Filenews 19 August 2022
By Hal Brands
Wars caused by people's decisions can at the same time be the products of deep historical processes. As proof of the above reasoning, see the fighting in Ukraine.
This conflict is the act of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a leader determined to reaffirm Russia's greatness by destroying an independent Ukraine. However, it is also part of a longer story about what happens when empires fall apart.
Imatia
The fighting in Ukraine is the most recent and the worst of the wars that have been waged over the garments of the Soviet Union, an empire whose death toll continues about 30 years after it ceased to exist itself as a single entity. It will not, unfortunately, be its last manifestation.
The 20th century brought with it the dissection of the great Eurasian empires that once dominated world affairs. World War I destroyed the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and German Empires. World War II destroyed empires ruled by Tokyo, Rome and (once again) Berlin. Decolonization subsequently ended the British, French and Portuguese Empires. And the end of the Cold War killed the Soviet Union, which first lost its satraps in Eastern Europe and then disintegrated into 15 independent states.
However, empires do not die quickly: their collapse, the historian Serhii Plokhy wrote, is "more of a process than an event." When a huge entity that was once held back by the metropolis' iron discipline retreats, don't expect a new, stable status quo overnight.
The ongoing tensions in the Balkans and the Middle East remind us that the legacies of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires are still working. The relationship between Britain and its former colonies continues to evolve.
Entangled tangle
Because the Soviet Union was ruled so brutally, its dissolution was particularly erratic. The end of the Soviet state removed the restrictions that had suppressed ethnic tensions and national antagonisms between the constituent parts of the empire. It gave birth to new, politically unstable states. It accelerated an ongoing struggle between the country that dominated the empire, Russia, and the states and peoples that were now looking for a way to escape Moscow's control.
The result was what scholars called "Soviet succession wars" - a series of bloody conflicts over disputed areas from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.
During the 1990s, wars shook Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Chechnya, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Tajikistan, often attracting neighbouring states and international peacekeepers. Some of these conflicts are simmering to this day.
Others, such as the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan or the battle between Georgia and its breakaway provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, supported by Moscow, have reignited in major international conflicts. The end of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical earthquake whose aftershocks destabilize the international system even today.
Ukraine has suffered the most terrifying of these tremors: the current war is distinguished by the fierceness of the fighting and the absoluteness of Putin's attempt to erase another country from the map. Its most direct origin can be traced back to the increasingly totalitarian nature of the Putin regime, which allows it to be more aggressive, while at the same time it is mandatory to discover external enemies. At its base there is also the stakes of whether Kiev will align itself with Moscow or with the West.
Tesserae
However, it is also a piece of the broader post-Soviet turmoil. The declaration of Independence of Ukraine at the end of 1991 helped to destroy the Soviet state and accelerate the imperial dissolution that followed. It is not surprising and it is unfortunately symbolic that Ukraine is at the heart of Putin's attempt to re-establish the sovereignty that Moscow once held.
The war did not turn out as Putin planned: Ukraine has defended itself admirably and will resist for much longer its violent integration into a Russian sphere of influence. Putin's quest for an imperial resurrection has, in this case, overpowered the completion of the formation of Ukrainian patriotism/nationalism. However, although Russia has paid a high price for its miscalculation, this does not mean that the wars of the "Soviet succession" are over.
When the Russia-Ukraine conflict ends, the dividing line between the two armies may simply become a new disputed post-Soviet border where frequent tensions trigger periodic violence. Whether Russia wins or loses, the result will change the balance of power within the former Soviet Union, perhaps causing a new intensification of the old differences with Moldova, Georgia or other states.
The probability of outbreaks of violence in Central Asia remains high, as shown by an anti-government uprising in Kazakhstan, which preceded a Russian intervention earlier this year. A change of government or a military mutiny in Belarus - none of which can be ruled out due to serious discontent with the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenka - could mark the beginning of a dispute over this country's position on the axis between Russia and the West.
In early 1992, an American newspaper warned that the problems that would be caused by the "fragmented (and equipped with nuclear weapons) fragments of the world's last great empire" were just beginning.
Even when today's war is over, the long, violent afterlife of this empire will continue.
Source: BloombergOpinion
