It's definitely far more complicated than Russia bullying little poor Ukraine and showing the middle finger to the western political cabal. At the very least, today's events cannot be isolated from the rest of history and assumed as though the status quo can be forever preserved because it has existed for merely 30 years up until this point. 30 years is nothing in the context of geopolitics.
But the bad news is - is that even this supposed "status quo" of power balance in eastern Europe which supposedly "existed" for the past 30 years, actually didn't. Because even though the borders of nations there haven't really changed, the borders of political/military alliances have changed, and continue to change at an extremely fast pace. So in a way, you could say there was no "peace", or rather, no "settled" balance of power in eastern Europe at any moment since the collapse of the USSR.
It is of course very easy to assume that there was a balance of sort, and then assume that suddenly, out of nowhere, Russia developed a boner for war, despite encouraging the exact opposite for most of its modern history.
Even though many here will disagree with me, I personally am a proponent of the idea that borders of "political bodies" (aka states, alliances, etc.) are primarily decided by nature, rather than by free will of any particular group or set of interests. And whenever free will attempts to experiment with or imposes borders that are fundamentally unnatural, war becomes inevitable, as nature inevitably pushes the scales back into a balancing state. The stand-off between Russia and NATO is not in of itself a stand-off between Putin's Russia and the "liberal west". It's a stand-off between a "western vector of power" vs. the "eastern vector of power", it existed always and will persist always, regardless of what ideologies, leaders, resources are in question. And the reality of the past 30 years, is that the western vector has been actively pushing eastwards. The east may very well spring-back into its natural state, be that today, or tomorrow, or in a 100 years, but it will inevitably happen.
So then the question is, can something be done to avoid shaking the boat of balance in Europe? And if it can, who should attempt it?
I know western hawks, including followers of Zbigniew Brzeziński, assume that you can avoid this push-and-pull between the western and eastern vectors of power, by simply eliminating the existence of one of the vectors, in this case, eliminating the existence of the eastern vector, either by breaking up the USSR, or by ideas like the one below:
View attachment 297314
It is, of course, no surprise, that Russian strategists and ideologs see this prospect, and can imagine a future where the Russian Federation, be it by the pressure of sanctions, political upheavals, financial crises, arms races, etc. would potentially segregate into smaller territories, similar to how the USSR did; and it is natural that they feel the potentiality of this threat and constantly keep it in mind whenever they form their foreign strategy and narratives.
However, my opinion is, my understanding of the nature of geopolitics
expects the existence of a western and eastern vector of power, and even if Russia's vector is somehow destroyed under any pretexts or circumstances available, it will merely, long-term, result in resurfacing at a later time. Thus making this attempt of pushing beyond the limits of a power balance between two sides ultimately a futile effort in the long run. The only thing it can achieve is human suffering which otherwise could (perhaps) be avoided.
The Ukrainian crisis is not the start of a "battle" of any sort, it's just one of the many phases of a bigger battle that has been raging for the past 30 years between the east and west.
www.militaryimages.net
