By Yusuf Ibrahim Bako
Putin has flexed his strategy in a remarkable stroke of gamesmanship, for all intents and purposes he has pitted two of NATO’s biggest allies, US, and Germany, against one another. The United States has reiterated that the NORD STREAM 2 pipeline will not be allowed to be operational should Russia invade Ukraine. In Germany, the pipeline is vitally important and strategic to its energy security.
The possible invasion of Ukraine dominates the current issues of international security as Russia, and the Western alliance, notably in the form of NATO face off. Moscow has long determined that its version of the Monroe Doctrine is sacrosanct to its foreign policy and military projection, therefore it will not be dictated to how it can flex its muscles in its backyard.
Having always viewed its allies and satellite states as its exclusive sphere of influence, Russia believes its security arrangements is a right of interference in the domestic politics of these countries-including military invasion. Russian influence also means control over their strategic resources, so when we look at two former Soviet Republics that have seen increased Russian engagement in the last couple years, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, it is pertinent to note that Belarus is responsible for 20% of the global production of potash fertilisers and Kazakhstan controls 40% of global uranium production.
No coincidence then that Russian troops and assets are strategically engaged in joint exercises with Belarus, or that Russian troops effectively supported, what was essentially a coup d’état in Kazakhstan following protests against President Nazarbayer, who was replaced with Moscow friendly Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Naturally, the result of this support will be increased military and economic cooperation from Russia, with the end game possibly being admission into the Union State with Russia and Belarus.
The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, eagerly allowed deeper integration with Russia and recognised Russia’s right to Crimea. He launched constitutional reforms limiting his powers in favour of a new more Moscow friendly model. One which allows Russia to deploy troops and nuclear assets in Belarus and allows Vladimir Putin a stage to flex and launch his further ambitions of a resurgent Russia.
Ukraine and the matter of Crimea puts Mr Putin’s grand strategy front and centre of geopolitical matters when the world is seemingly trying to pick itself up off the floor. He has returned to the Crimean issue as a pretext to invasion, but to understand the importance of this, a short explanation is required why Crimea is a political and cultural gambit.
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The Crimea Oblast was transferred in1954 from Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by Nikita Khrushchev in agreement with other Soviet Republic leaders, as a symbolic gesture in the wake of Stalin’s death and to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Pereyaslav; named after the town in central Ukraine, the 1654 treaty secured the Cossacks allegiance to the Russian Czar. Apart from this historical symbolism, fact remains that the strategic location of the Black Sea fleet is at the heart of the Russian military might. Non-negotiable for Russia, Sevastopol will continue to be a major naval operating base even as the lease agreements with Ukraine is a point of contention, one that in the scheme of things now appears superfluous. The greater security implications are more important than a matter of rent.
After eight years of war, Ukraine remains surrounded by Russia and the country continues to be vulnerable to Russian seizure. However, the international backlash and potential economic sanctions keep Russian troops staring across the divide, instead it has them looking for a moment of weakness where Ukraine’s self-inflicted collapse invites it over the border. As a means of self-preservation and a very necessary preventative measure against this, Ukraine relies on Western support, deterrence, and stability. In the meantime, cyber-attacks have struck Kyiv no doubt to foment and cascade instability, so far, no protests but the citizenry have voiced their criticism and willingness to oppose Russian aggression.
Defeating Russian forces is a very difficult prospect and Kyiv’s defiance would also prove to be a protracted military engagement and victory for Russia. Moscow cannot expect a rapid victory, nor can it afford to have a repeat of a Chechen situation. Support from inside and more than the pro-Russian elements can lend means the Ukrainian people must willingly accept Russia for Putin to win outright.
As the world heals from the effects of the pandemic, Mr Putin has recognised his window of opportunity. The United States is in internal political meltdown, externally it is unable to retain its primacy in the world having lost credibility under the previous administration. Russia views the Biden administration as weak and distant from its European allies, still licking its wounds from the evisceration it is suffering as a recourse of its political system. Meanwhile, mainland Europe deals with an outbreak of its own version of a democratic cold, by products of America First and Brexit. China is keeping to its own lane.
The Russian end game is one in which it is returned to the world stage as a major player, not some bit part player side lined by an overconfident United States and a fast-rising China. Putin knows and remembers the glory of the USSR, he lived it and was part of its power architecture, returning to this position of strength on the world stage makes for a worthy national goal and a lasting personal legacy.
Putin has flexed his strategy in a remarkable stroke of gamesmanship, for all intents and purposes he has pitted two of NATO’s biggest allies, US, and Germany, against one another. The United States has reiterated that the NORD STREAM 2 pipeline will not be allowed to be operational should Russia invade Ukraine. In Germany, the pipeline is vitally important and strategic to its energy security. Newly minted Chancellor Olaf Scholz has no other option than to prioritise this as fundamental to Germany’s foreign and domestic policy. To avert war in Europe and ensure stability in Russian relations, these two things have become explicitly linked and tied by NORD STREAM. Clear to see, in this case, that the Russian strategy has reversed, the economic carrot of energy security is dangled before the inevitable military cooperation stick, necessary to the safety of a mutually beneficial economic asset.
The continued impasse has the price of oil going up with analysts predicting over $110 per barrel, this of course is good business for Russia and continued inflationary misery for the United States.
The Russian end game is one in which it is returned to the world stage as a major player, not some bit part player side lined by an overconfident United States and a fast-rising China. Putin knows and remembers the glory of the USSR, he lived it and was part of its power architecture, returning to this position of strength on the world stage makes for a worthy national goal and a lasting personal legacy.
However, Russian aggression with its tradition of military invasion presents a complex nature where plausible deniability of aggression- a tactic inherent of the old Soviet system- is difficult for Russia to distance itself from. So, it leads with this knowing that the world can ill afford a confrontation, this is Mr Putin’s biggest bargaining chip. He has weaponised the political and economic mundane in his effort at building a modern Russian colonialism, modelled on the “best parts” of the Soviet Union. Even as he is aware that NATO will limit Russia and it sphere of expansion-hemming it into a specific dimension of operation- Russia is also critically aware that it too can threaten and demand that NATO does not expand, itself.
Ukraine’s official absorption into NATO increases the possibility of escalation to nuclear conflict. A hypothetical assertion posed by Mr Putin himself making the entire moment that more complicated. If NATO did accept Ukraine, it will force Russia to try and claim Crimea in its entirety, meaning NATO will have to invoke article 5 escalating the scenario to the point nuclear weapons are considered. As a result of this threat, Russia has ensured two things, diplomacy will be the order of the day allowing it to continue flexing its muscles, and Ukraine will not join NATO.
An important strategy of grandmasters in chess is to place each of their pieces in the best possible position. In the global geopolitical game of chess, Putin has proven himself to be imperial. He has deployed a four-dimensional strategy around hard power, narrative, economy, and information, and with all kinds of gambits available in chess, we will see if Mr Putin just deployed one of many known strategies, or if he has just invented a brand new one. Whatever the result, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is winning this game of intense brinksmanship.
An important strategy of grandmasters in chess is to place each of their pieces in the best possible position. In the global geopolitical game of chess, Putin has proven himself to be imperial. He has deployed a four-dimensional strategy around hard power, narrative, economy, and information, and with all kinds of gambits available in chess, we will see if Mr Putin just deployed one of many known strategies, or if he has just invented a brand new one.