As the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches, there is little sign of an end to the hostilities. Robert H. Wade explains how the competing ideologies of Russia and the US took us to this point, and how the interests of each side might be brought together through a compromise that can end the war.
The Ukraine crisis expresses the clash of two mega forces shaping the world order. One is the US’s long-standing assertion of ‘primacy’ or ‘hegemony’ vis-à-vis all other states. Presidents Putin and Xi talk often and pleasurably of the decline of the US and the fracturing of the West, especially since the 2008 financial crisis. Yet what is striking about the US and the West’s response to Russia’s invasion is how forcefully the US has rallied other western states – and western multinational corporations – to isolate a prominent G20 state and former G8 member. This is US ‘hegemony’ in action.
The second long-standing mega force comes from Russia. The tendency of observers to focus on the actions of Putin misses Russia’s long-standing aim to make itself the centre of the Eurasian polity, culture, and economy. This focus on Putin, coupled to the hope of regime change towards democracy, also misses the larger point that Russia has for centuries operated as a ‘patrimonial’ state, the personal domain of the tsar, a structure widely accepted by the Russian population as ‘normal’. The nobility held status and property at the tsar’s discretion. Today’s oligarchs are in the same position, meaning that, as in China, there is no private sector in the western sense; rather, a state and a non-state sector.
Eurasianism in Russia
Ever since the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, a line of Russian thinkers has developed an ideology of Eurasianism. It was suppressed during the Soviet period but burst forth during perestroika in the late 1980s. The ideology posits not just America but the whole Atlantic world as Russia’s ‘clash of civilisations’ opponent, with Russian Orthodoxy harnessed as the glue in the geopolitical war to come. Under Putin, the themes of imperial glory and western victimisation have been elevated to centre stage across the country.
Ukraine figured in Eurasian ideology as an obstacle from the start. Eurasian ideologists in the 1920s were already talking of ‘the Ukraine problem’, presenting Ukraine as excessively ‘individualistic’ and insufficiently Orthodox. Prominent ideologists of the 1990s identified Ukrainian sovereignty as, in the words of one, a ‘huge danger to all of Eurasia’. Russia’s Eurasia project, he said, required, as an ‘absolute imperative’, total control of the whole north coast of the Black Sea (not least to keep the Black Sea as western Russia’s only ice-free access to the sea). Ukraine had to become ‘a purely administrative sector of the Russian centralised state’.
This is the ideology that motivates Putin, which led him to declare Ukraine as ‘a [western] colony with a puppet regime’ on the eve of the invasion on 24 February 2022. This is the ideology which inspires and justifies the brutal war in his eyes.
The US and Nato strategy
The broad US foreign policy towards Russia and China aims to ensure that neither becomes a ‘regional hegemon’, let alone one of sufficient reach to challenge US hegemony. This larger strategy for containing Russia is the context to understand expansion of Nato members all along Russia’s borders, from the Baltics to Bulgaria, and 30,000 Nato-designated troops; and to understand why the Kremlin does not see Nato as a defensive alliance, despite Nato protestations that it is only that.
It is no surprise that Moscow has long read US and Nato actions as deeply hostile, intended to produce ‘regime change’ in the Kremlin and install a ruler accepting of US hegemony, so that the US can block a China-Russia bloc and focus more fully on containing China.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the country has been on the receiving end of the harshest sanctions the US and Europe have ever imposed on any nation. As noted, even to those sceptical of claims of ‘the end of the American empire’, it is astonishing how effectively the US has mobilised western nations around the project to isolate one of the world’s biggest economies, one of the top two nuclear powers, and the biggest energy supplier to Europe, as though it was North Korea.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian explained that the aim is ‘asphyxiating Russia’s economy’, even if the West is damaged in the process. Damage to the West is a price worth paying for regime change in Moscow with new leaders respectful of US primacy.
Meanwhile, China is watching and probably recalculating its confidence in the decline of the West. That recalculation has also prompted Beijing to forge closer ties with Moscow – but Beijing also wants to make sure that it does not help Russia to the point where China becomes subject to even more western sanctions and to the point where Russia could win enough in Ukraine to challenge China’s strategy to dominate the Eurasian landmass, which is well underway in the form of the infrastructure alliances created by the giant Belt and Road Initiative.
How does the war end?
In countries that have suffered under Russian imperial rule in the not-distant past, including Poland, the Baltics, and Ukraine, the most popular view says: it can only end with the dissolution of the Russian Federation. Ukraine and the West have to keep the Russian army bogged down and the sanctions in place until distress in Russia is sufficient to build enough support – with western help – for separatist movements to split the federation.
Others, including Ukrainian President Zelensky, say the war can end only with the return to Ukraine of all territories annexed by Russia including Crimea, and of course the removal of Putin. This goes with Nato enlargement to include Ukraine and other states along Russia’s western and southern borders.
The third broad position says that the West and the Ukrainian government have to accept an outcome in which Russia does not win, Ukraine does not lose, the war does not broaden beyond Ukraine, both sides agree on something like the Minsk agreement, and there need be no regime change in Moscow. This ‘realist’ scenario is the most likely, especially because the US and the other countries of Nato are themselves under acute economic pressure, quite apart from the financial, military hardware, and personnel demands on them of the war in Ukraine.
The effects of the economic rupture with Russia have been felt acutely in Europe, in the form of rising prices, energy shortages, food shortages, lost jobs, the absorption of many millions of Ukrainian refugees, and absorption of still more refugees from food-starved countries that previously relied on Ukrainian and Russian grain and fertiliser. The costs are significant even in the US, where inflation is high and President Biden’s approval ratings fragile.
At some point the US and other western nations will have to abandon any aspirations they may hold for regime change. They will have to push for compromise: Moscow to give up its intention to annex a major part of eastern Ukraine, and Kyiv to settle for less than all its land. Negotiations starting soon in 2023 may avoid more casualties (already in the hundreds of thousands) and more of Ukraine reduced to rubble. The West will have to learn from the past and not treat Russia as a blank canvas on which to engrave western-style capitalism and democracy, as it tried to do after the collapse of the Soviet Union and later in Iraq.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: European Union
Please provide brief information on Isreal assistance to Ukraine
Armoured Ambulances and humanitarian packages.
Why so quick to ask questions on here instead of typing your question in to a search bar and finding your own answers?
Could you lso provide information on Syria’s issues?
Your conclusion was spot on but will depends on the greedy US armaments industry to have a conscience and stop lobbing the US to continue funding Ukraine.
I like the way you lay out the two systems from the outset. I also just read an article in Foreign Affairs about warnings from George Keenan regarding an independent Ukraine. Taken together there are a few things that stick out to me. I am not much of ideologue, so I am coming from a pragmatic point of view. I would’ve preferred to see this war avoided, but it seems that the way both sides are disposed that was never meant to be. There are two big problems here that Keenan did not foresee. The first is that Ukraine has a greater sense of itself as separate from Russia than he supposed, and the second is that what’s done is done–the Pandora’s box is already open.
The Ukrainians have been so steadfast in their resistance that they have very nearly forced the West’s hand. The West, particularly, the U.S. saw an opportunity in all this, but seems both greedy and timid at once. As you note, despite the incompetence, the West is seeing successes. Why? It goes back to those two systems you described. Both are greedy, but the Russian and Chinese systems are very closed, corrupt and those who stand to benefit are the chosen few. The American system for all its flaws provides wider opportunity. Russia has long been behind and the time for accepting those systems among world powers has passed. Russia’s days, in its current form, are numbered.
Regime change in Russia is not a goal of the West. Sec. Austin said the goal is to create conditions such that Russia cannot again be a threat to its neighbors. The West is not to blame for the mob-style capitalism which Russia embraced–that has a Russian flavor all its own.
Exactly ! I think the analysis provided in this article coincides a lot with Russian propaganda .
Russia will win the Ukrainian war.
At their current rate of progress, millions will have died by the time they ‘win it’ and there will be no buildings or land left to be worth owning.
How great to have the gift of evidence-free prophesy like Rohan!
Isn’t it very possible that the war will end with Russia annexing the East of Ukraine and holding Crimea (at the very least).
Despite the incessant media brainwashing, there is only so much pain normal Western society will take before this war becomes very unpopular, especially as it is being fought over a country a large percentage of them probably hadn’t even heard of 5 years ago. Conversely, Putin is resolute, ruthless and merciless and, unlike the democratic Western States, he doesn’t have to face a general election. I can’t see Russia losing, unless NATO ratchets up the tension to the point of nuclear confrontation, then it will be left for Africa, South America and Indonesia to carve out a New, hopefully more peaceful World Order, with the Northern Hemisphere reduced to radioactive rubble or bombed back to the Stone Age.
The war has been extremely brutal. European nations had no choice but to back Ukraine since if nothing was done Ukraine was being absorbed into russia which left all of eastern Europe vulnerable. EU relies on the US (not being a nuclear power) and so it is not surprising that the whole of Europe is allied with the US. Question of survival.
I think we all know how it will eventually go. But unfortunately it will take a long time. At the moment both or all parties a much too emotionally involved. It all seems so unfair and primitive that the rational pragmatic solution, that wont please anyone on a political level, but everyone on a human one, is not even in sight. Russia or rather the Outin regime, will never give in completely, even if they have to dig in more or less forever and Ukarine will never surrender as long as they can depend on the west support. Everybody has to give and a diplomatic adult sollution has to be found. In time everybody will be so tired of the war that peace will come and some sort of compromise will be reached. Unfortuanately it will take time even when most people can see it as pretty clear. Maybe the un will sent in peacekeeping forces with the participation of Russia, maybe in a postputin russia. The disputed areas will be divided into regions and a legitimate referendum or a series of them will be held, based on the population of 2014. A a big job to recontruct, but everybody has to compromise. Remember borders are man made and should be dicided by the people that lives there, not history, culture or national myth.So some border will probably change, but with a solid mandate and supervised by un.
The discourse in this ‘article’ coincides with Kremlin propaganda – i think this should be of major concern at least for LSE . To be honest i did not expect to read a text like this here .
First of all – the author clearly looks at the war from US-Russia paradigm , this is evident in nearly every paragraph of the text. I dare say this is a very imperialistic approach in itself and i suggest a change of perspective, (anyone ? ) Lets make it clear for the Professor Wade that this war is between two countries , namely – Russia and Ukraine . Russia is and has been a constant threat to its neighbours , yes we feel threatened , every nation bordering Russia is under a threat of war and genocide. ( You can look back 30 years and check what has been going in the region – Moldova , Chechnya , Georgia . ) The main goal for every democratic country on planet earth should be to ensure that Russia will no longer be a threat to its neighbours – and YES we want this protection , we are asking or even begging for it ! Not everything is about US hegemony , have some respect for other nations and broaden your perspective .
wrong the war isnot between two countries PERIOD it is a proxy environment
Realpolitik at play. The only way to ensure Russia no longer threatens its neighbours is sufficiently weaken it – and that require a dissolution of the federation to a scale beyond that of the former USSR. Only by pitching Russian Oblasts against each other can you ensure that Ukraine will be viewed as a sovereign nation like Poland or Czech Republic. However, the practicality of achieving this is nil. It’s arguably an easier task to dissolve the USA than the Russian federation (55% of the Republican leaning state voters expressed a wish to leave the Union in the last poll and they have a democratic right to self-determination as enshrined in the US constitution)
Interesting article. Thanks. Russia is not going to back down. For the Ukraine to join NATO would be perceived as a disaster, hence the war in the first place. They have been actively pursuing those via annexation of Crimea and the war in the east. Any idea that Russia will end this war soon after planning to contain NATO and assert itself as a regional hegemon for 15 years is simply magical thinking.
The US will continue support. The only way support will stop is if there is an escalation in Taiwan. Although, I have heard some people say Putin has no imperial ambitions, mearsheimer, I believe he is wrong. Russia always saw Ukraine as part of it’s orbit. Nothing wrong with that.