Thousand Days of War

November 19 marked one thousand days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Whatever provocations, real or imaginary, that Russia may have endured because of the West breaking the understandings on NATO’s eastward expansion it had reached with the Soviet leadership prior to the unification of Germany nothing could justify the invasion. This was especially because Russia is, along with US, China, Britain and France, responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. That is the fundamental task of the United Nations Security Council of which Russia is a veto holding permanent member. As such, it has a special responsibility to exercise patience and try the path of diplomacy unless it faces an existential crisis. The Ukraine situation was casting a shadow on Russia’s security but it did not have the danger of becoming an existential problem.

The thousand days of war have caused great suffering to the Ukrainian people. Of a population of around forty million over ten million have been displaced from their homes. The infrastructure of the country has been smashed and it will even, after the war is over—as ultimately all wars do---it will take over a decade with all the global help it can get to recover. But all that is in the future. At present it is grappling with the Russia’s relentless invasion.

The Russian action totally eroded Europe’s sense of confidence that the kind of bloody wars that occurred elsewhere nowadays could not take place there. It was a blow to the European security architecture and the US, a guarantor of that architecture, and the European powers as well reacted with fury to the Russian action. They mobilized the international community to condemn it in the United Nations General Assembly which reiterated the principle that force could not be used to change national borders, that national sovereignty and territorial integrity had to be upheld. US and Europe also supplied Ukraine with arms to defend itself while taking care that these arms were not such that Ukraine could effectively attack Russia. This was an obvious attempt to curtail the ambit of military operations. Significantly, the defiance shown by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was lionized. This was well merited because Zelenskyy was able to rouse the national spirit of his people to take on a far more powerful enemy.

US President Joe Biden, with his vast experience of foreign and strategic affairs, understood that the implications of the Russian invasion were not only limited to European security. With China firmly at Russia’s side the effect of the war had worldwide implications. Even a de-facto acceptance of the territorial gains made by Russia in Ukraine—it has presently control over 20% of the country’s territory and has amalgamated around 15%, comprising of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, as part of Russia through a constitutional amendment, would show to all countries but especially in the Indo-Pacific region that the US was a waning power and the Chinese were rising. Hence, at stake were perceptions of world order which the US could not simply accept.

Now, with Trump’s victory and his desire to end foreign wars quickly how will matters shape up? Trump had boasted during the election campaign that had he been President, Putin would not have dared to attack Ukraine. This was of course only empty rhetoric. Now Trump wants the war to end. Meanwhile Biden has sent missiles to Ukraine which can go up to 300 kilometres into Russian territory. This marks a radical departure from the approach of making only defensive weapons available to Ukraine. The Ukrainian forces have used the missiles. Russia has responded angrily changing its nuclear doctrine. It has now asserted that it can use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state if it is supported by a nuclear one. It has also stated that should there be a large conventional attack causing great damage it can give a nuclear response. This doctrine marks a radical departure from the universally held view that nuclear weapons are to be used only to ward off existential threats.

The Trump people have reacted sharply against Biden’s steps. He has taken them because he wishes to retard Russian movement in the east which has been more than earlier. This makes military sense but naturally complicates matters for Trump who may want the war to become a ‘frozen conflict’ with Russia retaining a vast part of the territories it has occupied. The question is how will Europe react? Can it afford that Russia gets away with its Ukraine aggression? The answer is that it cannot but does it have the will to take on Russia by itself without US support? These are imponderable issues but the likelihood of influential sections in Europe will want the continent to come together and develop collective military capabilities will be activated.

There is no doubt that those who have voted for Trump would want the Ukraine war to end soon. After all the Trump faithful would want him to fulfill the assurance he has given. Trump himself would not want to spend more funds in supporting Ukraine’s resistance. The real issue though is if Trump is capable of deep strategic thinking as Biden is who instinctively realised that the Ukraine war had implications far beyond European security order. Trump with his background as a real estate businessman seems to think in segmented ways. That can only help China.