Engaging in what many considered unfathomable, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s despot, has declared war on Ukraine. In a massive invasion combining air, land, and sea forces, on Thursday, February 24, 2022, Russian troops poured in from Belarus to the north and the separatist-held Donbas region in the east, all while Ukrainian military bases and cities faced heavy shelling. As of the writing of this article, fighting rages over Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. In this critical moment for European peace and stability, an examination of post-Cold War history will illustrate Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine and the path the West must take to respond.
To many in the West, Vladimir Putin is the archetype of a crazed tyrant. He brutalizes those who protest against his iron rule, makes journalists disappear, poisons former spies, and jails opposition leaders after failing to kill them. Painting him additionally as a mad conqueror hell-bent on recreating the Soviet Union, whom he served as a KGB officer, hardly seems to disturb the portrait. Moreover, his recent messianism—proclaiming war to save Ukraine from “nazis” and “reuniting” the Ukrainian and Russian peoples, unilaterally erasing Ukraine’s right to self-determination—does not help observers view him in a rational light. Hence President Biden’s remarks that Putin’s efforts to “recreate the Soviet Union” explain his recent actions. Yet viewing Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine through the lens of apparent insanity distracts from the real geopolitical concerns that motivated his invasion.
For Putin, the prospect of increasing Western influence in Ukraine is akin to an act of war, bolstered by what he views as decades of insincerity. In the early 1990s, as the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, American and other Western officials promised their Russian counterparts that if they dissolved the Warsaw Pact—the string of USSR satellite states including the entirety of Eastern Europe, barring Yugoslavia, as well as East Germany—NATO would cease its expansion. Indeed, George H.W Bush, the US president at the time, assured Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would “not move one inch eastward.” However, such pledges evaporated as NATO welcomed almost the whole Eastern Bloc into its ranks between 1997 and 2004. Paradoxically, in this period, Russia was at its weakest militarily and economically—a point not lost on the 40 senior government officials and foreign policy experts who wrote an open letter opposed to NATO’s enlargement to President Bill Clinton, warning that the “a new line of division in Europe between the ins and outs of a new NATO, [would] foster instability.” With Russian troops moving ever closer to Kyiv, it is now easy to see why.
Against the backdrop of an expanding NATO and growing European Union (EU), both bordering Russia by 2004, relations between the West and the former superpower took a decisive turn toward conflict after NATO’s Bucharest Summit in April 2008. While the admission of countries such as Poland and Hungary into NATO in 1999 rattled Russia’s feathers, the arrival of the Baltic states in 2004 put the Kremlin on guard—the West was now at the country’s borders, following the breakup of the USSR, which had left it decidedly weakened. Nevertheless, relations with the West stayed friendly at the beginning of Putin’s more than 20-year reign as Russian leader. The end of the 2008 NATO convention marked the turning point: NATO Allies issued the Bucharest Declaration, stating that “NATO welcomes Ukraine and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.” Putin predictably responded by stating that Georgian and Ukrainian membership posed a “direct threat” to Russia.
Mere months later, Russia pretexted ethnic divides to invade Georgia. Imagining he had Western support, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili—having won the election against his Soviet predecessor in the Rose Revolution—tried to assert his nation’s claims to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, dominated by non-Georgian ethnic minorities. Following the Bucharest Declaration, Russia decided to recognize the claims of South Ossetian and Abkhazian separatists and intervened militarily, trouncing Georgian forces and effectively annexing the two territories.
Tragedy repeated itself in Ukraine six years later. Facing economic collapse, in 2013, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was negotiating a deal with the EU that would bring Ukraine closer to Western Europe. Under intense pressure from Russia, he refused the EU agreement, accepted $15bn worth of Russian loans, and his government violently suppressed ensuing protests. Negotiations with parliamentary opposition and the involvement of EU officials led to Yanukovych’s agreement to stage new elections; yet, protestors rebuked the deal, some armed, prompting Yanukovych to flee the country for Russia. Witnessing the collapse of the Kremlin’s authority in Kyiv, Putin engaged troops stationed in Sevastopol, a base leased by Ukraine to Russia, to take over Crimea and, seizing pro-Russian feeling in the East, he backed the establishment of separatist states in the Donbas region, namely in Donetsk and Luhansk. These statelets have shielded Russian troops and provided one of the bases for the current invasion of Ukraine.
That NATO and EU expansion into Russian spheres of influence would prompt a military response proved shocking to Western powers on the eve of the 2008 Russian-Georgian War, Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and today as Russian tanks are poised to move into Kyiv. However, that current turmoil in East Europe owes much to poor Western messaging should be abundantly clear by now. With NATO enlargement in the 1990s and early 2000s and the Bucharest Declaration specifically, the West seemed to signal firm support for former Soviet satellites such as Ukraine and Georgia to free themselves from Russian influence. And so they did: the Georgians asserted their claims to Russian-backed separatist regions, while the Ukrainians overthrew a pro-Russian government not once, but twice, during the Orange Revolution of 2004 and in the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. The Russians, seeing a loss of grip on their former satellites, revealed their teeth—only for NATO and the West to take to the sidelines as they swept into now independent territories to reassert their influence.
Once more, Western leaders from President Biden of the United States to NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, to the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen, seem taken aback by Putin’s actions. Von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, decried Putin as “bringing war back to Europe.” Stoltenberg voiced similar sentiments, announcing that “peace on our continent has been shattered.” President Biden spoke of the conflict as a personal vendetta, the fantasy of a detached tyrant: “Putin chose this war.” But Putin’s actions also reflect calculated geopolitical ambitions, not solely the whims of a tyrant. He knows the West cannot afford to intervene in Ukraine militarily, yet he faces the prospect of complete encirclement by NATO lest he relinquishes Russia’s claims to its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Thus, he destabilized Georgia to shut down prospects of joining NATO in 2008 and is doing the same in Ukraine in response to its growing attachment to Europe.
The great irony in the West’s dealings with Russia is that Western leaders believe their actions do not constitute balance of power politics; but those of their rivals, namely Russia, fall squarely in line with supposedly bygone ideas about spheres of influence, security concerns, and strategic interest. The root of the disconnect lies in what University of Chicago’s John Mershmeir, an expert in international relations, identified in a 2014 talk on the Ukrainian crisis as a “21st-century attitude” and a so-called “19th-century attitude.” For Western officials, when NATO and the EU seek enlargement, they do it not in the name of security interests or to increase their sphere of influence, but rather to promote what they consider benign initiatives of democratic cooperation and deeper commercial engagement. However, they believe when Russia intervenes militarily, it reveals the mindset of the Great Game—of a time when anarchy ruled international relations, and when might made right.
Thus, Western officials believe they are participating in a new international relations landscape that focuses on benign initiatives everyone can get behind—promoting democracy and free-market capitalism. But these are hardly innocent measures to their Russian and Chinese counterparts, who sense efforts to secure Western hegemony concomitant with their understanding of how international relations unfold. Thus, Western leaders have failed to realize time and time again that the Russians do not understand their language: in “democratic cooperation” and“economic partnership,” they hear the West’s attempt to increase its sphere of influence to the detriment of Russia. To the Russians, it is akin to the Chinese promising greater trade agreements with Mexico and Canada and a prospect of military partnership. Would the Americans not respond in outrage?
Of course, Putin’s Russia deserves its fair share of blame for blatantly violating international law by invading another sovereign state. Nonetheless, based on post-Cold War history and a realistic assessment of international relations, it is equally valid that Western expansion into Russia’s sphere of influence played a role in fomenting the present crisis. Indeed, the roots of the current conflict lie in the mistaken belief that a defeated Soviet Union meant Russia would renounce its historical regional control in a 21st-century world where “spheres of influence” would no longer matter. But by expanding NATO, they instead convinced Russia that its sphere of influence remained of utmost importance, which explains Moscow’s aggressive behavior today. As Meirshmer makes clear in this lecture, the West’s military umbrella of NATO and economic heft allow it to make strategic blunders without too many repercussions. Until China becomes a peer competitor, the primary victims of diplomatic misunderstandings are the very states the West seeks to protect—including, above all, Ukraine. With NATO involvement likely to amplify tensions further, how should the West deal with Putin’s current actions?
At present, no side has the clear advantage. Although EU, US, and British officials announce heavier sanctions by the day, “Fortress Russia” is less dependent on the West than ever before. Indeed, the country’s central bank has steadily reduced the percentage of its reserves held in dollars since 2014, Putin signed a new trade agreement with China on the day of the invasion, and the country wields control over 40% of Europe’s gas supplies. However, the recent wave of sanctions imposed by the West threaten Russia’s financial system more than ever by freezing its central bank’s foreign reserves. The central bank now sanctioned, it can no longer use euros and dollars to provide liquidity to domestic banks under sanctions, nor can it intervene in the currency market to prop up the value of the ruble. Consequences include bank runs and further isolation from the world economy, putting immense economic pressure on the lives of ordinary Russians. On the other hand, the Kremlin met the new sanctions by ordering its nuclear arsenal on “high alert,” meaning previously uncontemplated measures may appear viable. For instance, as a reprisal, Putin could cut off Western Europe from its gas—a move he had once dismissed—choking a continent already battered by high energy prices.
Thus, the Ukrainian conflict is a war of attrition, with the West and Russia pummeling each other indirectly to see who will back down first. The focus of the vying opponents will be the capital, Kyiv. Russian occupation of Ukraine looks unlikely: 200,000 troops are not nearly enough for such a goal, and, contrary to what some Western leaders believe, Putin seeks to solidify his sphere of influence—by toppling the current government and installing a puppet regime—not recreate the Soviet Union, which would require financial and military resources far beyond his reach. In addition, although Russia far outstrips Ukraine in military strength, its definition of victory is the creation of a stable, pro-Russia Ukraine, which would require absolute Ukrainian submission. Conversely, the Ukrainians fight for national survival—they simply need to exhaust the Russians. Therefore, the West should direct its resources toward supporting Ukrainian guerrilla warfare and directing sanctions—harassing Russian supply lines, increasing the social and financial cost of fighting—all while providing economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine so it can outlast Putin’s willpower. By doing so, the West can seize the asymmetry of the conflict as a source of strength.
Diplomatically, the West must set precise demands, avoiding the ambiguity that plagued the aftermath of the 2014 Ukraine conflict. This entails acquiescing to some of Putin’s stipulations; pragmatism is not weakness, but strength, if it means restoring Ukrainian sovereignty. First, it should make it absolutely clear to the Kremlin that Ukraine will never join NATO: that no Western leader has so much as contemplated sending troops into Kyiv to fight the Russians should demonstrate that this is not an impossible pledge to fulfill. Second, it can agree to halting NATO expansion to its 2004 borders, refusing recent rumors of Finland and Sweden joining, meeting Putin halfway in his demand to return to pre-1997 frontiers. Third, it should compromise with the Kremlin on extensive autonomy for Ukraine’s Donbas region and recognizing minority language rights, which Ukraine’s parliament had rescinded in 2014.
Lastly, given Russia taking over Kyiv sooner rather than later—despite heroic Ukrainian resistance—the West should negotiate a diverse governing coalition that combines Ukrainian politicians friendly to the West and East-Ukraine members who are closer to Russia. The aim is the creation of a neutral Ukraine, committed to both East and West, acting as a buffer state. Regular consultations between Russian, European, and American officials are needed to settle each side’s regional security concerns and avoid future combat in the region. If Russia successfully installed a friendly leader in Kyiv after Western-supported protests ousted two previous pro-Russia presidents, the Kremlin could very well suppose itself capable of performing the same operation in Moldova. Unlike Ukraine, it has no formal plans to join NATO; however, it lies firmly in Russia’s sphere of influence yet draws closer to the West, especially after current president Maia Sandu defeated her Moscow-backed predecessor, Igor Dodon. Moreover, similarly to Ukraine, the country suffers from ethnic tensions related to the USSR breakup, and there are mounting concerns over an attack from Transnistria—a breakaway region with strong cultural ties to Russia, including Russian military presence. Thus, a mechanism to hash out disagreements in Eastern European defense policy is of the utmost necessity in mitigating tensions, as outlined in a recent “consensus proposal” by the RAND Corporation, a foreign policy think tank.
Undoubtedly, Putin is in the wrong in this conflict. He has infringed on the sovereignty of his neighbor, subverted international norms, and posed an existential threat to Ukrainian democracy. Nevertheless, as this article hopefully showed, geopolitics remains relevant in the 21st-century. Balance of power, spheres of influence—these are realities the West must contend with in dealing with international competitors, whether it is Russia or, soon enough, China on the question of Taiwan. As with Georgia, the West gave Ukraine a false impression of support, encouraging deeper ties to stymie Russian bullying. Yet the opposite proved true: Ukraine drew closer to the West only to face Russian wrath, laying the burden most on the Ukrainian people. Only by recognizing the limits of its influence in the East will the West free Ukraine from its current state, squeezed between the West and an ever-threatening Moscow bear. Moreover, only by doing so will the Ukrainian people have the chance to decisively claim their right to self-government.