The Russian invasion of Ukraine through a full scale all out attack, by the means of land, air and the sea, has sent shockwaves across the world. Most of the European countries are seriously worried about their security and the future implications of the conflict. Except international criticism, NATO and the American sanctions, futile resolutions aiming to contain Russia in the United Nations Security Council followed by escalating fears and apprehensions, nothing much has been done, in order to de-escalate the situation in the Ukraine. This is a travesty ridden but yet a highly significant development that bears both tactical and strategic consequences on the world order. Let’s analyse the prospective changes that would bring about certain paradigm shifts in the world order.
1) The end of the post 1945 world order: In 1945, after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, and the establishment of the United Nations Organization (UNO) the world war had ended giving birth to a new world order which would be based on the common and shared values enshrined in the principles of International law and vowed to the doctrine of international rules based order. The UN charter made the eternal pledge, to maintain international peace and security, with guaranteeing the sovereign equality of nation states. The UN, by failing in its most critical mandate has let down the hopes of the world in a shambolic way, and it not just applies to the Ukraine conflict, but to the wars and conflicts that have emerged over the last seven decades in Africa, Middle East, South Asia and the Indian subcontinent. In fact the dubious nature and working of the UN security council can be determined by the very fact that Russia is presiding the security council meetings in which the Ukrainian issue is being discussed, moreover even if a resolution is brought up against Russia, it can be easily vetoed either by Russia or China as both them are the permanent members of the Security Council. This clearly demonstrates that the epoch where American hegemony existed both in the cold war era and the post cold war era has more or less subsided giving rise to a multipolar world where nations work in their own national self interests. Despite the collective security arrangements and institutional mechanisms which made guarantees of the security to every country against any war or aggression, their miserable failure demonstrates the rise of hyper-realist world politics that is driven by international pessimism, distrust, and obsessive focus on the national security. The pacifist notion as articulated by Bertrand Russell, “A world full of human happiness is not beyond the human power to achieve” has become quite utopian, irrelevant and obscurant.
2) The age of conventional hybrid warfare has officially begun: hybrid warfare involves tactical and sub-tactical actions that can destabilize the internal institutional framework. It employs political warfare and convolves with conventional warfare, irregular warfare and cyber warfare with other influencing methods, such as spreading fake news and propaganda, diplomacy, law fare and foreign electoral intervention. If we look at this in the Ukrainian context, this phenomenon is systematically being implemented by Russia. India’s incumbent Air Chief Marshall, Vivek Ram Chaudhary was speaking at a seminar in the Centre for Air Power Studies in New Delhi, where he made a comment which seems to be an indirect reference to the Ukrainian issue; he observed, “Targeting critical infrastructure and distributed denial of services has changed the way that wars will manifest”. He probably was pointing out towards the critical control points such as communication nodes, air defence centres, armed forces command and control Centres where combination of cyber and physical means are being utilised for destabilization of the country. For example, cutting the electricity supply of the whole country and make it go on a blinker. All of these are happening in Ukraine at the moment.
3) Hard Military power with costs can outmanoeuvre the economic power: The Russian economy was not amongst the best performing economics in the world, despite their high foreign reserves and their relatively low debt to GDP ratio, Russia had it’s own internal economic distress and foreign trade limitations both because of the existing sanctions and it’s export of purely Oil, Natural gas and defence sales. Despite its well known limitations and pertinent risks of attracting severe international sanctions, Russia has entered into a proper conventional war with Ukraine. The only reason being its impressive military might and the possession of the second largest nuclear stockpiles in the world, which it would utilise not just as a weapon of deterrence, but also as a hegemonic pressure point. Despite the economic superiority of the USA and it’s alliances, they were unable to restrict or deter the Russian forces form an invasion of a sovereign nation. The key takeaway here is, as long as we show the willingness to use the military power and incur the costs and risks that would come with it, one can always have the option to ably utilise the military force to achieve the national goals and objectives.
4) Europe being the historical epicenter of wars and international crises: World War 1 and World War 2 started because of the conflicts within the Europe. In the early 20th century their interstate rivalry started because of the excessive competition of resources caused by mercantilism and industrial revolution followed by the rise of ultra-nationalism in the European continent. Perhaps the reason which is common to the 20th century and the contemporary times is the emergence of the conflicts within the European states wherein the important European powers had severe inabilities to look after their own defences and manage the emerging national security threats. Europe bought into forming alliances during both the world wars, and pulled in the Americans into the conflict. Even now, the European NATO allies are banking upon American forces to take severe military actions and act as a shield of solid deterrence against the Russian aggression. The war clouds are hovering all over the world now, because of the European aggrandisement. The combined forces of Russia and China are now being seen as a threat by the rest of the world mainly because Europe is not able to neither defend itself nor deal with the transnational differences on its own in a self reliant manner. It is such a cynical irony that the same western world lectures the entire world about international peace, tranquillity and preaches wisdom against the use of violent force in the geopolitics, in such a way that the rest of the world is responsible for all the problems that they are facing at the moment. But from a keen strategic perspective, this is the first conflict in a long time, which does not involve the Muslims and the Islamic world’s terrorism, even for which the Europeans keep blaming the entire world. This conflict is purely between sovereign states and alliances although it involves a couple of pro-Russian non state actors in Ukraine. The reason why the Americans are not directly involving in this issue is because, Ukraine is not a member of the NATO alliance. If the Ukrainians were a part of the NATO, the Americans might have got involved in this conflict directly, having a different set of bearings on the whole war.
5) Disbandment of Disarmament agenda and sustenance of nuclear weapons : Ever since the end of the second world war, that had created a nuclear devastation on Japan and the termers of its radiations were carried across 2 generations, the international call for nuclear disarmament has been advocated in the in the international sphere. The disarmament treaty agreements gained a momentum post the end of the cold war. In fact in several universities and think tanks had started the disarmament centres and schools to propagate international peace and harmony and motivate the countries towards adopting the disarmament policy. Interestingly the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in his 2019 BBC interview was also seen advocating the nuclear disarmament policy. In the context of Ukraine we have to note that in the year 1994 Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan had given up the Soviet era nuclear weapons stockpiles for security guarantees (Treaty) from the USA, Europe and most importantly the Russian Federation. Amongst these countries Ukraine had the largest stockpiles of Soviet nuclear arms, and had given it up under treaty obligations, probably it would be regretting about this decision today. Given the emerging contemporary scenario, the nuclear disarmament policies would be discarded by most of the countries in the world. Now, countries will not just sustain its existing nuclear weapons, but also actively engage in the development of the new and more lethal nuclear weapons through ramped up and reinvigorated nuclear programmes, and without doubt this will drive more and more countries to think about the nuclear weapons as their final option of deterrence. As of now, no one can expect the rogue nations like Pakistan, North Korea and Iran to give up its nuclear arms or programmes as they would have already war gamed the strategic utility of nuclear weapons not just as a deterrent measure, but also to enhance their psychological warfare. The international disarmament movement is experiencing a severe blowback as nations have realised the perils of giving up nuclear weapons after having them.
6) Possible instability in the former Soviet Republics: At this juncture, witnessing the downfall of the Ukraine, former Soviet republics fear the further repercussions of the conflict to spill over into their territories and regions. Russia has the potential to scare and subdue the central Asian and East European republics even more then they have been subjected to so far. In an interview to a Russian State TV network a few months ago, President Vladimir Putin said “The breakup of the Soviet Union was the collapse of a historic Russia. We have lost 40% of the territory, production capacities and population. We became a different country than what was built over a millennium, was lost to a large extent with the breakup of the Soviet Union”. In his recent TV appearance, he went on to say that “Ukraine was never an Independent country and was historically a part of the Russian empire”. Statements like this and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has created further concerns among the former Soviet republics. Also it becomes quite clear that Putin is acting out of the sense of emotions and perceived historical injustices to Russia in the past three to four decades. Inevitably the former Soviet republics will have to realise that there are limits to their Sovereignty.
Finally, we can say that collective security and balance of power have lost their international credibility as means and methods of managing global insecurity. Hardcore realism or assertive realpolitik is re-emerging in a significant manner and would dominate the strategic thinking in world politics and in forming the new geo strategies. The multipolarity would dominate the world order with the prominence of the Russia-China pivot one had and the USA on the other. The indo-pacific, Middle East and Europe and East Asia, would continue to be the tension points in the geopolitical scenario, and most importantly the Americans will lose the credibility as key security provides both to its traditional western allies and with its new “strategic” allies.
(The author has an MA in International Studies. Views expressed are author’s own)
Viswapramod is a PhD Scholar at the Department of International Studies and Political Science, Christ University, Bangalore. He has an MA in International Relations. Views expressed are the author’s own.
Aayush Pal 
Balaji Subramanian 
Palak Dogra