovered some of the respect it had lost in the last two decades, thanks to the accuracy of its predictions. India and other emerging economies have their recoveries from the global pandemic thrown into question with the commodity price boom providing tailwinds to what was already strong inflationary pressure. The People’s Republic of China, at least, can count itself satisfied that it has so far not been blamed for what its clients in Moscow have chosen to do, and that the strength of the Western response has pushed Russia even more firmly into its corner. Meanwhile, the absence of any military response will no doubt be processed by war gamers on the mainland creating plans for a takeover of Taiwan.

The biggest losers will surely be the people of Ukraine, who have been put in the insupportable position of holding off one of the world’s largest armies on their own. Military assistance was largely withheld until the tanks actually crossed the border, in another of the West’s puzzling misjudgments of their own intelligence. If Syria and Chechnya are any guide, the Russian leadership will be tempted to bomb Ukraine into submission once they have control of the skies. But Ukrainians can at least know, given the strength and doggedness of their defence, that nobody but Mr Putin now doubts they are a nation of their own, and not an appendage to Great Russia.