Early implications of Russia's invasion

Early implications of Russia's invasion

A toy giraffe symbolising the well-being of future generations stands on the desk of the Estonian delegation during the UN General Assembly Emergency session in New York on Wednesday. The UN overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that 'demands' Russia 'immediately' withdraw from Ukraine. (Photo: AFP)
A toy giraffe symbolising the well-being of future generations stands on the desk of the Estonian delegation during the UN General Assembly Emergency session in New York on Wednesday. The UN overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that 'demands' Russia 'immediately' withdraw from Ukraine. (Photo: AFP)

Just one week after his military invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has found some truisms of warfare the hard way. Once war starts, the fog that accompanies it and the friction that it creates lead to unanticipated and unintended outcomes. Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, borne out of choice rather than necessity, appears to be dragging on, not the short and swift victory Mr Putin and his military planners might have envisaged. While Russia may still triumph on Ukrainian battlefields, it has lost the war just about everywhere else.

The first and most fundamental among the early implications from Mr Putin's war is that the fraying rules-based international order has been given an ironic boost. The Russian president's naked aggression against a smaller neighbour, without just cause whatsoever, has united what had been often opposing global sentiments in other regards. Engaging in conflict for survival can be justified but Russia's unprovoked war has been roundly condemned, not least by the 30 member states of Nato and the 27-strong European Union members.

Both Nato and the EU have experienced internal stress and strain in recent years. Former United States President Donald Trump was a regular Nato basher, even threatening to withdraw from the alliance set up in 1949 as a way to "keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Soviets out". If Nato seemed adrift in recent years, the EU faced even more existential questions about its reason for existing after the United Kingdom decided to pull out.

But both Nato and the EU now appear revitalised with renewed commitment and resolve to thwart Russian aggression. With much overlap among the two groups, Nato and EU countries are sending arms and other resources to assist the Ukrainians in their fight, short of troops. The US is also firmly back on the European continent, a challenge to its geostrategic focus over the past decade on the Asia-Pacific and now the Indo-Pacific vis-à-vis China. Whether the US pivot into the Indo-Pacific will be sustained bears watching carefully in Asia in view of China's aggressive manoeuvres.

Second, the Russia-Ukraine war has gained a global following at the retail level, thanks to social media connectivity. Accordingly, there has been a global outcry over Russia's invasion, and many people from across countries and walks of life have shown support for Ukraine via online platforms. This is a reality war, with constant and instantaneous news flows for all to see and read. The global social media fury against Russia and rallying around Ukraine is significant because the social pressure generated will help underpin many governments' measures and moves against the war.

Third, the sanctions against Russia are arguably the most collectively profound and powerful to date. While sanctions have been around as long as interstate relations, the gamut of punitive measures against Russia from the US and EU as well as further afield from Singapore, for example, is multi-layered and multifaceted, covering as many sectors imaginable from trade and finance to sport, music and culture. In short, Russia is being shut out and isolated from the rest of the world, with limited channels of recourse or alternatives. Economic sanctions in particular have already crippled the Russian economy. If sustained, these combined sanctions will likely pile on the pressure inside the Kremlin and around Mr Putin himself.

Fourth, by lowering the bar among autocracies for blatantly invading a next-door neighbour by force, Russia is making a worse name for its peer group. Even Cambodia, which is also under long-time strongman rule in an elected dictatorship, this week signed on to the United Nations General Assembly's "aggression against Ukraine" resolution. China predictably abstained but its official statements have kept a distance from endorsing Russia's invasion.

In fact, Russia's Ukraine invasion puts China in a quandary. As the Beijing-Moscow axis has tightened, China has criticised the sanctions and will likely not abandon Russia. Yet China's principled respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity does not fit well with Russia's military actions in Ukraine. Despite its rights violations and belligerence against nearby neighbours, Beijing cares about and tries to claim some moral basis in its foreign conduct. Moscow is devoid of such morality in its incursions inside Ukraine.

Before invading Ukraine on Feb 24, Mr Putin was trying to make a case for Russia's national security maintenance, drawing a red line around Ukraine's aspired membership in Nato and the EU. The Russian argument was well encapsulated in a Foreign Affairs magazine article entitled "What Putin Really Wants in Ukraine", by Dmitry Trenin, director of the well-respected Carnegie Moscow Centre. Even after Mr Putin recognised the independence of Donetsk and Lugansk self-declared republics in Ukraine's easternmost Donbas region, he could have aired Russia's grievances and worked out some kind of deal. His invasion crossed the Rubicon, and now it will be hard to come to a new status quo acceptable to all major stakeholders.

The most interesting reaction to the Russian invasion is perhaps right here in Thailand. Ardent royalist conservatives somehow hold sympathy and support for Mr Putin. They like his autocratic and decisive ways, making excuses and diverting attention to US invasions in the past, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter undertaken on fabricated rationales that it had weapons of mass production and connections to terrorist extremists.

Yet Ukraine, with its popularly elected leadership, is no Iraq. The fate of what happens to Ukraine will be far-reaching. Pro-democracy countries and individuals will want to see the Ukrainians survive and thrive everywhere.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak

Senior fellow of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University

A professor and senior fellow of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science, he earned a PhD from the London School of Economics with a top dissertation prize in 2002. Recognised for excellence in opinion writing from Society of Publishers in Asia, his views and articles have been published widely by local and international media.

Do you like the content of this article?
COMMENT (25)