Shock Waves: Consequences of Russian Aggression on U.S. Foreign Policy
Setting the Tone
There is an active war in Europe. Make no mistake: the growing conflict has the potential and momentum to supersede the violence borne by the continent throughout the 20th century. This is a seminal moment, and dynamics will be malleable for the foreseeable future. Impending decisions from world leaders may impact the balance of power diplomatically, militarily, and commercially for decades to come. The growing sentiment among those in Moscow, Kyiv, and Washington is that events will continue to metastasize. In the one week period since Mr. Putin threw the combined weight of Russian armed forces behind the Kremlin-backed statelets, shelling throughout Ukraine has increased in its devastation, Kyiv basements have turned into artisan Molotov cocktail factories, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has mobilized its full capacity of reservist forces (estimated 200,000 at total strength); acknowledging the grim reality of total war.
Though the immediate locus of concern is emanating from Eastern Europe, there are civil, defense, and market contingencies that may evolve on a global scale. The focus of the following analysis will distill how this moment materialized, discuss the options and consequences most likely to be considered, and address correctives that may offer utility for American security moving forward.
Looking Back to Look Ahead
Anyone’s guess is valid as to how the coming weeks will unfold. Western responses remain vocal yet largely uninteresting. Preliminary action witnessed the Biden administration follow through on economic sanctions and Germany declare a halt to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Yet despite these actions, the Kremlin continues to increase its indiscriminate shelling of civilian targets. Ukrainian resistance has been historically defiant. Having the world see Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy dawn military equipment and defend the battlefield that is now Kviv was a watershed moment for all who believe in the inalienable values of democratic freedoms, but what have Western allies done to represent their same commitment in the pursuit of freedom? To muster further unity, Western leaders restricted their respective airspaces to commercial Russian flights and barred Russian access to SWIFT, but one wonders if even these increased measures are enough? The oligarchs in Mr. Putin’s head shed may well be still insulated from these measures, leaving only neutral Russian citizens to absorb the collateral damage of a spiraling Russian stock market and tanking Rubel. In many respects, sanctions and critical rhetoric exemplify a legacy approach, one which often falls short of curtailing authoritarian overreach. History demonstrates, especially with Mr. Putin, that such tactics are mute. Restricting export access to global markets or adding increased burdens to participate in cooperative financial mechanisms did not dissuade Russia’s intrusion into Georgia in 2008, nor prevent the annexation of Crimea in 2014. There are many reasons to doubt that ‘business as usual’ will carry any utility.
Many have sound reasons to question the effectiveness of crippling financial mechanisms to the Kremlin, as well as worry about the negative externalities of such consequences. Undermining the ability to export energy and other commodities has certainly affected the Russian economy, but amplifying energy insecurity in a moment already stamped with rising fuel prices, inflation, and market volatility may have similarly devastating whiplash effects for the West. Global markets have already responded hermetically to the evolving conflict and there still exist wide-ranging concerns about the soaring price of commodities, which may further choke recent gains of economic productivity. Further, rhetorical commitments only pierce the armor of autocrats so deeply. As time is the witness, threats only go so far as to quell the appetite of Mr. Putin.
The relatively swift annexation of Crimea in 2014 carried very little kinetic response from Western leaders, and the new territorial ambitions of Mr. Putin have been substantiated. Russian advances have moved well beyond Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk, with the capital steps in Kyiv now being the primary target. Scenes captured from the frontlines in cities such as Odesa, Kharkiv, and Kyiv are eerily reminiscent of images from Dresden in 1945. Though the level of damage may not fully yet be on par with such comparisons, the execution of Mr. Putin’s orders to ready both thermobaric and nuclear weapons is highly distressing. A repeat of lackluster responses from allied nations to the mania of the Russian President may be the beginning of an enormous geopolitical shift.
Remember, Mr. Putin described the dissolution of the Soviet reign as the “greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century”. The tragedy was that millions of “co-patriots” were left outside the ring of Soviet influence and ‘protection’. Western leaders may not have yet taken his words seriously, but Mr. Putin was and appears to still be, distraught at the state of Russian reach following the end of the Cold War. And that is precisely the point. Mr. Putin has been clearly articulating his desire to reimagine a Russian hegemony. His prior expressed sentiment and recent actions are evidence of such. It is right to wonder, why has such language fallen on relatively deaf ears? Analogously, it has been the committed language but hollow actions of Western leaders that have permitted the Russian invasion to advance. The Kremlin successfully annexed Crimea almost without fear of retribution. Rhetoric from the West condemned the actions, but few kinetic responses were taken to intervene. Why should Mr. Putin believe that the rhetoric about Kviv will be any different?
What Western leaders, both those within and outside of NATO, may have failed to properly understand is the genuine gravity of Mr. Putin’s desire to reassert Russian hegemony. Long and foolishly dismissed as a “gas station masquerading as a country”, Russian autocrats have been biding time in the international shadows. Licking their wounds from their occupation of Afghanistan, Soviet leadership realized that the balance of power had shifted far more significantly away from a two-sphere competition. The reach of Washington and its allied partnerships dwarfed the influence of what bureaucracy remained in Moscow following its retreat. 1991 was the official year of Soviet dissolution, but the onset of their demise can strongly be argued to be its Icarian expansion into Central Asia in 1979. These events have informed generations of Russian aspirants who again seek to place the Kremlin on par with other world powers. And while their definitive place in the hierarchy of the global pecking order may be shifting, Russia has certainly once again grabbed the attention of all who are watching. Irony is a persistent theme of transnational relations, and this current moment is laced with its fair share. In 2022, the United States finds itself licking its own wounds from Afghanistan, amid economic uncertainty and domestic unease. The United States is far from being locked into a Thucydides Trap with Russia, but that conceptual idea may be issued to its growing tensions with China. As American leaders continue their own reckoning with security policy and practices, this epoch may be remembered as a seminal event in geopolitical history. How authors will recall this time will be heavily influenced by an impending American response.
Educated Guesses
This author contends that there are three key strategic variables in play that will have a significant impact on deciding the outcome of current events in Russia and Ukraine. Each variable places the United States at center stage; poised to create massive ripple effects dependent upon the routes taken.
Variable 1 — How deep are NATO partnership ties?
Adding to the complexity of the situation at hand is the key recognition that Ukraine is not a NATO member state. They are a NATO partner, but this exempts them from mutual protections afforded under Article 5. Article 5 of the NATO charter covers the domains of ‘Collective Defense’, asserting that an attack on any NATO member state is assumed to be an attack on all.
The gravity of this strategic defense agreement has been both heralded and critiqued by realist political philosophers. In its ideal, the collective defense should perform as a massive deterrent, but these guarantees stop and end with membership. For those outside of the ‘circle of trust’, the ‘defensive alliance’ can easily be viewed as an unacceptable tactic of aggression, which is exactly how Mr. Putin feels. All this aside, the skinny is that neither the United States nor its other NATO member State allies are bound to defend Ukrainian territory. This much was witnessed in 2014, as Crimea was effectively taken out from under Ukrainian jurisdiction in about two months.
In this sense, Mr. Putin’s tactics do deserve some Hobbesian credit. Through targeted propaganda and influence campaigns, Mr. Putin has been able to rally, to an uncertain extent, Russian-language speakers and ex-patriots, in often murky Ukrainian border zones. This is not to dismiss that these and other information warfare techniques have threatened the sovereignty of a legitimately-recognized State. Yet, by preferring to assume the role of the fox, rather than the lion, Mr. Putin has been able to forcibly and swiftly take sovereign territory. By infusing popular narratives with confusion and focusing his efforts on geographical areas that may very well have been sympathetic to Russian control, Mr. Putin has created an environment where Western leaders are hamstrung. However, now his attention has turned to genuine conquest. The scales must change when operations evolve from information to material. Western states could ignore Russia blatantly stoking derision to increase its sympathizers in border regions, but few heads of state can sit idly by with clean consciences as current tactics threaten not just the unity, but the lives of sovereign citizens. Seismic shifts in defense policy, like actions from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz committing anti-tank and javelin missiles to the Ukrainian defense, should be heralded. Further, Poland and Finland, countries no more than a few kilometers away from the conflict, have increased their material support in the form of anti-vehicle weapons and increased munitions. In the words of President Zelenksyy, he doesn’t need a ride, he needs ammo. But, how intently will other world leaders listen? The Ukrainian resistance has outlasted and outperformed even the most bullish intelligence estimates, but a failure to continue to respond in kind to the situation as it develops in intensity would be a tragedy for both the defenders in Kyiv and the larger global audience.
The question then is two-fold: (1) What will be President Zelenskyy’s continued response to the Russian invasion? Annexing a largely adrift peninsula is different from having scores of tanks pour over your Eastern border. Even the rapid deployment of friendly munitions can not hold out against volumes of Russian brigades or thermobaric attacks. Also, to what extent will the Ukrainian resistance evolve, and will such a materialized force even stand a chance as the conflict continues? Russia had strategically targeted military installations and critical infrastructure during its initial raids. Without utilities, fuel, and communications, the sheer volume of Russian forces was expected to overwhelm and consume the resistance. However, so far, this tactic has failed. To recoup morale and avoid further Russian losses, a strategy to ‘surround and starve’ may be within the purview of Putin and his military leaders. The remaining Ukrainian fighters should be lauded for their relentless defense, but view forces can withstand the degradation of a ‘Leningrad’ approach; a worry that is becoming increasingly likely.
Secondly, (2) Will Western leaders watch from afar as two European countries wage a foreboding war, and if Russia advances into Kyiv, will Western sentiment rally together behind the banner flags of liberal democratic values to protect a foreign nation’s capital city? When Mr. Putin makes good on his desire to knock on the doors in Kyiv, what will a realistic Western response look like? Though many would like to think that the current Russian actions are remnants of a distant European continental past, this ‘hot’ peacekeeping mission is the canary in the coal mine of crises to follow. Appeasement to Germany failed catastrophically in the 20th century. Emboldening Mr. Putin and his nuclear regime by opting to keep the conflict at an arm’s length would be a historic transnational blunder. From the standpoint of the rational actor, sanctions and material military support appear to be the most acceptable options for U.S. foreign policy as an immediate response. However, no one can be certain of what the Biden administration’s cost matrix would look like, should Russia continue to advance across Ukraine, and spill far beyond the eastern border. This is a poor moment, strategically, to commit forces to a distant NATO partner, but the U.S. and its Western cohort may have no choice if a red wave washes over more than expected of its Ukrainian neighbor.
Variable 2 — Thucydides Comes Knocking Again
As alluded to, the United States finds itself in a bit of a quagmire. Disagreement with optics or practicality aside, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was a concerted decision. Trite or not, the U.S. had bigger fish to fry, and maintaining security in Central Asia was no longer paramount. U.S. attention has rightfully turned towards Afghanistan’s eastern neighbor, China.
Ironically, the regime of Xi Jinping is also caught between a rock and a hard place. The courtship between Putin and Jinping has been well witnessed by the global community, and a deepening of their ties is worrisome for many. However, Chinese diplomatic channels have offered lukewarm, at best, responses to the growing conflict in Ukraine. Jinping is aware of the two-level balancing act between supporting its Russian partner and not alienating Western markets through an overabundant amount of approval for its Kremlin ally.
However, there are more than just these considerations present in this narrative. Rest assured that China is watching the events unfold in Ukraine ever so hawkishly, so as to gauge the Western sentiment for intervention. As the U.S. left Afghanistan, its attention shifted towards the Indo-Pacific region, cemented by its agreement to a trilateral security pact with the United Kingdom and Australia, dubbed AUKUS. The surface-level details of AUKUS reaffirm the American commitment to freedom of navigation throughout the Indo-Pacific. However, beneath the surface, the real pillars of the agreement were for the U.S. to beef up its presence in the surrounding seas while committing additional defense resources, namely nuclear-powered submarines, to partner countries, such as Australia. Even more implicitly; however, the security agreement was a gesture from American and Western allies’ continued commitment to protecting Taiwan.
Taiwan draws a striking analogy to Ukraine. Territorial disputes over the island nation resemble the nationalistic squabbles over its European counterpart. Fortunately or unfortunately, however, Taiwan offers more geopolitical importance than Ukraine, as evidenced by the intense foreign focus on a relatively small island. In addition to the two-level game that Xi is playing, he and his government should be extremely interested in U.S. and Western response to the Russian invasion. Should Americans elect to intervene in the Ukrainian war, a window may open for the Chinese to pursue a more aggressive agenda with Taiwan. The U.S left Afghanistan to refocus and re-establish a defensive posture around China. Bogged down in Central Asia left other regions vulnerable, and resources and force readiness needed to be shifted to a larger, more capable, and much better financed and equipped adversary. The last thing that the U.S. and other Western nations needed is a valid reason to support a war that would drive them away from more pertinent interests. However, Putin may be supplying that rationale right now.
The war in Ukraine, as it materializes, may be the first domino to fall in the much-debated Thucydides Trap between the United States and China. Largely popularized by political philosopher Graham Allison, the idea of the Thucydides Trap is the conceptual notion that a great power struggle, or more appropriately, a great power war, is inevitable when a prominent State declines with the simultaneous rise of an emerging State. It’s the international relations equal to ‘This town isn’t big enough for the two of us’, except the town represents global politics, and the duel is a major global war. The validity of the Thucydides Trap is hotly debated, and there is no definitive consensus if the logic applies, both in thought or in the current moment. However, the idea must be considered. If the U.S. is materially driven to support the Ukrainian defense, then for the first time in world history, warring nations with boots on the ground and vast nuclear arsenals would face each other toe-to-toe. The tension and resources committed to Ukraine could allow for a distraction that permits China an opportunity to further exert its authoritarian regime across Taiwan, spelling serious geopolitical consequences. Tied down in Europe, a U.S. or Western response may simply be either unachievable or impractical to an anticipated Chinese push deeper and more completely into Taiwan.
As mentioned, Taiwan holds more strategic importance than Ukraine. Why? For starters, Taiwan produces the vast majority of semiconductors globally, totaling nearly 80% of worldwide manufacturing and distribution.
Essentially everything electronic in the modern age requires semiconductors. Cars, phones, laptops, digital armaments, and more are critically dependent on semiconductors, and losing access to this absolutely critical resource would be catastrophic.
Secondly, Taiwan has the burden of being an extremely well-positioned island. Sandwiched almost perfectly between Singapore to its south and Japan to its north, it is a critical trading and transport hub in the South China Sea. If China could place a chokehold firmly on Taiwan, supply chain vulnerabilities, navigation constraints, and territorial water disputes will all accelerate in hostility and velocity. Losing diplomatic and economic access to Taiwan can not be underestimated or overstated in its consequences. AUKUS has many aims, one of which is certainly to bolster American presence in and around Taiwanese waters. However, the whole agreement could become null and void if the U.S. is forced to respond in Ukraine and take its eye off the ball. If even for a matter of weeks this happens, worry is justified that China would use the Ukrainian conflict as cover to execute its agenda in Taiwan. All things are not created equal in transnational security, and the bargaining chip of Taiwan holds more value than Ukraine. Ukraine may be the litmus test for authoritarian regimes to understand the threshold for intervention by liberal, democratic regimes, and may ultimately be the catalyst for a slip into the Thucydides Trap.
Variable 3 — Whatever You Can Make, I Can Steal Better
Chinese intellectual property theft and corporate espionage is well documented. The FBI has a revolving door of open cases involving agents from the People’s Republic of China stealing American IP, with annual losses reaching USD $500B. For obvious reasons, this is an urgent and persistent threat to national security, only to be exacerbated if China were able to gain a monopoly on Taiwanese semiconductors. Emerging technologies from the U.S. Defense Innovation base are central modernization priorities for future conflict, but gains will be undercut if malpractice hampers the development of necessary technologies. With a worsening conflict on the horizon, the full state of American defense innovation may soon be on full display. Commercial firms like Starlink and Maxar have already committed resources to support Ukrainian resistance. Commercial GEOINT, assured communications, and LEO or hybrid constellation sensing technologies have proved tremendous value for resistance fighters to command a strong presence in this contested environment. This has been a rare moment for American manufacturers to display their gains, and the continued integration of groundbreaking tech may well turn the tide in this conflict and be the foundation for future deterrence.
Mr. Putin has already boasted that his personnel will have “Weapons that have no equal in the world”, and there is not sufficient cause to doubt this. The claim however still warrants real attention. If the world witnesses thermobaric destruction or small-scale nuclear payloads, the Pentagon and other defense offices would be forced to reassess their respective force readiness objectives, as it relates to modern warfare. Moreover, Russian cyberattacks have demonstrated crippling capabilities and enthusiastic targeting of American assets. Malware and ransomware from Russian servers or state-sponsored proxies, have wreaked havoc, and have already targeted Ukrainian infrastructure ahead with denial of service and information warfare campaigns. While the kinetic weaponry and ground assets have yet to be fully unveiled, Americans must wonder about their own state of technological readiness and determine how best to counter Russian gains.
Compounding these questions are Chinese concerns. IP theft and foreign investment kill domestic emerging tech in the cradle. Moreover, should worst-case scenarios unfold and China tighten its grip over Taiwan, American supply chains for critical manufacturing components will be severely wounded. The U.S. may soon discover the true state of its near-peer adversaries' technological advantages and be left wondering how its defense base can fill its own gaps. Momentum in the wrong direction in the weeks ahead may be a serious cause for concern.
As a corrective, the U.S. must take an honest stock of its readiness. Modern war among great powers will unleash and introduce incredibly destructive, persistent, and potentially unknown capabilities that may provide comprehensive advantages to hostile States. As such, the U.S. must at least prepare to wage an initial assault of innovation warfare. U.S. commitments to Ukraine or Taiwan are uncertain, but it can absolutely assert full accountability for its own state of technological readiness. Whatever chips may fall, this moment should provide clarity to both Beltway decision-makers to continue to scout, develop, integrate, and procure best-of-breed emerging tech and provide opportunities for emerging OEMs to test, evaluate, prototype, and produce the most critical capabilities. Intervention into Ukraine, Taiwan, or any other region should not be the starting point to address concerns of domestic emerging tech supply chains. Preparedness is always the best option, and the current market is ripe with many verticals that can bolster whatever response the U.S. takes. Markets always have an opinion of war. While some commodities perform with volatility, others soar. Dual-use technology, either through R&D, OTAs, traditional FAR-based contracting, or rapid acquisition, will be large winners of whichever course of action the United States pursues.
At this moment, with so many choices on the table, the best choice is the obvious one. The U.S. must on-shore supplies, prioritize advanced research, and prototype dual-use technologies to provide an edge for the future of anticipated conflict. The future of conflict appears paradoxically both uncertain and immediate, but there are variables under American control. Defense is always the best offense, and externalities may be mitigated with proper preparedness. Building a robust, domestic supply chain of emerging tech to provide kinetic advantage may be the best option to deter further hostility, and should be a focus of immediate action.
