31 May 2022

Project Syndicate's Harold James: What If Ukraine Is a Forever Crisis?

Three months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the war is falling into a familiar historical pattern. As both sides dig in deeper and become more invested in the conflict, it will increasingly become a contest that can end only one way.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine is coming to resemble many previous geopolitical crises. Throughout history, episodes that initially seemed like temporary disruptions have become prolonged affairs. What start out as short confrontations very often result in a seemingly endless morass.

The most famous case of such a crisis is World War I, which George F. Kennan accurately described as the “great seminal catastrophe” of the twentieth century. The sheer scale of the mobilization in August 1914 fostered a widespread belief that the conflict could not last long – that it “would be over by Christmas.”

But what followed was a war of attrition with almost no movement on the Western Front. Just as Ypres, Flanders, was the site of fierce battles in 1914, so it was again in 1918. Will there still be battles in Mariupol in 2026? True, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has committed his government to the message that Russia “must not win” the war, and the great German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has declared, similarly, that Ukraine “must not lose.” Yet when European political and intellectual leaders issue these dramatic statements, it is clear that they are compensating for an underlying sense of helplessness. What can such statements even mean in a stalemate?

Unless Russia collapses or undergoes a sudden regime change and democratization, it is difficult to imagine how Ukraine can “not lose.” Crises like the one in Ukraine tend to follow a familiar script of escalation and politicization. As the conflict stretches on, the participants become more invested in it, not just financially but also spiritually. The sacrifices made for the cause transform the conflict into something sacred – or at least sacralized. This is a necessary step for the people in charge.

Since no one wants to be responsible for causing pointless deaths, the loss of life must be furnished with a deeper meaning, as Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church has tried to do by blessing Vladimir Putin’s war. Once this pattern takes hold, it becomes increasingly difficult to see how the conflict could end without a complete collapse of one side. Interpreting a secretive dictator’s mindset is never easy, and we may never know precisely what power dynamics are playing out in the Kremlin. But it is reasonable to assume that Putin’s strategy is to hold on until Europe and the United States have lost the capacity or the will to continue supporting Ukraine and punishing Russia.

The Kremlin is doubtless hoping that rich countries will not be able to bear the hardship of higher fuel and food prices and their effects on the economy and incomes. In the past, wartime leaders who have found themselves in a stalemate have dreamed of expanding the conflict. Thus, Putin may also be calculating that the global food crisis brought on by the war will trigger political unrest in vulnerable food-importing regions like the Middle East, thereby driving a new wave of refugees toward Europe. Putin and his cronies have already shown that they are not above using desperate migrants and refugees as a weapon against the West.ERVE YOUR SPOT

Alternatively, Russian strategists may be calculating that the West will simply lose interest eventually. In our media-saturated age, attention spans are notoriously short-lived, and the Western public’s imagination is easily captured by sensational scandals, whether a celebrity court clash or a horrific school shooting. To societies with “Ukraine fatigue,” images of Severodonetsk will once again seem remote and incomprehensible....

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