After a brief period of relative peace, stability, and prosperity, a seemingly all-out war is back in Europe following Russia´s invasion of Ukraine. The impact of the ongoing war is profound by all measures and for all practical purposes. From the outset, a caveat is in order: it is a fact that Russia invaded Ukraine, the victims are primarily Ukrainian citizens, and an invasion of a sovereign country is against a cherished norm of international law -- a war of aggression is a crime against peace. In fact, for Ukrainians, the war started not in February 2022, but way back in 2014.
That said, if the structural causes (casus belli) and aims of the war are critically examined, the story goes well beyond a regional conflict. That is to say, both the drivers and directions of the war are not limited to Ukraine per se.
The reactions of the international community to the war -- especially those by the US and the EU -- clearly demonstrate that there is something bigger at play. As David Kramer remarked, “Putin´s invasion of Ukraine is much bigger than just a Russian-Ukrainian conflict: It is a battle between democracy and authoritarianism playing out on Ukrainian land, with tragic results for many Ukrainian people.” Moreover, what the US and its allies make of the war can be gleaned from a recent New York Times headline: “The War in Ukraine holds a Warning for the World Order.” In short, the war is mainly about fierce contestations over ideology, identity, and geopolitics -- among other areas -- between Russia and the West.
This leads us to the question of whether history ever ended, as Francis Fukuyama once heralded. The answer depends on how we interpret history and, more importantly, whether history has a beginning and endpoint at all. In any case, the warning signs about the ´waning´ liberal order have been there for a long time. On top of a rising China, with its unique civilization, growing populism, and authoritarian tendencies across the board, Russia has posed a huge challenge. For instance, back in 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin openly remarked that the liberal world order has become obsolete and has practically outlived its purpose. The liberal world order, including its liberal democratic governance, is in crisis, challenged from within -- mainly due to a lack of political will and a normative decay -- and from without -- owing to the ever-changing world we live in. At this juncture, most analysts would agree that we are living in the post-post-Cold-War era, which is a new cold war in the making.
In the following, I will attempt to shed some light on a Cold War analogy and the relevance of the attendant strategy of containment. As Henry Kissinger noted, history is best studied with a proper analogy, bearing in mind that the outcome is in no way guaranteed.[1]
The nature of the ´old´ Cold War
The Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union can be defined as “a mortal antagonism, arising in the wake of the Second World War, between two rigidly hostile blocs…[p1] ”[2] This definition clarifies that there was fierce antagonism or irreconcilable aims between the US and the Soviet Union. And this ideological antagonism divided the world into two handy blocs – the West and the East -- over which the two powers had spheres of influence. There was, of course, war by proxy, which was one of the main features of the Cold War.[3]
When it comes to the main source of antagonism, competition over spheres of influence and the export of ideology took center stage. That means that the Soviet Union insisted on maintaining a sphere of influence over the countries it ceded during WWI by the treaty of Brest-Litovsk[4] or following the WWII, as per the agreements reached in Yalta and Tehran conferences, there had been an implicit understanding about the Soviet sphere of influence over the eastern Europe.
Here, a sphere of influence was a defining issue. The way that the US understood security and the way that Soviet Union defined it were quite different. While the US strongly advocated for collective security through the establishment of the international system (the universalist view), the Soviet Union insisted on protecting the security of its western border, which lacked a natural means of defense[5] and for which it needed a buffer zone. In addition, both superpowers strongly wanted to establish their respective sphere of influence in Europe. The notable cases in point are the Marshal Plan for Europe, the Truman Doctrine[6], and early skirmishes over the control of Greece and Turkey. As a result, the aims of the two powers became irreconcilable.
With regard to antagonism arising from competing ideologies, the US and its allies defended liberal democracy and the capitalist economic system from being attacked by the spread of communism, paving the road towards the Cold War. It is worth noting that the role of ideology in the making of the Cold War differs depending on the lens of the international relations theory through which one approaches the matter. For the Neorealist, ideology played little or no role in the evolution of the Cold War.[7] But for the liberal school of thought -- to some extent -- and the Constructivist paradigm[8] -- to a great extent -- ideology constitutes a state’s identity and plays a significant role in shaping the foreign policy of the state. The bottom line is that ideological contestation played a crucial role in the Cold War, whether the two powers used it as a means to maintain their material interests or as an end in itself (a global good to be pursued). Indeed, John Lewis Gaddis noted that Stalin’s abrasive behavior[9] was caused by the successful Chinese revolution of 1949, which subsequently enticed him to engage in the Korean War.[10] And it is hardly possible to explain the ‘Red Scare’ purge campaign in the US other than through ideological considerations.
As a result of the contest for dominance between the two superpowers, the world was divided into the rigid and mechanical Eastern and Western blocs[11] -- constituted of alliances -- which made the rules of engagement between the two sides relatively easier. The Eastern and Western blocs were so mechanical that relationships among states were defined as either allies or enemies, with little room left in between. As the two superpowers were the only two nations with nuclear weapons during the early stage of the Cold War, choosing a side for security reasons was a common trend. In other words, it was a period defined by mutual suspicions, tactical alliances, and a collective fight against common enemies.
The last feature of the Cold War, understandably caused by the sustained mutual suspicions, was a fierce arms race between the two powers. To this end, Colin Grey contends that an arms race is the result of “two or more parties perceiving themselves to be in adversary relationship, who are increasing or improving their armaments at a rapid rate and structuring their respective military postures with a general attention to the past, current, and anticipated military and political behavior of the other parties.”[12] What made the arms race during the Cold War unique was the addition of nuclear weapons and the great anxiety aroused by the fear of using nuclear weapons at any time. Arguably, one of the factors responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union was the huge cost of the arms race, which sapped the country’s already faltering economy.
The advent of containment strategy during the Cold War
Faced with the burgeoning challenge, the US had to devise a potent strategy or policy[13] to deal with the Soviet Union. That strategy was to be found in the genius of George Kennan, who came up with ‘containment policy’ in his ‘long telegram’ of 1946, which was later elaborated in his ‘X Article’ in 1947. After having made a thorough analysis of the Soviet Union’s policies, ideology, and sources of insecurity, Kennan asserted that the expansionist project of the Soviet Union could only be contained through force, mainly through political and economic measures. To this end, he reasoned that the Soviets are “impervious to reason and sensitive to force” due to the “infallibility of the Kremlin.”[14] Thus, based on this analysis, he suggested that the US should “regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner, in the political arena”[15] and that US policy toward the Soviet Union “must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”[16]
The strategy evolved over time, both in terms of its conceptual relevance and scope of applications, as further elaborated in NSC 68 and combined with the practice of détente. Many factors might have contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the short-lived triumph of the liberal order, but the effective utilization of the containment strategy -- coupled with other diplomatic maneuvers -- ultimately helped the US ‘win’ the Cold War.
So much for the Cold War and the efficacy of the containment strategy. Is there any similarity between the new and old cold wars and, if so, what lessons could be drawn from our past experience? I will attempt to address these and other related issues in the following.
A new cold war and the utility of the containment strategy
We are in the midst of a new cold war, but its nature is somewhat different from its predecessor. We are in a cold war era because of the following reasons. First, there is still ideological antagonism: a struggle to maintain liberal democracy vis-à-vis an attempt to challenge the prevailing system through the spread of authoritarian regimes -- mainly between the US and its allies and Russia and a rising China. Second, even though the world order is different -- it is no longer bipolar in nature, but instead characterized by multiplex structures[17] with various players in the regional and international arena – a web of alliances is abundant, including, but not limited to, the expanded NATO apparatus, the Russian-Chinese tactical alliance, and various regional organizations and security arrangements. Moreover, following the war in Ukraine, the world has been divided into those defending liberal values, led by the US and its allies; a revisionist Russia and its sympathizers; and some fence-sitters, as observed in the deliberations and voting procedures of the United Nations and other multilateral fora. It goes without saying that the arms race as well as rhetoric around nuclear war is dominating the political atmosphere now more than ever. As to the policy of détente, some similarities can be drawn from the U.S. withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan as well as stronger cooperation with India and reproachment with China, although one might argue that such measure had been mainly prompted by domestic political considerations as opposed to geopolitical imperatives.
And more importantly, the unprecedented level of military and intelligence support pouring into Ukraine -- when coupled with a possibility of a protracted conflict -- points to the possibility of a proxy war between the US and Russia being fought on Ukrainian soil -- the so-called Afghanistan scenario. Certainly, having another Afghanistan in Europe is not a preferred outcome neither by the Ukrainian people nor by the Europeans.
Hence, most of the elements of the former Cold War are present, and the new cold war is not fundamentally different as such.
Thus, the question is whether and how to contain Russia. In a contemporary world characterized by complex mutual interdependence and emerging challenges, the best policy would be a modified version of containment -- a ´soft containment´. A policy of soft containment involves interactions among states predicated upon conflict and cooperation. In this regard, the EU has, to some extent, engaged with Russia for years by adopting this policy.
Ergo, this strategy would necessarily call for some sort of a security reassurance to alleviate Russia´s insecurity, especially in the face of NATO expansion. As pointed out above, Russia´s deep insecurity before, during, and after the Cold War remains the same: a clear and strong buffer zone between Russia and the West. In retrospect, what was promised during the early phase of NATO expansion is that “not an inch of NATO´s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.”[18] But the strong presence of the US in the European security architecture, for good or bad, appears to have crippled the hope for an effective containment of Russia through constructive engagement. Even worse, instead of forging a foresighted strategic cooperation with Ukraine and alleviating Russia´s security demands, both the West and to a lesser extent, Russia put Ukraine in the precarious situation of having to choose between the West and Russia, which was neither desirable nor practicable given Russia´s historical insecurity and Putin´s glaring revisionist tendencies. Owing to Russia´s deep insecurity, any indication of Ukraine one day joining NATO enrages Putin -- a fact known by various statesmen and policymakers. An arrangement to guarantee an economically and politically integrated but militarily neutral Ukraine should have been actively pursued, even before Russia´s annexation of Crimea. A neutral Ukraine might not be a guarantee, but it could have dissuaded Putin or at the very least, doing so would have diminished a chance of invoking security concern as a reason for aggression.
Once again, soft containment does not entail unwarranted appeasements. But it means that, to engage with an adversary, sharing a similar worldview is not a precondition. The starting point is to reckon with the very fact that Russia has a distinct worldview, which is the result of its history, state identity, national politics, and security environment. Otherwise, what is the point of having diplomatic interactions among states? Thus, if one regards the ongoing war as part of a phenomenon bigger than Ukraine -- both in terms of its causes and ramifications -- then engaging with Russia through a strategy of soft containment is a tenable course of action; a combination of maximum pressure and principled negotiation must be utilized. More particularly, the EU should continue engaging with Russia without giving in, reduce its reliance on the US, ensure a robust and independent foreign policy, and balance long-term economic interests, such as energy security, with geopolitical issues and normative imperatives.
In sum, the primary drivers for Russia´s invasion of Ukraine can be better understood if one unpacks the political history and state identity of Russia and the dynamics of the Cold War and zooms in on the broader geopolitical and ideological schisms between Russia and the West. At the very least, one thing is crystal clear: Putin is neither overly irrational nor schizophrenic, as some tend to claim. And it is time to come to terms with the fact that the liberal values of yesteryear have been declining and the door of history was never closed tightly, which entails that a holistic strategy to deal with the challenge is imperative.
[1] Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (Simon and Schuster Ltd., United States, 1994).
[2] Arthur Schlesinger, “The Origins of the Cold War”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 46, No.1(1967), p.22 (emphasis added).
[3] Some of the deadliest proxy wars fought during the Cold War includes the Korean War, the Congo Crisis, the Vietnam War, the Cambodian Civil War, the Angolan Civil War, and the Afghanistan War.
[4] It is a peace treaty between the Soviet Union and the Central Powers on 3 March 1918 that ended the participation of the Soviet Union in the WWI. Pursuant to the terms of the Treaty, the Soviet Union lost territories under its control (Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania, among others).
[5] Schlesinger, p. 29.
[6] In 1947, President of the United States, Harry Truman, gave a historical speech in which the U.S. pledged to provide supports for countries resisting communist expansion, including Greece and Turkey, the move which Soviets Union regarded as an open declaration of a Cold War.
[7] Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (McGraw-Hill, 1979).
[8] Alexander Wendt, ‘’Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics’’, International Organization, Vol.46, No.2 (1992).
[9] For an extensive discussion on Stalin´s approach and Russia´s positions, see Geoffrey Roberts, “Stalin at the Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam Conferences”, Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 9, No.4 (1990), pp. 6-40.
[10] John L. Gaddis, Now We Know: Rethinking the Cold War History (Oxford University Press, 1997).
[11] Wilfried Loth and MR Knight, ‘‘East-West Conflict in Historical Perspective: An Attempt at Balanced View’’, Contemporary European History, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1994).
[12] Colin S. Grey, ‘’The Arms Race Phenomenon,’’ World Politics, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1971), p.40 (emphasis in the original).
[13] Some call its containment policy while others refer to it as a containment strategy. I prefer to use the two terms interchangeably.
[14] George Kennan, ‘‘The Sources of Soviet Conduct’’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 25, No. 4 (July 1947), p.573.
[15] Ibid, p.580.
[16] Ibid, p.575.
[17] Amitav Acharya, “After Liberal Hegemony: The Advent of a Multiplex World Order”, Ethics and International Affairs, Vol. 33, No.33 (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
[18] It is generally believed that on February 9, 1990, the then U.S. secretary of states, James Baker, promised not to expand NATO eastward. However, there are divergent interpretation as what was exactly promised to Russia.
Moges Teshome joined the International Institute for Peace as a project assistant in April 2022. Mr. Teshome holds a Bachelor of Law from Addis Ababa University, LLM in International Criminal Justice and Human Rights from the University of Dundee and Master of Advanced International Studies from Vienna School of International Studies. Mr. Teshome’s research interests include conflict management and regional security, global human rights and advocacy, international criminal justice, the normative study of international relations, non-proliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear technology and sustainable development. Before joining the IIP, Mr. Teshome interned at Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-proliferation as well as served as a lecturer of law and associate dean at Haramaya University College of Law. At Haramaya University, he was responsible for teaching various legal courses, undertaking policy-oriented research and community services, notably coordination of free legal aid for the needy and marginalised section of the society.