NOTE: This became a much longer blog than I intended so I will break it in 3 parts:
Part 1 and Part II will deal with a conventional military conflict and ramifications for Mr. Putin and the world due to the invasion of Ukraine.
Part III will visit non-conventional conflict; economic, political, cyber warfare.
Part I.
Many are calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the beginning of World War III. They draw parallels to how both WWI and WWII began with simple military actions between two countries who then grew unto two opposite alliances. The immediate cause for WWI has always been described as the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his pregnant wife Sophie in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914. This triggered a series of events beginning with Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia in July 1914. Germany sided with Austria-Hungary while Russia sided with the Serbians. Germany declared war on Russia on August 1, 1914, and France on August 3rd. On August 4, Germany marched on France using Belgium, which had agreed on neutrality, triggering Britain to declare war on Germany. It finally involved the Triple Entente alliance (Britain, France, Ireland and Russia) fighting the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary) *1 As we know, WWI ended on November 11, 1918 with the armistice agreement, followed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 which forced punitive terms on Germany that destabilized Europe and laid the groundwork for WW II. *2
World War II officially started with Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and France and Britain declaring war on Germany on September 3. However, Germany’s land and power grabs began before that. On March 12, 1938, German troops marched into Austria. Nazi claimed that Austria had descended into chaos, and they were there to protect the Austrian people who were seeking unification with Germany and qualm the street fights caused by the Communists. *3
Hitler did not stop there.
Austria-Hungary broke apart at the end of World War I. An independent Czechoslovak state was formed in late October 1918. The German-speaking parts of the former Lands of the Bohemian Crown remained in a newly created Czechoslovakia. By 1938 Hitler had made himself the advocate of ethnic Germans living in Czechoslovakia, about 23.4% of the population, mainly in the area known as the Sudetenland. Sudeten Nazis advocated for autonomy and demanded complete equality between Sudeten Germans and Czech people. Hitler, aiming to use the crisis as a pretext for war, now demanded not only the annexation of the Sudetenland but the immediate military occupation of the territories. Hitler claimed that the Sudetenland was “the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe” and gave Czechoslovakia a deadline of 28 September at 2:00 p.m. to cede the Sudetenland to Germany or face war. To achieve a solution, the major powers convene in Munich and on 29 September, signed the Munich Agreement, accepting the immediate occupation of the Sudetenland to avoid an all-out war. Eventually, the remaining of the Czech Republic was invaded and partitioned by Germany, Hungary, and Poland. *4
The Russian invasion of Ukraine seems to follow the same playbook. In February and March 2014, Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Ukraine and many other countries condemned the annexation and consider it to be a violation of international law. There were a few United Nation resolutions, sanctions against Russia, protest, but very few serious repercussions for the Russian’s invasion. *5 Around the same time, protest by pro-Russian, anti-government separatist groups began in the Donbas region of Ukraine, now known as the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR, respectively). Since 2014 armed Russian-backed separatist groups have been in armed conflict with the Ukrainian government forces. Russia has employed a “hybrid approach”, deploying a combination of disinformation, irregular fighters, regular Russian troops, and conventional military support to destabilize the Donbas. Since the start of the conflict there have been 29 ceasefires, each intended to remain in force indefinitely, but none of them have stopped the violence. Finally, Russia officially recognized the DPR and LPR on 21 February 2022, and on 24 February launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, once again, to protect the Russian sympathizers of the Donbas region from the abuses committed by the Ukrainian government. *6
It all sounds like a repeat of History. If Hitler got away with it, why not Putin?
We were weak and slow in responding to Crimea, and Russia got away with it. But we are now, better late than never, providing military aid to Ukraine without committing military forces, perhaps in enough quantity to make this invasion very costly for Russia. I do not believe that anyone truly believes that the Ukrainian armed forces, as heroic and valiant as they are, can overtake the cheer number of Russian troops and resources that are stacked against them, but, if they are bloody enough, they can remind the Kremlin that invading another country is not a walk in the park; like perhaps Putin miscalculated with this invasion. We are in week 3 of what many predicted was going to be a 3-day drive from the Soviet border to Kiev.
Putin does not need to take the whole Ukraine to declare victory, he just needs the world to be indifferent and recognize his claim of Crimea, the DPR and LPR as a way to stop the war and further aggression. This will give Putin a big boost in popularity at home as he would be seen as the great Russian savior. Any negotiated agreement which divides Ukraine into a Russian and non-Russian territory would only reward the Kremlin for their actions. Such agreement would probably include parts of Georgia, 20% of its territory occupied by Russia since 2008, and continues to expand their influence there with no sign of planning to ever withdraw their forces
Regretfully, this is not where the story would end. There is no “and everyone lives happily ever after!”
If Putin succeeds in getting international recognition for the annexation of these three regions, it will signal to every other *** country that they can forcibly take over regions and negotiate to keep it leveraging their threat to expand the war. And why stop there? Why not leverage their use of nuclear weapons? In the past and depending on whose administration is in charge here in the US, such demands have been used to gain concessions. Iran has used the threat to develop nuclear weapons to negotiate with the US successfully, like in the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal. North Korea has adopted a Nuclear Proliferation Threat program over the years. It withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT) in January 2003, is not a party to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), and has conducted six increasingly sophisticated nuclear tests since 2006. Evidence suggests North Korea may also maintain an offensive biological weapons program. But every time that is convenient, like in early 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un announced a halt to all nuclear and ICBM tests, and participated in a summit meeting with the leader of South Korea, and later President Trump and pledge “to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” However, in May 2019, North Korea’s resumed short-range ballistic missile tests breaking the diplomatic initiatives with South Korea and the US. Other significant territorial disputes include the East China Sea where both Japan and China claim a group of islands in the East China Sea. The islands are known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan. In China, they are called the Diaoyu Islands. China is also in a dispute over Tibet. Right now, Tibet is part of China. It wants to be a separate country. And we all know about China and Taiwan, which we have discussed before. The Jammu and Kashmir border has been under dispute between Pakistan and India since the 1940s. Israel, Syria, and the Palestinians continue to exchange fire over the Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and the West Bank. And so on. What power is going to stop either party from abandoning diplomacy and just go to war to pursue their goals. Only deterrent is the knowledge of complete political and economic isolation, a united military response, the knowledge that such a war is un-winnable in the long run and the cost of reparations of the invaded country. There is one more thing that is key and essential which can only come from the invading country itself, that is regime change.
In theory this deterrence would be enough to prevent future territorial wars, but as we review history, it was the extreme economical pushing measures that were imposed on Germany after World War I that contributed to the patriotic nationalist Nazi movement and Hitler to rise to power.
There is another big problem, the most dangerous animal is the one which is cornered and has no escape. Same with world leaders. Mr. Putin knows that a complete failure in Ukraine would bring a lost of support from the Russian people and the elites, on whom he depends on to maintain power. Andrei Kozyrev, who was Boris Yeltsin’s leading diplomat, believes Putin could soon be ousted with an “armed escort either to the grave or to retirement.” *10 “Maintaining power” is Putin’s only play. With his increasing unpopularity, his previous machinations to stay in power, including the reform that will allow him to remain president until he is 80 years old, his image among Russia citizens has slipped from one of “strong, just national leader” to an association with corruption and a love of luxury, accusations of his personal involvement with the attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny, the international sanctions against his personal assets, and the call for a world tribunal of humanitarian crimes, leave him no chance of a safe post-presidential future. Mr. Putin needs the protection that only the Presidency can guarantee. Not even appointing one of his closest friends or supporters can guarantee safety, as probably the next Russian President would want to distance himself from Putin by at least imprisoning him if not worse *11
All of this leads to the big unknown, how far is Putin willing to go to remain in power?
Let’s consider some other scenarios. What happens if Ukraine falls? A pro-Soviet puppet government will be installed. To keep control he must eliminate all opponents and fix the elections, leading to a prolonged armed resistance, as during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. A long-running “quagmire”, with Russia suffering significant casualties. Global economic and stock market instability will grow. Energy prices will rise further. Basic food supplies in African and Asian countries that depend on Ukraine, the world’s fifth-largest wheat exporter in 2020, will be hit. China’s support for Putin may deepen east-west tensions. Additional, defensive NATO deployments on Russia’s borders could increase the risk of real War, if not only starting a new Cold War between the West and Russia. If Ukraine falls, then the only non-NATO countries left are Belarus, already a Russian satellite, Moldova, and Georgia. The Cold war may include a fast-track inclusion of Georgia, and Macedonia into NATO, even with Georgia’s already disputed territory.
The last remaining battleground will be Moldova. The Republic of Moldova has a population estimated at 2.6 million people, covering an area of 33,843.5 square kilometers. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south, with which a deal was struck in 2005 for access to the Black Sea, ending Moldova’s landlocked status. The unrecognized, breakaway region of Transnistria lies across the Dniester on the country’s eastern border with Ukraine and has been under the control of the breakaway government of Transnistria since 1990. Moldova is the second poorest country in Europe by GDP per capita. Moldova has the lowest Human Development Index in the continent, ranking 90th in the world. In February 2022 President Maia Sandu condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling it “a blatant breach of international law and of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita stated on February 28 that Moldova should rapidly move to become a member of the European Union; the country submitted a formal application for EU membership on 3 March 2022. *13 Moldova’s neutrality is enshrined in its Constitution, so there are no official plans for Moldova to join NATO. *14 Is Moldova’s neutrality sufficient enough to prevent Putin to make a move on it, after all, 11 percent of its territory is already controlled by pro-Russian separatist. Since the EU membership does not provide for assistance with military intervention, and Russia is already facing EU sanctions, there are really no obstacles to a Russian invasion. Moldova has deep roots and associations with Romania, they share language, ethnic background, and historic ties. Some political parties even advocate for the merging with Romania, which will bring Moldovia into the EU and NATO formal.
Part II to follow
*1 https://kidskonnect.com/history/world-war-1-start/
*2 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/world-war-i-ends
*3 https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-7/taking-austria
*4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudetenland#Sudeten_Crisis
*5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation
*6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas
*8 https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/north-korea-overview/
*9 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-03-04/what-if-russia-loses
*10 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russian-coup-could-send-vladimir-26449751
*11 https://ecfr.eu/article/the-trouble-with-unchecked-power-why-putin-will-never-leave/
*13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldova
*14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldova%E2%80%93NATO_relations