Applying post-World War I lessons to Cold War II

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may become the first major hot conflict of Cold War II (CWII), which began before Cold War I ended, when the PRC decided to roll tanks into Tiananmen Square and literally squash protesters in June 1989. The first Cold War lasted almost 40 years if measured from its first major hot conflict, which began when North Korea invaded the South in June 1950, until the Berlin wall fell in November 1989. The mistakes made in the aftermath of World War I, specifically the humiliating war reparations that sparked Germany’s turn to fascism and eventually led to the even more deadly World War II, were essentially repeated, albeit through omission rather than commission, in the aftermath of the Soviet empire’s fall and end of the first Cold War. In this respect, Putin has a point.

The first Cold War was an East-West battle of ideologies, specifically authoritarian and totalitarian communism in the East vs. liberal democratic market capitalism in the West. But even before the Germans started tearing down the Berlin wall, the second Cold War was already gestating more than 7,000 kilometers further east. CWII is also a battle of ideologies, but on the more restricted axis of authoritarian vs democratic governance for now, although China appears to be backtracking on the economic freedom with its tech company crackdown and pivot toward “common prosperity” (equality of result, maybe?). A decade earlier, China’s Deng Xiaoping, facing the reality that the Chinese people could barely be fed, let alone be allowed to flourish, under the centralized economic planning model of communism, started transitioning to a market economy in preparation for joining the free-market global economy, with his open-door policy in 1979. China remained a one-party state with authoritarian political control, however. According to the West’s script, people who are freed economically will naturally start longing for political freedom and democracy, as well, and that seemed to be the case in China. The longing was neither strong enough nor widespread enough, however, and China’s authoritarians (with Deng Xiaoping on their side) seized power from the reformers during the democracy protests in 1989, clearing the way for squashing China’s seedlings of democracy in Tiananmen Square. China, in other words, was determined to follow its own script, not the West’s.

Meanwhile, Mikael Gorbachev had opened the door to Democracy with his glasnost and perestroika reforms in the mid-1980s, but Russian society, having merely changed its oppressor from the Czar to the Bolsheviks, had never in its history tasted political freedom, and lacked the institutions needed for a thriving liberal democracy. Once the communists lost totalitarian control, Russia instead devolved into a free-wheeling kleptocratic oligarchy and remained so until finally being reined in by the most elite of communist-era bureaucrats, alumni of the KGB. Foremost among them was Vladimir Putin.

Back to the 20th century’s two World Wars, after prevailing in World War II, the allies, learning from the mistakes made in Paris in 1919, chose not to impose onerous reparations, and the US, the only Allied power with the economic resources to do so after the war, instead poured massive resources into helping rebuild the decimated economic and political structures of Germany and Japan. This worked out well.

The West was less magnanimous after its victory in Cold War 1, however. Despite clear evidence of the challenges, rooted in history and culture, that Russia faced in trying to join the West as a free democratic state, there was no Marshal Plan 2. The West celebrated with a few victory laps, some Western companies joined in the scramble for the commanding heights of the Russian economy, and historians started writing about the end of history, and the shattered Russian (Soviet) empire was largely left to pick up the pieces on its own. This did not work out so well.

This brings us to the present. I am writing this on 28 February, Day 5 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and still in the fog of war. Russia’s strategy may very well not be backfiring as badly as it seems and Putin could have planned from the outset on just bloodying Ukraine’s nose and then requesting talks with Ukraine in Belarus on Day 5 so it can extract some concessions and go home. But I expect it to be messier than that. I offer here a prediction that is heavily colored by my confirmation biases and optimism, so don’t make any wagers on it.

First, it appears so far that Putin’s armed forces, both its troops and its tacticians, have significantly underperformed Putin’s expectations, and Putin may have started to wonder if he miscalculated. Likewise, the bravery of the Ukrainian people and their determination to not become a client state of Russia has far exceeded Putin’s expectations. Furthermore, thanks to Putin’s overreach, NATO is more united now than ever; Germany has abruptly decided to pull its weight in defending Europe’s freedom and greatly increased its military spending, while changing the direction of its energy policy to reduce its dependence on Russian energy; there is a groundswell of opposition to Russia’s aggression worldwide, including in Russia proper and famously neutral Switzerland; Elon Musk is joining the battle with his massive resources, moving to ensure the Ukrainians have communications access through his satellite network; there is now talk of completely cutting Russia off from its export markets, including energy; and Russia is already being denied access to air routes and sea lanes. In the span of a few days the conventional wisdom on the effectiveness of sanctions to push back against Putin has gone from “they don’t work” to “how long can Russia hold out before collapsing.”

Putin has already passed the point of being able to pull back without losing face, and soon it may be too late for him to save himself from the oligarchs and his own people. If Putin does wind up in his own spider hole, the West needs to be ready, under strict conditions, to provide Russia generous assistance to reverse course and make a fresh attempt at joining the free world. With Russia no longer causing mischief, it will be a lot easier to deal with China. Coopting China in the 1970s helped the West win the first Cold War. Helping a Putin-less Russia on the path to becoming a liberal democracy, ironically only just now made possible by Putin’s poorly calculated lust for restoring Russian greatness, could enable a true flourishing of the Russian people, create a more difficult environment for China to conquer Taiwan and export its authoritarianism, and eventually bring the free world a relatively bloodless victory in the second Cold War.