Michael McDowell: Weak response to Russia will jeopardise the international order

As I write, Vladimir Putin has massed a very substantial Russian army in areas including Belarus and Russia – and in areas of Ukraine that are the subject of de facto annexation by Russia – in a manner which suggests that a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is in contemplation. This is the first time since the end of the Cold War that any major European state has threatened to invade another sovereign state which is a member of the United Nations and which is internationally recognised, since 1991, as a fully fledged member of the international community of nation states.

We should remember that Ukraine declared itself to be a neutral state and, indeed, formed a sort of military partnership with other former Soviet states in the early 1990s. Russia subsequently attempted to draw Ukraine further into its military and economic sphere during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych until mass protest ended in his deposition. Since 2014, Russia has annexed Crimea and has established military control of a large section of Eastern Ukraine in the Donbas region using Russian armaments and proxy military formations.

Ukraine, for its part, sought to deepen its economic relationship with the European Union to avoid total political, military and economic subjugation by Putin’s Russia.

Suspension of international air traffic rights and freezing of financial assets held outside Russia are also a possibility

Many commentators have advanced the view that Putin is not concerned with any military threat to the security of Russia but is more concerned that a functioning and successful liberal democracy should emerge so close to the Russian heartland without being a demonstrable part of its sphere of influence.

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Russia has a long record of subjugation of nation states lying to its west and south in the form of the Warsaw Pact and, in addition, has sought to politically neutralise other states such as Austria, Finland and Georgia as part of its general desire to extend its sphere of influence.

Co-ordinated strategy

One doesn’t have to have a fear of “reds under the bed” or a politically paranoid frame of mind to see that Russia and China are pursuing a co-ordinated strategy to challenge the hegemony of the so-called western powers.

Clearly, the West is not in a position to intervene militarily by the deployment of military forces in the defence of Ukraine. Accordingly, the only deterrent available to Putin’s threat of invasion must be the prospect of massive, severe and sustained crippling sanctions against Russia and Belarus by members of Nato, the EU, and western allies in the Pacific region.

The nature of such sanctions is not clear at this point. It seems that they would have to be much more severe than those deployed on Iran if they are to have any serious credibility or deterrent effect.

They could entail total severance of economic links, not merely in the realms of banking and high finance. Suspension of international air traffic rights and freezing of financial assets held outside Russia are also a possibility. Massive reduction of diplomatic relations (reducing embassies to skeletal staff) and bilateral cultural and economic relations could also form part of a credible deterrent.

The US has a long record of using extra-territorial reach in respect of its sanctions regime, including penalising any third-party sanctions-busters.

It appears that western Europe could survive interruption of gas supplies if Putin seeks to weaponise them as part of his subjugation or counter-sanctions strategy.

The Afghan debacle raises pressure on Biden to reassert his and America's soft and hard international power

While Russia may think that it can weather a prolonged period of political, economic and cultural isolation, its wealthy elites, the types who flock to the Mediterranean sun spots and western cities, would probably find that suspension of visa and residence rights on a sustained basis would be a price too big to bear for a large-scale and bloody invasion of Ukraine.

All this is a very major problem for president Biden. His dreadful predecessor, Donald Trump, sent Putin all the wrong messages for reasons still murky. Trump also brought about the Afghan fiasco by his disgraceful agreement to the Doha accords with the Taliban. The Afghan debacle raises pressure on Biden to reassert his and America’s soft and hard international power to re-energise America’s allies who were left befuddled by Trump’s foreign policies.

If Russia invades Ukraine, the entire international order will be jeopardised by a weak or incoherent response by the US, Nato, the EU and the Pacific region democracies. Of course, there is probably room for a middle way to emerge in the coming days. Whether Ukraine really wants to become a Nato member must be open to doubt. Whether Nato wants it as a member is likewise doubtful.

It may well be that the price of real Ukrainian independence and security will eventually include cession of the Crimea and the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine to formal Russian control in one form or another.

But a Putin invasion, if left effectively un-penalised, would be catastrophic for liberal democracy worldwide.