IF RUSSIA WINS

A longtime NATO analyst and professor of international relations considers the likelihood of a new Russian Empire in the aftermath of war in Ukraine.

Consider, Masala urges, that Ukraine is just the beginning of a long-game effort on the part of Vladimir Putin and his lieutenants to restore something of the old Soviet Union. The first step in such a project might be to occupy Estonia’s third-largest city, Narva, with the argument that the minority Russian population is being oppressed by the Estonian majority. NATO’s Baltic Sea forces are divided, some ships having moved to the Mediterranean to stem the flow of migrants to Europe, and a Russian blockade effectively requires NATO troops to move overland through territory in which Russian forces hold the strategic advantage. Ukraine collapses, finally, after Volodymyr Zelensky loses a bid for reelection, and the nation’s hope of joining NATO is crushed by Russian demands that it adds a permanent neutrality clause to its constitution. Who benefits? Russia, of course, one of whose high officials tells another, “We need to remember: the West thinks that they are rational, and that we are irrational and emotionally backward….That’s to our advantage.” Also to their advantage is the Trump administration’s abandonment of Ukraine and weakening of NATO, meaning, as Masala writes, “Since the Americans can no longer be counted on to bolster Europe’s deterrence capabilities, Europe will have to do much more in the future.” But the real winner will be China, which, in the face of the demise of U.S. power internationally, has every possibility of emerging as the dominant global force, able to project its military and its political demands worldwide—if, that is, Russia wins first, about which Masala warns, “Russia will only be deterred and kept at bay if European societies are prepared to pay the price.”

A worrisome thought experiment that projects disaster if current geopolitical trends—notably U.S. isolationism—prevail.