The ink on our reports, analyses and commentaries — including my own — had barely dried when we went from discussing likely outcomes of a Moscow-Nato standoff, with Ukraine as a sideshow, to a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Head-in-hands friends and associates in the EU (and European parliament) explained (in text messages): “We never thought we’d see war in the union in our lifetimes.”
Without minimising the horrors of death and destruction on the battlefields of Ukraine, there has been an interesting development in Europe’s latest war. With a land, sea and air invasion, the Russians have resorted to a traditional approach to warfare that is very much rooted in the 20th century; boots and heavy armaments on the ground, backed up by firepower from the sky.
In contrast, and within days of the Russian invasion, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen responded in a way more in tune with what we (those of us who study war, not necessarily particular wars) sometimes refer to as 21st-century warfare. This focuses on targeting financial, banking and economic infrastructure and thereby (hopefully) paralysing the opponent.
The EU’s approach may be because of Europe’s aversion to another war, or because there is no shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach. We can only speculate. When Von der Leyen took to the podium late last week, she took aim at the “financial assets” of Russians in European markets, as well as paralysing the assets of Russia’s central bank, freezing its transactions and making it impossible to liquidate its assets.
The objective was (also) to ensure Russian banks were removed from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), the main platform for transferring money from one country to another. This, Von der Leyen said, would stop Moscow from “operating worldwide and effectively block Russian exports and imports”. The aim was to “cripple Putin’s ability to finance his war machine”.
In a separate statement posted by the EU on social media on February 26, a spokesperson for the union said “the Kremlin is not only fighting with weapons in Ukraine. It is also fighting with disinformation. The EU ... is making great efforts to fight the flood of disinformation spread by Putin and his entourage”. This statement is more profound than it seems.
The Russians are fighting a war in the “traditional” way, with weapons on the ground, and the EU is countering Vladimir Putin’s war in more “modern” terms, the way we have come to think of future wars. We imagined these wars of the future would be dominated by technology, robotics, autonomous drones, cyberattacks on financial and banking systems and fewer “boots on the ground”.
In this scenario, wars may move from land invasions (the way Russia is invading Ukraine now) to cybernetic networks, and in the long run in low Earth orbit. It seems as if the EU is moving towards this largely technological domain with minimal human-to-human conflict on battlefields.
The customary “time will tell” ought to be inserted here, but for now there are at least five likely outcomes. A first is that Russia completely takes over Ukraine. It’s hard to conceive of that. A second is that Russia retreats because of friction; a term that is used to differentiate between war as discussed around tables by corpulent generals and actual conflict on battlefields, where the simplest of things becomes exceedingly difficult. This exhausts the battlefield. Putin caves in, tail between his legs.
A third is that the EU succeeds in throttling Moscow. Russia’s war is a failure, and Putin loses. A fourth is that Nato’s most powerful force, the US, enters the battlefield and sparks the hi-tech warfare (mainly drone warfare) that it used effectively in Afghanistan and Iraq — though not completely successfully. In this scenario, Putin also loses.
A fifth possible outcome is that Russia’s war against Ukraine becomes a war of attrition that drags on, and “the people” rise. In this scenario, unlikely as it may seem, political leaders are eliminated or removed from office. What follows is the reconstruction of Ukraine, a reset of political leadership in Moscow, and a large scale social and historical shift for the better in Europe, with high costs in life and infrastructure.
Then again, none of the above may happen. What can be said with some confidence is that Putin has an appointment with destiny. A destiny not entirely of his own making. The West (Western Europe and North America) has been working hard at restoring its intellectual and political-economic leadership in the world.
Steven Pinker has led the charge of restoring faith in the European Enlightenment, and Frances Fukuyama (and his intellectual inheritors) has insisted on the primacy of Western liberal capitalism as it squares off against the Chinese state-led model of capitalism.
It seems that Putin has not been paying attention to large-scale social and historical shifts. It is hard to see him emerging intact and in place. In this sense he has started a fight with history, and the real tragedy is that so many people will suffer or die.
• Lagardien, an external examiner at the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, has worked in the office of the chief economist of the World Bank as well as the secretariat of the National Planning Commission.
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