The Collateral Damage of the War in Ukraine

In last week’s post, I wrote about big turns human history has taken over the millennia.  Not all turns are equal.  Some are monumental while others are insignificant.  Depending on our understanding of what was gained and lost compared to previous stages of human condition, some turns are judged to be wrong and others to be beneficial. 

Also, some turns have long-lasting effects and durations measured in centuries, even millennia.  Others just knock us off a trajectory for a while but they are not strong enough to jettison humans to an entirely different course.  Judged at the beginning, it’s not easy to tell whether new developments will be history-changing events or just temporary detours along the existing path.  So, it’s worth asking what kind of event the Ukrainian war is.

For starters, I have the sense that this war will create winners and losers that will see their ambitions and worldviews to be bolstered or dampened regardless of their disposition toward Russia and Ukraine.  Thus, there will be ironically unintended winners and losers on both sides of the conflict.  

Hawkish attitudes and re-armaments will be on the rise.   This war is waged by a nuclear superpower against a country in the immediate periphery of Western Europe.  It is natural that otherwise pro-peace politicians will see it prudent to bolster their countries’ national defenses.  Germany has already announced a significant change in its national stance in relation to its defense budget and more importantly toward foreign conflicts.  For those traditionally invested in hawkish worldviews, the Russian invasion is the perfect foil to exploit in order to advocate a more adversarial posturing against geopolitical rivals.  In the US, calls for a bigger defense budget have found their way into the federal budget proposed by the Biden administration for 2023.  It is a pity that after consuming the so-called post-Cold War peace dividend in the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. will continue expanding its already huge military budget.  Whether out of prudence or geopolitical hawkishness, the worlds’ economies will bear a greater defense burden at the expense of other worthy causes.

Social support and quality of life programs will be set back.  When more fiscal resources go to guns less money goes to butter.   After the 2020 presidential elections, the U.S. found itself in a historically unique position to move toward a return to a progressive path.  However, in the fog and misinformation of politics, progressivism has recently gotten a bum rap.  Many, even Democrats, forget that from the start of the 20^th century until the 1960’s it was the progressive movement that gave Americans protection against poverty in retirement, financial swindles, consumer fraud, work-related hazards, ruinous sickness, environmental degradation, voting suppression, and racial, sexual and gender discrimination.  But in the latter part of the last century and the first two decades of this we have witnessed an alarming retrenchment of our socio-centric attitudes that have made us inured to the dire challenges we face like opioid and drug deaths, decay of the social fiber, stagnant wages, onerous student debt, child poverty, and declining health indicators.  All that now is in danger of being de-prioritized under the fear of international conflicts and uncertain peace, and the calls for rearmament.  Beyond the U.S., projects aiming at uplifting the less privileged parts of the world are likely to receive less attention and funding.

Pro-climate and environment initiatives will be put off.  The weaning away from fossil fuels requires an international order that allows countries, especially those heavily dependent on imports of oil and gas, to plan their transition to renewable energy sources.  The orderly transition is needed to both avoid abrupt rises of fuel costs that can trigger an economy-wide inflation and allow the energy-hungry sectors of the economy to function at normal levels.  With Europe mostly dependent on Russian energy, this approach to transition has been upended.  Energy price-induced inflation is on the rise triggering corporate and popular discontent as well as political discord in the West.  And given that military equipment still runs on fossil fuels, the power of the oil and gas industries will see a comeback.  Of course, an argument can be made that energy-importing countries will become averse to being dependent on energy suppliers that pose national security risks and will accelerate the switch to renewable energy.  Nonetheless, in times of conflict and national rivalries, the emotions of fear and risk aversion are more likely to favor more drilling than the use of sun and wind to produce energy.

International commerce and business will be reconsidered.  International commerce is driven by the opportunity for profit and the gains from specialization in what each country does best.  But very early it was also recognized that if nations forged close trading and business ties, they would have less reason to go to war.  This is what drove the U.S. and other western economies to expand their markets and production to China and the countries that emerged in the post-Soviet era.  However, the promise of transnational cooperation as a result of commerce vanishes when country specialization in essential goods as well as their trade are used as power proxies in national conflicts.  Europe now realizes that dependence on Russian energy can make it an unwilling hostage to Russia’s foreign policy ambitions.  The U.S. has also come to the conclusion that supply chains of essential goods that originate in China can become a matter of national security.  Like-wise, non-western powers are making the same calculations.  Once the suspicions about each party’s intentions harden, both the production and trade of goods starts to be repatriated and, thus, the bonds among countries wither away.

It took two extremely ruinous world wars in the 20^th century for the global community to realize that cooperation and peaceful resolution of conflicts ought to be the way forward.  Despite the lackluster performance of the U.N., international treaties on trade and the environment and other multilateral bodies, they have all served us better than anything of the kind in past periods.

So, will we let the war in Ukraine derail us from the project of building a more durable and cooperative international order?  Global cooperation is especially urgent now that the humankind faces the near existential dangers of climate and environmental disaster.  If we are wise enough to understand what is at stake, we should not allow the war in Ukraine to become anything but a short detour.