It is easy to get our facts lost in the fog of war following the recent conflict in Ukraine. Our hearts go out to those suffering in the conflict and we hope that the violence comes to an end before more blood is shed.
To get a better understanding of the Realpolitik behind the current state of affairs it is essential to take a step back and look at what the current situation is and what has led up to it becoming what it is. Also, read about belarus role in ukraine.
Current State of Affairs
On the 24th of February, Russia launched what Vladimir Putin titled a “special operation” in Ukraine. Putin stated that the Minsk Protocol had been breached by Ukraine and thus Russia’s actions were justified. Russia officially recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as “people’s republics” and began it’s “peace-keeping operation” against western-backed Ukrainian saboteurs.
Since then, Russian forces have officially mobilized and seized Ukrainian territory, including the majority of capital Kyiv. Anti-Putin protests have broken out across the globe and Moscow itself also saw an unprecedented amount of anti-government and anti-war protests.
Multiple sanctions have been put into place by the international community, and Putin has ordered Russia’s Nuclear Deterrent Forces on “high alert” and threatened the West with “unprecedented consequences” if there was any intrusion in Ukraine.
US, EU, UK, Japan, Canada, Taiwan, and New Zealand unveil sanctions against Russia that target banks, military exports, and oil refineries. This has heightened tensions in the region to a new level as fears of all-out war have not been this high since the end of World War II and the height of the Cold War. Learn about Turkish conflict.
Russia and the West
Ever since the end of WWII the Soviet Union and the US had been at loggerheads with multiple proxy conflicts across the globe. The global war on terror has its roots in US and Soviet conflicts in Afghanistan where the US funded and gave technological support to the Mujahidin to rout Russian advancement forces.
Multiple South American countries also saw a conflict between Russian and US lobbies under the guise of capitalistic and communistic political forces. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs incident being at the forefront of the proxy conflict on that front.
Though the Soviet Union was liquidated and split in 1991, Russia continues to act as an opposing force to US influence across the globe. With US and the EU to the west and Russia and China to the east, the global political outlook has seemed stable for a few decades as conflict has shifted to the war on terror in the middle-east and Afghanistan.
The 9/11 attacks spurred the US to invade Afghanistan, beginning the decades long war on terror. This conflict was financially draining and casualty heavy for the US and NATO forces and steadily became more and more unpopular back home.
Proxy-Conflicts
The Ivorian Civil war, the Insurgency in Laos, The Libyan Civil War, The Syrian Civil War have all been conflicts directly related to be proxy conflicts between Russia and the West.
The bigger Iran-Saudi proxy wars that are currently going on that have involved Yemen and the Houthi forces are also part of a larger Russo-US global conflict that has been going on for a long time. Libya has also found itself in turmoil, and the Ukraine is just the latest in the long-list of conflicts between larger powers engaged in an economic and political turmoil for the last few decades.
2021 saw the official pull-out from Afghanistan which also saw the routing of all US backed forces as the Taliban established government in the war-torn country.
Russia and Ukraine
1991 saw the independence of Ukraine and their surrender of all Nuclear Weaponry. Ukraine became a buffer-state between Russia and the NATO forces since then, and that front has been stable for a long time. Read about Catalonia independence.
In 2008, Ukraine made efforts for its membership into NATO. The US was understandably eager for this to happen and expressed support for a “membership program” to be established to begin the process. Russia expressed displeasure at this happening and fearing rising tensions, Germany and France supported Russia in discouraging this process from progressing any further. NATO compromised by stating that Ukraine will become a NATO member “one day”.
2014-15 saw the occupation of the Crimea region by Russian backed nationalist rebels. This conflict has been going on since then despite the signing of the Minsk Accords in 2014 and 2015. The Maidan revolution triggered this after the Ukrainian Government cited Russian pressure the main reason behind not moving towards becoming part of trade agreements with the European Union.
2021 and 2022 saw rising US and Russia tensions following the 2016 US election where fears of Russian meddling increased popular distaste for Russia in the US. Russia began amassing its forces along the Ukrainian border after the Ukrainian government began to become increasingly vocal about Russian pressure and meddling in their sovereignty.
In Conclusion
In 2022, the world finds itself again watching and waiting for more conflicts and hoping that they do not spin-out into global all-out war. As evil as Putin can be seen to be, with obvious human-rights infringements and autocratic tendencies we have to realize that it is part of a larger struggle that has spanned decades to this point.
All we can do is hope that the Ukrainian people do not have to suffer as hard as the Iraqis, Yemenis, Libyans, Kurds, Afghanis and Uighurs have in this global enactment of Realpolitik and consolidation of power by the political and economic juggernauts of this world.
