For nearly three years, we’ve been imagining what the world will look like after the pandemic. Now that the new world is taking shape, we can look for the next world-changing phenomenon.

So, up steps the war in Ukraine. What will the world be like after the Soviet, oops, Russian invasion of a sovereign neighbor is past? While acknowledging that Yogi Berra was correct — he said prediction is difficult, especially about the future — I’ll step into that question.

We would like to believe that the entire world recoils in horror at what the sociopath Vladimir Putin has done in Ukraine. Not so. The world’s two most populous countries, India and China, pretend to be neutral. They are neutral in the way a vulture is neutral when it sees a fresh carcass.

Both are taking advantage of Russia’s weakened economy. Since March, India has increased its buying of Russian oil by nearly nine-fold, and China has tripled its buying of Russian natural gas, the BBC reports.

India and China are capitalizing on the moral virtue of European countries which have cut off Russian oil and gas, at great cost to themselves as well as to Russia, in order to support Ukraine. Seems the morality dividing line runs pretty close to the line dividing Europe from Asia.

In taking on Ukraine, Putin has destroyed his reputation, about which he may not care a whit, and has also and ironically destroyed his hope of making Russia great again. If Russia did not have nuclear weapons, it would already be lying on the dust heap of history.

But it does have nuclear weapons, so other countries have had to tiptoe around the big bear rather than openly joining Ukraine to slam-dunk Russia’s surprisingly incompetent army.

Betting people might take the odds that Ukraine prevails and will outlast the Russian bear, though perhaps not regaining all of the territory stolen by Putin. A war of attrition.

When that happens, what becomes of Russia? Here’s one possibility. Russia finally accepts that it won’t again be a first-rate power and accepts a role submissive to China. I won’t go so far as to say Russia becomes a client state of China, in the way that Belarus is a client state of Russia, but China may in the future be calling at least some of the tunes to which Russia dances.

That happens through Russia’s growing dependency on Chinese cash. As China continues to buy up the natural gas that Russia used to sell to Europe, Russia becomes increasingly dependent on China. It is already giving China bargain prices for gas, and we know from our trade experience that China will not, ever, ease up and play nice guy to help out a trade partner.

The foresight of the U.S. and Europe is at least partly responsible for putting Russia in an economic corner. We have imposed and several times tightened sanctions on Russia and its ruling oligarchs, limiting their choices. As any Westerner knows, choices are the key to progress.

To be sure, sanctions don’t always work. They worked against South Africa, helping it to usher in majority rule. They didn’t work in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad destroyed his country in order to hang on to power. But sanctions may be working against Russia.

The key to true strength is the economy, and Russia was already a sinking economy before Putin went ballistic (pun intended). India and China, but especially China, have stepped in to save Russia from itself. India isn’t really a player here, though it is moving up, because its gross domestic product, per capita, is only $2,277 a year. It can’t save Russia. China can.

China is a player, and its domestic product per person is slightly larger than Russia’s — $12,556 to $12,172. By comparison, our gross domestic product per person is $69,287, and Canada’s is $52,051.

And China, despite recent downturns caused largely by its cavalier insistence that it had beaten COVID-19 — it hadn’t and hasn’t, and the lines at the crematoriums are long — is still a growing economy. Not so Russia’s economy. And that gives China great leverage over Russia. As China continues to rise, though more slowly, Russia continues to fall, and more rapidly.

The invasion of Ukraine has weakened Russia both militarily and economically. As Paul Krugman wrote on Wednesday in The New York Times, “the Institute for the Study of War now believes that the Russians are ‘depleting their stocks of artillery ammunition’ to the point where they ‘will struggle to continue their current pace of operations.’”

Putin has made the economic picture worse and has hastened Russia’s slide. Europe has sped up its already fast pace toward sustainable energy. So, should Putin come asking Europe to buy his gas and oil again, the Europeans can brush him aside with the disdain he has richly earned.

You can bet that a Russia-China alliance will not be an alliance of equals. China doesn’t do equal. And in the case of Russia, it needn’t. It has already passed Russia on the economic ladder.

As Krugman put it, “Economic power tends to be decisive in a war of attrition. And Russia is just hugely outclassed by that measure.”

Bob Neal heard an ex-opposition leader in Russia say the only thing that can stop Putin is a bullet in the head fired by anyone willing to sacrifice his own life. So far, no one has stepped up. Neal can be reached at bobneal@myfairpoint.net.

« Previous

Michael Boom: Americans should embrace opportunity, not give up

Next »

Richard Bernard: Today’s politicians should learn from those of yesterday