Several surprises stand out in the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
First, is the amazing resistance Ukrainians have put up against Russian forces.
“It is impossible to say how many days we will still need to free our land, but it is possible we will do it,” said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday.
This is truly a David-and-Goliath battle where everyone underestimated the fierce resistance of the Ukrainians. Though, unfortunately, it’s unlikely they will ultimately prevail on the battlefield against Russia’s much larger forces, the Ukrainians have won the hearts and minds of the world, spurring the West to get on their bandwagon.
“THE WEST,” according to Stephen Kotkin of Princeton University who teaches Russian history, is not geographical, but rather is represented by a series of institutions and values.
“Russia is European, but not Western,” Kotkin said in a recent issue of The New Yorker. “Japan is Western, but not European.”
“Western” means rule of law, democracy, private property, open markets, respect for the individual, diversity, pluralism of opinion, and all the other freedoms that we enjoy, which we sometimes take for granted.
Democracies also are designed to hold leaders accountable. If they disappoint, they get the boot. Autocrats have no such obligations and see that their removal requires nothing short of revolution.
SECOND, the sanctions — and arming Ukraine to the teeth — were enacted not only quickly but are of historical proportion. To avoid directly engaging with a nuclear opponent, the two measures are the West’s best options.
Together, the United States and the European Union essentially stopped their banks and capital markets from doing business with the vast majority of Russian banks and counterparts. For Europe, which has close economic ties to Russia not only through its purchase of oil and natural gas, but also their banking sectors, the sanctions speak volumes about how they now regard Russian President Vladimir Putin, who only a month ago was a partner.
The “shock and awe” assault has plunged Russia’s currency, the ruble, by more than 40 percent, and is on track to wipe out the economic gains of the past 20 years that Putin has hung his hat on.
Credit goes to President Joe Biden and his administration for sharing their military intelligence of Putin’s plans with European leaders, which forced them, belatedly, to acknowledge that those Russian tanks amassed along Ukraine’s borders were more than a military show of power.
Because U.S. trade with Russia is minimal, Biden knew U.S. sanctions alone would not be nearly as impactful without Europe doing the same.
Within one week of the invasion, Russia was slapped with the biggest sanctions ever placed on a country. That the European Union, a typically fragmented and divided group of 27 sovereign countries, each with a unique relationship with Russia, could get on the same page was nothing short of a miracle.
Two things brought the leaders around.
