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Raising the Stakes

January 21, 2022 | Expert Insights

While the world’s attention was drawn towards the rapidly rising wave of the Omicron virus, a military confrontation was gradually building up along the Russia-Ukraine border. As satellite pictures revealed the offensive nature of heavy weaponry arrayed against a beleaguered Ukraine, there was panic in Brussels, with the NATO leadership war gaming worst-case scenarios.

BACKGROUND

While the western media may lay the blame on the steps of the Kremlin and its aggressive President for this latest crisis, NATO too has been creating conditions that portend an inevitable standoff. As the Warsaw pact collapsed at the end of the Cold War, many had expected its opposite number NATO to follow suit. However, the western democracies, flush with victory over the Soviet Union, had no intention to let go of a military alliance and, on the contrary, pushed its aggressive expansion.

Starting in 1999, NATO soon encompassed the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. In 2004, seven former Communist nations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia had joined the bloc and actively participated in its military contingents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then a full membership of NATO was dangled before Ukraine and Georgia in 2008, thus posing a threat to Russia's strategically important Black Sea route. This was the last straw for Moscow, which felt it was being pushed into a corner, and it struck back with a full-fledged and totally successful, punitive invasion of Georgia in 2009.

Under President Putin, Russia has been trying to re-establish its status, at least in its own backyard, if not globally. It looks back at its Cold War defeat with rancour, with President Putin calling the breakup of the Soviet empire as the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe in the last century". Indeed, he has left little doubt about his intention to make Russia “great again”.

Evidently, Kremlin was encouraged by the muted global response when it annexed Crimea as two Russian federal states—the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol- in 2014. The invasion was triggered by the ouster of pro-Kremlin President Victor Yanukovych through mass protests. The 2019 Ukrainian elections, which crushed the pro-Russian political elements, did little to assuage Moscow's concerns.

Raising_the_Stakes

ANALYSIS

NATO's eastward expansion has neither been slow nor steady. If Ukraine and Belarus were to become NATO allies, it would move NATO right up to the Russian border. Without a buffer, Russia fears it would disrupt the existing European security architecture that has kept peace in the continent for nearly seven decades after World War II.

Georgia and Ukraine are still not NATO members, despite the promises made more than a decade ago, principally because some key NATO members like Germany and France object to an expansion so close to Russian borders.

The current crisis is unlikely to see a robust response from NATO, which remains divided. President Macron of France has publicly advised caution while Germany's newly-elected Chancellor Scholz is known to prefer a dovish line. As regards a NATO military response to any Russian invasion of Ukraine, it must be remembered that the organisation has recently drawn a clear distinction between a NATO ally and a partner country, making evident its reluctance to militarily defend a country outside the ambit of its membership. Similarly, beyond threatening even more stringent economic sanctions, President Biden has shied away from rattling a military ultimatum.

Frustrated with the lack of progress in its bilateral negotiations with Kyiv, Moscow’s military buildup has achieved one thing for President Putin - it has got the attention of the U.S. and NATO. Kremlin was quick to deliver to the U.S. a draft treaty calling for a permanent freeze on NATO expansion and withdrawal of deployed troops in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, essentially expanding the buffer zone between Russia and the EU. Russia has also demanded a halt in weapon sales to its neighbours and a ban on intermediate-range missiles in Europe.

ASSESSMENTS

  • Russia is militarily capable of an invasion, considering it is already indirectly fighting proxy wars in the Ukrainian Donbas region. It has also previously engaged in regional conflicts threatening its immediate neighbours. However, neither the West nor Russia want to dilute the existing buffer between the two and for that, NATO might have to cede Moscow’s demand of halting its Eastward expansion.
  • The winds have changed since Russia made its last aggressive moves in 2008 and 2014 against its neighbours. Today, global powers would rather engage across the negotiation table rather than on the battlefield.
  • This leaves us with two probable outcomes. First, NATO and Russia will de-escalate the border situation with some delicate diplomatic manoeuvres. In the off-chance of a Russian invasion, the U.S. might impose economic sanctions, but this will not sit well with several European NATO counterparts as it might stall the energy export pipeline - the Nord Stream project.