Some Preliminary Predictions about Medium and Long Term Effects of Ongoing Conflict in Ukraine

In a previous post, I wrote about how the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine was highly predictable and many years in the making. Here is a link to a fairly factual piece by an American think-tank on how such this outcome was almost inevitable and the many factors behind the decision matrix as seen from Russian viewpoint. The very short version is that once it became obvious to Russia that the West had no interest in addressing their repeated expressions of concern about the continuous increase in military cooperation by USA and UK, the only realistic option left for them was to invade that country and demilitarize it by force. This became especially pressing given the ongoing construction of naval bases for NATO vessels along the Ukrainian coast of Black Sea in addition to definitive steps by Ukraine to develop long-range missiles and maybe even start developing their own nuclear weapons. The way that Putin and rest of Russian leadership saw it, an armed conflict with Ukraine (and parts of NATO) was inevitable, and it was better to strike now than later when there would be more NATO military assets and troops in that country.

You might have realized that I said nothing about future NATO membership for Ukraine, because, in a few more years, it would not matter much if that country was part of NATO or not. That is also why many of the demands made by Russia (to USA) as a precondition to calling of the current invasion had nothing to do with Ukraine. The simple fact is that basing nuclear IRBMs in East-European NATO members such as Poland and Romania reduces the time necessary to hit cities in Russia such as Moscow to less than ten minutes. While Russia has a very significant second-strike capability, putting such weapons at that distance in combination with the delusional third-rate political leadership of those countries as well as USA makes full-scale nuclear war far more likely. You might also remember that over the past 19 years, USA has walked out of many treaties meant to restrict or limit development and deployment of new categories of nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and anti-ballistic missiles. Any sane person in a leadership position within Russia would therefore have to be an idiot if he did not start developing new generations of ballistic and other missiles, nuclear submarines and nuclear weapons. As it turns out, Putin and rest of Russian leadership are not simpering morons and have responded appropriately to this delusional shift in American foreign and strategic policy.

Having said all of this, let me now make some preliminary predictions about the medium to long term consequences of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

1] It is my opinion that Russia has a very strong interest in retaining future control of all coastal areas of Ukraine. You might have noticed from the latest map of invasion that Russian forces have put in a lot of effort to occupy areas adjacent to the Sea of Azov and Black Sea. This was most certainly not done for simply establishing a land bridge to the Crimean peninsula. Given that the building of naval bases to host NATO vessels by Ukraine was one major factor behind Russia’s decision to finally invade and demilitarize that country, it would be very surprising if they gave back control of those coastal areas back to any future government of Ukraine- even if it was friendly to them. The risk of a future unfriendly government appealing to NATO or restarting military cooperation with them is just too high for Russia to give up that territory. It is very likely that Russia wants to redraw the borders of Ukraine to make it a land-locked country dependent on Russia for access to Black Sea, and given how things reached this unfortunate point- it is hard to blame them. And this conveniently brings us to my next speculation.

2] It is very likely the borders of Ukraine will be permanently altered after the Russian occupation is complete. If you have ever seen a map of the linguistic and ethnic identity of people in Ukraine, you will know that the region east of Dnieper river has a lot more people who have historical, linguistic and ethnic affinity to Russia than those to its west. This does not mean that everyone east of that river is going to welcome the Russian armed forces with open arms, however a much larger population in that part of present-day Ukraine would be willing to live in a country with a pro-Russian government. Which brings me to the question about the fate of those (in that region) who are not sufficiently pro-Russian. Once again, we can look at countries such as Syria, Libya and Afghanistan to start forming some ideas about their future. As many of you might know, a lot of people in those countries who were deemed unsuitable for living in those countries, or chose not to live there, had to relocate to other countries. In this case, I would not be surprised if the Russian occupation will “encourage” people with such identities to seek a new life in western part of Ukraine or in the EU as refugees. Whether this will be a slow or fast process is anyone’s guess.

3] Even if the numerous economic sanctions on Russia by West are promptly rescinded once they are forced to see hard reality, the memory will permanently taint any future relationship between Russia and those countries. It seems that the West does not realize that 2022 is not 1991, 1997, 2003 or 2008. Today, the biggest and most important industrial economy in the world is China, not USA. It goes without saying that Western Europe is now made up of countries with rapidly aging and childless populations who haven’t done anything innovative for well over two decades. They are on their way out and given their “zero emission” obsession will become an even smaller part of the global economy. More importantly, the current turn of events have completely validated China’s approach of methodically developing their own and autonomous economic and technological institutions. Given that the West is in the midst of a slow-motion collapse due to adverse demographic trends, late-stage capitalism, unusually incompetent elites and profound technological stagnation- this might mark the tipping point where the East officially starts leading the West.

Other large and populous countries such as India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico etc are now far more likely to either improve their economic ties with China or buy into their socio-economic systems. In some ways, this might be the most significant long term effects of the ill-thought economic sanctions against Russia. Depending on comments and reader feedback, I might revisit this topic in future posts.

What do you think? Comments?