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I find it highly unlikely that Russia is going to want to embark on a new cold war – but if it is (as it seems) to be beholden to anti-western nationalists who are also anti-rational then this is extremely worrying.
That said, whilst Russia is unquestionably a major power, in most regards it is a shadow of the Soviet Union; the USSR was so strong in terms of conventional weapons that it would have taken the combined might of NATO to hold it back – Russia is strong enough to beat most European powers, but, combined, the European powers should be able to take on & defeat Russia in a conventional conflict.
Which leaves Russia with 2 aces up its sleeves: nuclear weapons and dominant position in the European energy market.
Russia remains, despite everything, a global superpower in terms of nuclear weapons – at last count, it had about 8500 warheads, of which 1800-ish are strategic – but the problem with these are they are perversely too powerful, so cannot be used in a graduated or piecemeal manner. If the use of nuclear weapons starts to be seriously contemplated by the Kremlin, then we’re looking at a western retaliation that would mark the end of Russia as a state. As such – barring them all bingeing on lead paint at the Kremlin - these fall into the ‘terrifying, but useless’ category as barring an existential threat to Russia as a whole, they cannot be used without inviting comparable retaliation. As Iran & North Korea have noted, they are a guarantor of the existence of the state, but do not extend political cover to permit adventurism.
The vastly more useful & flexible weapon in the Russian arsenal is its energy supplies; it provides over 60 percent of the EU’s energy, so threats of disruption of supply (at a point when the EU is only starting to emerge from recession) is a very effective deterrent against foreign action. Even so, this is a double-edged sword as it ties Russias economy to the EU’s - it would be crazy to expect the EU to demand ‘trade at gunpoint’
Both of these advantages are also transient & subject to erosion: the technology to interdict or degrade a ballistic missiles already exists (eg the Aster system) and, in a decade or so, it would not be impossible for a ballistic missile defence system to be operational across the EU & USA - if it is not already. With hard work & a lot of investment, it is not impossible that an interception system could be at least partially operational within a decade or so.
Secondly, its politics of energy dominance (‘energiapolitic’ if you will) is directly threatened by the green movement and alternative technologies, including nuclear power. Given the actions in the Ukraine, the EU is almost certainly going to embark on a broad approach to eliminate the Russian stranglehold by means of energy efficiency & diversification – introducing serious energy efficiency rules, supporting alternative energy, fracking & nuclear power plus finding alternative (ie non-Russian) energy suppliers. This represents a threat to Russian interests.
So what can the Russians do? Well, there is little that can be done to prevent the development of ballistic missile defenses – these are the holy-of-holies for national defence, so even being seen to interfere with these would be tantamount to a declaration of war.
The energy situation, however, is more amenable to ‘dirty tricks’ & could be easily played to Russia’s geopolitical advantage. Firstly, the middle-east the primary source of most of the worlds oil and it remains highly unstable geopolitically – with an ongoing conflict in Syria. If I were completely lacking in morals, I would say that starting a conflict here could be quite easy (by, eg, shipping advanced air-defence technology to Iran, or supplying the Assad regime with even more horrible ways of killing civilians), forcing the EU to depend on Russian energy supplies for longer. Secondly, nuclear power plants are highly polarizing pieces of technology and accidents do happen – again, if I were an amoral dirty tricks agency, I would expect orders to make the public very twitchy about ‘going nuclear’, with a string of small, but public, accidents. Thirdly, fracking is a new technology and is the easiest one to disrupt – just fund NIMBY groups. Lastly, energy efficiency targets can be hamstrung by taking the perverse approach – make them so tough that no-one can afford them, delegitimizing them.
So if we see an accident in a nuclear power plant in the next month or so this is probably what’s happening. Heck, I’m half convinced that the loss of the 777 a few days ago is also part of a dirty tricks campaign; after all, having a passenger jet mysteriously disappear in mid-flight is a pretty good way of distract from a blatant military invasion (though its very high risk as the chances of upsetting China are very high)…
Certainly, I am worried about Russia as they have acted in a predatory manner by taking military action at a point when it has all the advantages – but this does not translate into them being an insane actor on the world stage; more alarmingly to me is the manner in which it has been done - either the actions in the Ukraine are being 100% orchestrated by the Kremlin, which is bad – or they’re only partially orchestrated, which is much, much worse as it means that there is a violently nationalistic & overtly racist strata in their society.
If violent racism is indeed a major factor in Russian society then I’d be more worried if I was a central Asian state as they are less well protected (ie squeezed between Russia & China, not in NATO & technologically inferior) and have much larger ethnic Russian populations – but that said, I don’t think that we (ie the west) need to ‘solve’ this – we need to contain the problem, maintain vigilance and allow technology to undermine Russia advantages.
Lastly, I don’t believe that Russia wants to embark on a cold war with the west – even within Russia, despite the ‘spontaneous’ celebrations, various oligarchs are refusing to adhere to the party line – and I cant help but feel that the decision to intervene in the Ukraine was poorly & hastily made as the last option available to the Kremlin, without thought given to a larger strategic perspective.
That said, whilst Russia is unquestionably a major power, in most regards it is a shadow of the Soviet Union; the USSR was so strong in terms of conventional weapons that it would have taken the combined might of NATO to hold it back – Russia is strong enough to beat most European powers, but, combined, the European powers should be able to take on & defeat Russia in a conventional conflict.
Which leaves Russia with 2 aces up its sleeves: nuclear weapons and dominant position in the European energy market.
Russia remains, despite everything, a global superpower in terms of nuclear weapons – at last count, it had about 8500 warheads, of which 1800-ish are strategic – but the problem with these are they are perversely too powerful, so cannot be used in a graduated or piecemeal manner. If the use of nuclear weapons starts to be seriously contemplated by the Kremlin, then we’re looking at a western retaliation that would mark the end of Russia as a state. As such – barring them all bingeing on lead paint at the Kremlin - these fall into the ‘terrifying, but useless’ category as barring an existential threat to Russia as a whole, they cannot be used without inviting comparable retaliation. As Iran & North Korea have noted, they are a guarantor of the existence of the state, but do not extend political cover to permit adventurism.
The vastly more useful & flexible weapon in the Russian arsenal is its energy supplies; it provides over 60 percent of the EU’s energy, so threats of disruption of supply (at a point when the EU is only starting to emerge from recession) is a very effective deterrent against foreign action. Even so, this is a double-edged sword as it ties Russias economy to the EU’s - it would be crazy to expect the EU to demand ‘trade at gunpoint’
Both of these advantages are also transient & subject to erosion: the technology to interdict or degrade a ballistic missiles already exists (eg the Aster system) and, in a decade or so, it would not be impossible for a ballistic missile defence system to be operational across the EU & USA - if it is not already. With hard work & a lot of investment, it is not impossible that an interception system could be at least partially operational within a decade or so.
Secondly, its politics of energy dominance (‘energiapolitic’ if you will) is directly threatened by the green movement and alternative technologies, including nuclear power. Given the actions in the Ukraine, the EU is almost certainly going to embark on a broad approach to eliminate the Russian stranglehold by means of energy efficiency & diversification – introducing serious energy efficiency rules, supporting alternative energy, fracking & nuclear power plus finding alternative (ie non-Russian) energy suppliers. This represents a threat to Russian interests.
So what can the Russians do? Well, there is little that can be done to prevent the development of ballistic missile defenses – these are the holy-of-holies for national defence, so even being seen to interfere with these would be tantamount to a declaration of war.
The energy situation, however, is more amenable to ‘dirty tricks’ & could be easily played to Russia’s geopolitical advantage. Firstly, the middle-east the primary source of most of the worlds oil and it remains highly unstable geopolitically – with an ongoing conflict in Syria. If I were completely lacking in morals, I would say that starting a conflict here could be quite easy (by, eg, shipping advanced air-defence technology to Iran, or supplying the Assad regime with even more horrible ways of killing civilians), forcing the EU to depend on Russian energy supplies for longer. Secondly, nuclear power plants are highly polarizing pieces of technology and accidents do happen – again, if I were an amoral dirty tricks agency, I would expect orders to make the public very twitchy about ‘going nuclear’, with a string of small, but public, accidents. Thirdly, fracking is a new technology and is the easiest one to disrupt – just fund NIMBY groups. Lastly, energy efficiency targets can be hamstrung by taking the perverse approach – make them so tough that no-one can afford them, delegitimizing them.
So if we see an accident in a nuclear power plant in the next month or so this is probably what’s happening. Heck, I’m half convinced that the loss of the 777 a few days ago is also part of a dirty tricks campaign; after all, having a passenger jet mysteriously disappear in mid-flight is a pretty good way of distract from a blatant military invasion (though its very high risk as the chances of upsetting China are very high)…
Certainly, I am worried about Russia as they have acted in a predatory manner by taking military action at a point when it has all the advantages – but this does not translate into them being an insane actor on the world stage; more alarmingly to me is the manner in which it has been done - either the actions in the Ukraine are being 100% orchestrated by the Kremlin, which is bad – or they’re only partially orchestrated, which is much, much worse as it means that there is a violently nationalistic & overtly racist strata in their society.
If violent racism is indeed a major factor in Russian society then I’d be more worried if I was a central Asian state as they are less well protected (ie squeezed between Russia & China, not in NATO & technologically inferior) and have much larger ethnic Russian populations – but that said, I don’t think that we (ie the west) need to ‘solve’ this – we need to contain the problem, maintain vigilance and allow technology to undermine Russia advantages.
Lastly, I don’t believe that Russia wants to embark on a cold war with the west – even within Russia, despite the ‘spontaneous’ celebrations, various oligarchs are refusing to adhere to the party line – and I cant help but feel that the decision to intervene in the Ukraine was poorly & hastily made as the last option available to the Kremlin, without thought given to a larger strategic perspective.