Dr. George Friedman on The War in Ukraine

Note: This excerpt is from Dr. George Friedman's 2009 book, The Next 100 Years, where he predicted an early 2020s attack on the Ukraine by Russia.

Excerpt from The Next 100 Years by Dr. George Friedman

For the next generation, until roughly 2020, Russia’s primary concern will be reconstructing the Russian state and reasserting Russian power in the region. During the first phase of Russia’s reassertion of power, until about 2010 or so, Russia will be grossly underestimated. It will be perceived as a fractured country with a stagnant economy and a weak military. In the 2010s, when the confrontation intensifies on its borders and its immediate neighbors become alarmed, the greater powers will continue to be dismissive. The United States in particular tends to first underestimate and then overestimate enemies. By the middle of the 2010s, the United States will again be obsessed with Russia.

Russia is the immediate strategic threat to Europe. Russia is interested not in conquering Europe, but in reasserting its control over the former Soviet Union. From the Russian point of view, this is both a reasonable attempt to establish some minimal sphere of influence and essentially a defensive measure. However, it is a defensive measure that will immediately affect the three Baltic states, which are now integrated into European institutions. Obviously the Eastern Europeans want to prevent a Russian resurgence.

The Russians can’t avoid trying to reassert power, and the United States can’t avoid trying to resist. But in the end Russia can’t win. Its deep internal problems, massively declining population, and poor infrastructure ultimately make Russia’s long-term survival prospects bleak. And the second cold war, less frightening and much less global than the first, will end as the first did, with the collapse of Russia.

Why Russia Must Expand

The Orange Revolution in Ukraine, from December 2004 to January 2005, was the moment when the post–Cold War world genuinely ended for Russia. The Russians saw the events in Ukraine as an attempt by the United States to draw Ukraine into NATO and thereby set the stage for Russian disintegration. Quite frankly, there was some truth to the Russian perception. If the West had succeeded in dominating Ukraine, Russia would have become indefensible. The southern border with Belarus, as well as the southwestern frontier of Russia, would have been wide open. In addition, the distance between Ukraine and western Kazakhstan is only about four hundred miles, and that is the gap through which Russia has been able to project power toward the Caucasus. We should assume, then, that under these circumstances Russia would have lost its ability to control the Caucasus and would have had to retreat farther north from Chechnya. The Russians would have been abandoning parts of the Russian Federation itself, and Russia’s own southern flank would become highly vulnerable. Russia would have continued to fragment until it returned to its medieval frontiers. Had Russia fragmented to this extent, it would have created chaos in Eurasia—to which the United States would not have objected, since the U.S. grand strategy has always aimed for the fragmentation of Eurasia as the first line of defense for U.S. control of the seas, as we have seen. So the United States had every reason to encourage this process; Russia had every reason to block it.

[The Russians] have to return, and move as far west as possible. That means the Baltic states and Poland are, as before, problems Russia has to solve. Defining the limits of Russian influence will be controversial. The United States—and the countries within the old Soviet sphere—will not want Russia to go too far. The last thing the Baltic states want is to fall under Russian domination again. Neither do the states south of the northern European plain, in the Carpathians. The former Soviet satellites—particularly Poland, Hungary, and Romania—understand that the return of Russian forces to their frontiers would represent a threat to their security. And since these countries are now part of NATO, their interests necessarily affect the interests of Europe and the United States. The open question is where the line will be drawn in the west.

Given American power, there will be no direct attack by the Russians, nor will the Americans allow any adventures by their allies. Rather, the Russians will seek to bring pressure on the United States elsewhere in Europe and in other parts of the world. For example, they will seek to destabilize countries on their border, like Slovakia and Bulgaria. The confrontation will spread along the entire frontier between Russia and the rest of Europe. Russia’s basic strategy will be to try to break up NATO and isolate Eastern Europe.

Polish support will be thrown behind the Balts. The Russians will pull the Ukrainians into their alliance with Belarus and will have Russian forces all along the Polish border, and as far south as the Black Sea. At this point the Russians will begin the process of trying to neutralize the Balts. This, I believe, will all take place by the mid-2010s.

The Role of NATO and Germany

The real question is what the rest of Europe might do—and especially, what Germany might do. Neither [Germany nor France] wants another confrontation with Russia. They are insular nations, and Germany is dependent on Russian natural gas. The Germans are trying to reduce this dependency and probably will to some extent, but they will continue to depend on the delivery of a substantial quantity of natural gas, which they will not be able to do without. The Russians will therefore argue to the Germans that the Americans are again using them to contain Russia, but that the Russians, far from threatening Germany, have a shared interest—a stable, neutral buffer between them, consisting of an independent Poland. The question of the Baltic states should not, they will argue, enter into it. The only reason Americans would care about the Baltics is if they were planning aggression against Russia. Russia will be prepared to guarantee Baltic autonomy in the context of a broad confederation, as well as Polish security, in return for reduction of arms and neutrality. The alternative—war—would not be in the interests of the Germans or the French.

[Moreover, t]he Germans are now in a comfortable position with a buffer between them and the Russians, free to focus on their internal economic and social problems. In addition, the heritage of World War II weighs heavily on the Germans. They will not want to act alone, but as part of a unified Europe.

Atlantic Europe sees Germany as a buffer against Russia and will see any threat in the Baltics as being irrelevant to their interests. Therefore, they will not join the coalition Germany needs to face the Russians. So the most likely outcome will be German inaction, limited American involvement, and a gradual return of Russian power into the borderland between Europe and Russia.

[T]here is another scenario. In this scenario Germany will recognize the imminent danger to Poland in Russian domination of the Baltics. Seeing Poland as a necessary part of German national security, it will thus exercise a forward policy, designed to protect Poland by protecting the Baltics. Germany will move to dominate the Baltic basin. Since the Russians will not simply abandon the field, the Germans will find themselves in an extended confrontation with the Russians, competing for influence in Poland and in the Carpathian region. Germany will find itself, of necessity, both split off from its aggressive past and from the rest of Europe. While the rest of Europe will try to avoid involvement, the Germans will be engaged in traditional power politics. As they do that, their effective as well as potential power will soar and their psychology will shift. Suddenly, a united Germany will be asserting itself again. What starts defensively will evolve in unexpected ways.

This is not the most likely scenario. However, the situation might galvanize Germany back into its traditional role of looking at Russia as a major threat, and looking at Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe as a part of its sphere of influence and as protection against the Russians. This depends partly on how aggressively the Russians move, how tenaciously the Balts resist, how much risk the Poles are willing to take, and how distant the United States intends to be.

The United States, always excessively aggressive from the European point of view, will be stirring up unnecessary trouble in Eastern Europe as a threat to the Russians. If the Germans allow NATO to do this, they will be drawn into a conflict they don’t want. Therefore, I believe they will block NATO support for Poland, the Baltics, and the rest of Eastern Europe—NATO requires unanimity to function, and Germany is a major power. The Russian expectation will be that the shock of the withdrawal of NATO support would cause the Poles and others to buckle.

The Rise of Poland and Russia’s Collapse

The opposite happens. Poland, caught in its historic nightmare between Russia and Germany, will become even more dependent on the United States. The United States, seeing a low-cost opportunity to tie down the Russians and split Europe down the middle, weakening the European Union in the process, will increase its support for Eastern Europe. Around 2015 a new bloc of nations, primarily the old Soviet satellites coupled with the Baltic states, will emerge. Far more energetic than the Western Europeans, with far more to lose, and backed by the United States, this bloc will develop a surprising dynamism.

[A]s the Russians press on the Poles from the east, the Germans won’t have an appetite for a third war with Russia. The United States, however, will back Poland, providing it with massive economic and technical support. Wars—when your country isn’t destroyed—stimulate economic growth, and Poland will become the leading power in a coalition of states facing the Russians.

The United States will use its traditional method for supporting [Eastern European] countries: technology transfer. As we approach 2020, this method will be much more effective. The new technology for warfare will require smaller, more efficient military forces, meaning that lesser countries can wield military power disproportionately if they have access to advanced technologies. The United States will be eager to increase the power of Poland and the Baltic countries and have them tie down the Russians. If Russia has to be contained, this is the best way to contain it.

A low-grade global confrontation will be under way by 2015 and will intensify by 2020. Neither side will risk war, but both sides will be maneuvering. By 2020 this confrontation will be the dominant global issue—and everyone will think of it as a permanent problem. The confrontation will not be as comprehensive as the first cold war. The Russians will lack the power to seize all of Eurasia, and they will not be a true global threat. They will, however, be a regional threat, and that is the context in which the United States will respond. There will be tension all along the Russian frontier, but the United States will not be able to (or need to) impose a complete cordon around Russia as it did around the Soviet Union. Given the confrontation, the European dependence on hydrocarbons, much of it derived from Russia, will become a strategic issue. The American strategy will be to de-emphasize the focus on hydrocarbon energy sources. This will kick into high gear the American interest in developing alternative sources of energy. Russia, as before, will focus on its existing industries rather than on the development of new ones. That will mean increased oil and natural gas production rather than new energy sources. As a result, Russia is not going to be in the forefront of the technological developments that will dominate the later portions of the century.

It will matter a great deal where the fault line lies. If Russia’s resurgence is to be a minimal crisis, the Russians will dominate Central Asia and the Caucasus and possibly absorb Moldova, but they will not be able to absorb the Baltic states, or dominate any nations west of the Carpathians. If the Russians do manage to absorb the Baltics and gain significant allies in the Balkans, like Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece—or Central European countries such as Slovakia—the competition between the United States and Russia will be more intense and frightening.

In the end though, it won’t truly matter. Russian military power will be severely strained confronting the fraction of American military power that the United States decides to wield in responding to Russia’s moves. Regardless of what the rest of Europe does, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania will be committed to resisting Russian advances and will make any deal the United States wants in order to gain its support. The line therefore will be drawn in the Carpathian Mountains this time, rather than in Germany as it was during the Cold War. The Polish northern plains will be the main line of confrontation, but the Russians will not move militarily. The causes that ignited this confrontation—and the Cold War before it—will impose the same outcome as the Cold War, this time with less effort for the United States.

The last confrontation occurred in Central Europe. This one will take place much farther to the east. In the last confrontation China was an ally of Russia, at least in the beginning. In this case China will be out of the game. Last time, Russia was in complete control of the Caucasus, but now it will not be, and it will be facing American and Turkish pressure northward. In the last confrontation Russia had a large population, but this time around it has a smaller and declining population. Internal pressure, particularly in the south, will divert Russian attention from the west and eventually, without war, it will break. Russia broke in 1917, and again in 1991. And the country’s military will collapse once more shortly after 2020.

Dr. George Friedman?is an internationally recognized?geopolitical?forecaster, international affairs strategist and best-selling author. As Founder and Chairman of?Geopolitical Futures, an online publication dedicated to forecasting the course of global events, Friedman combines his passion for writing and publishing for his readers world wide who follow international affairs.

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