The Ramifications of this War

 This week I have tried the sequence the most significant geopolitical events of my lifetime. I suspect we are currently witnessing one of them.

 

I was the ripe old age of two during the Cuban missile crisis, so was probably rather less frightened than most. The crisis had the potential to destroy large chunks of humanity, but in the end it didn’t. Everything went back more or less where it was before, except for the unfortunate Cubans. This does not qualify.

 

Another event during my pre-school years does; the formation of what became the EU, initially with six members. The EU has defied history and the stability it has enabled has driven Europe and the rest of the world forward, not least in setting standards for commerce and behaviour.

 

Next come a cluster of events in China. There was Nixon’s visit, then Mao’s death, then the choices of his successors to open up the economy. I think this one qualifies, perhaps even as number one. The prospects for 20% of humanity suddenly brightened, the spin-off effects for everybody else were as real, and China has followed through to enable the benefits to multiply.

 

The other obvious candidate is the collapse of the USSR around 1989. This was more dramatic and visual, and surely qualifies as well. I grew up in a landscape of paranoia and propaganda and where large parts of the world, indeed even Europe, were closed to me, and where proxy wars raged around the globe. Then Russia made a fatal mistake in Afghanistan and its empire collapsed. I was given the unbelievably wonderful job in Shell of visiting the previously forbidden places to try to develop petrol station businesses, and could feel the sense of history, both happy and sad history.

 

9/11 might be a candidate, but I don’t think it qualifies. It certainly traumatised America and it has its footprints all over its foreign policy since. But America did more pointless damage in Korea, Cambodia and Vietnam than it did in Afghanistan or Iraq, so its dumb militarism was established before rather than awakened by 9/11. That event was significant, but not at the same scale.

 

IN 2016 the USA elected a deranged narcissist to the most powerful position on the globe. The globe survived. The primary legacy of Trump may be to have accelerated and entrenched the economic and political fight with China. But this trend was already quite marked so I don’t think the event qualifies. 

 

Now Russia has invaded its neighbour with barely a semblance of an excuse and with brutal force. Within two weeks that force has become completely bogged down, making a protracted and messy conflict more likely, with the rump of Ukraine becoming a forward proxy for NATO. It seems certain that a new iron curtain will descend, only its precise path across the landscape still to be determined. After the opening of China and the collapse of the USSR, this might be the third seismic geopolitical event of my lifetime.

 

With the daily pictures and human stories of suffering and cruelty, it is hard to pull back to observe the bigger picture. I have avoided watching TV or reading daily papers, partly because it makes me depressed and partly because I don’t trust all that I read. When I hear of plucky Ukrainians and incompetent Russians the narrative feels a little too convenient. But as usual The Economist has risen to the occasion, and so far seems to have kept the man from MI5 out of the editorial office as well. Who needs propaganda when the opponent gives all the logical ammunition that could possibly be required?

 

The Economist, in a series of articles in many sections, paints a very sanguine picture of the medium-term impact of this war, even if Biden and his state department continue to successfully finesse the Russian position to avoid serious escalation. Rapid rises in the prices of energy and of grain seem almost inevitable, and these tend to trigger famine, recession and civil unrest, often to surprising places and with impacts that snowball. This could be a rocky decade for humanity.

 

As ever, China poses a key conundrum. China is adept at learning from the American playbook, and will have noticed from the last century that keeping out of other people’s wars while making money from both sides is an effective route towards economic power. I don’t see China losing credibility and leverage by leaning too far towards Russia, but will not easily sway too far on the other side of the fence either, without good reason.

 

Once again, this opens a door for the US, if only they have the foresight and guts to open it. To be fair to Biden, he has elections to fight and the congressional opposition has riled up public opinion against China to such an extent that any overtures would probably involve much self-sacrifice. But if the stalemate drags on in Ukraine, as seems quite likely. Perhaps the grand bargain with China can finally be struck. A ceasefire in the economic war, a decisive movement towards the West in political for a and a slow-burning Hong Kong style deal over Taiwan should be an acceptable compromise to both sides. I can live in hope.

 

War does tend to concentrate the mind and clear away a lot of pettiness, and we can already see the beneficial effects. The EU is acting as a bloc, Poland is no longer bickering, Hungary may follow, nationalists are on the wane, Germany has stepped up, Macron will be strengthened, and money laundering may be attacked with authenticity rather than hypocrisy. Who knows, perhaps even the British will decide to re-join the human race if this drags on. We can also already see the EU taking decisive steps towards renewable energy, and that should trigger others in the same necessary direction.

 

In the end, the only way out of this, short of Armageddon, is a change in regime in Moscow. There are clearly dimensions to the politics in Russia that we can only guess at, although the CIA still seems to have a pretty good idea what is going on there. As Putin backs himself further into his corner, he will threaten everybody he can, whether in Ukraine, the US or in Russia. The response within Russia will ultimately determine how quickly a sane path can be found.

 

I sense the denouement in Russia will occur more quickly than Putin may suspect. The eyes of the Russian people have been opened since the last days of the previous regime in the 1980’s. At that time few people in Russia had any view of a world beyond the iron curtain. Nowadays, having experienced the joys of IKEA and i-Phones and having learned to communicate more widely on social media, the police state will be more difficult to maintain. It will take some time and there are horrific risks along the way, as well the likelihood of Ukraine being carved up into non-viable slices all of which resemble rubble, but the exit door from this mess lies within Russia.

 

In the meantime, we will have to accept a new iron curtain, more dangerous than the last one because its borders are murkier and more porous. When I was visiting the former eastern bloc countries in those heady days of the 1990’s, I never imagined that some of those places would become closed again during my lifetime. That is precisely what we are witnessing now. For those of us on the right side of the curtain, that is very sad. For those on the wrong side, it is tragic.