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Still more on Russia and Ukraine

Brian Leiter

A propos this, philosopher Jozef Müller (UC Riverside) kindly gave permission to share his interesting observations(I have not seen this point elsewhere):

I just read the post on your blog about the cause of Ukraine conflict (lecture by John Mearsheimer). One thing I keep somehow not seeing in the discussions, his including, is the issue of gas/oil which seems rather obvious to me. The former Soviet republics around the Caspian sea have large reserves and they have been trying to supply Europe without relying on Russia as a transport route (which it uses as a political leverage). Azerbaijan has recently succeeded – by the pipeline that goes through Georgia to Turkey and Turkmens want to join (but Russia is preventing the building of that connection through the Caspian sea – they also invaded Georgia at the time this pipeline was an issue I think). Russia has had to pay Ukraine for transport and it has been trying to circumvent it – Nordstream I and II, for example and it’s been squabbling over it with Ukraine for decades. However, Ukraine now has proved oil and gas reserves that it could sell to Europe on its own – with already some built infrastructure (see e.g. https://hir.harvard.edu/ukraine-energy-reserves/) but still in need of large investment. Much of it is in the Donbas region. This is, long term, a threat to Russia’s gas and oil business – it could significantly lower Europe’s dependence on it. So by annexing it, they get to control the future (or much of it) and they also get to cut their expenses to pay for transport of it to Europe. Given Russia’s dependence on gas and oil, this seems to me a pretty obvious motive (though I don’t want to claim the motive – probably there is a lot of causes).

Comments from informed readers welcome; they will, of course, be moderated for relevance!

 

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14 responses to “Still more on Russia and Ukraine”

  1. Matt

    I don't think the Russian invasion of Georgia fits very well with the argument above. The Russia-Georgia war was in 2008 (over issues dating back to the breakup of the Soviet Union but building since the "Rose revolution" in 2003 – like the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, when Russia tried to murder the more EU friendly/democracy friendly political candidate in Ukraine, an important event too often overlooked in these accounts) but the pipeline had been in the works from the 1990s, and was operational by 2006. So, it was already a done deal well before the invasion of Georgia. I'm modestly skeptical that oil and gas play a major role in the Ukraine conflict. It's probably a factor, but I doubt it's a major one. But, it doesn't seem that the invasion of Georgia – given that the pipeline was working several years before it and continues to work well after it – provides any real support for the claim, whatever its independent plausibility may be.

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  2. Nick Drew

    Wherever it fits in the hierarchy of motivation, it is certainly true that Russia is an oil-and-gas economy which is running out of cheaply-produced resources. The next tier of indigenous Russian hydrocarbons will be a lot more expensive to produce, particularly as their technology is not leading-edge. (With a much greater carbon footprint, too.)

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  3. Adrian Bardon

    Here is a great overview making an extremely persuasive case that this is, indeed, all about oil and gas:

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  4. LFC

    It's likely that the Russian invasion of Ukraine will result in a long-term reduction in European imports of Russian oil and gas, since reducing that dependence on Russian energy is part of the sanctions that have been imposed. And once the dependence has been reduced, it's not likely to return to its former levels. So if the invasion of Ukraine was intended to safeguard Russia's position as energy supplier to Europe, it has backfired because it is having exactly the opposite effect. My own view, as admittedly a non-expert on the region, is that the invasion had a mixture of motives, both "material" and ideologicalal, and that realist
    interpretations, while of some use, incorrectly downplay or ignore the latter, Prof. Leiter's view to the contrary notwithstanding.

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  5. Nick Drew

    "if the invasion of Ukraine was intended to safeguard Russia's position as energy supplier to Europe, it has backfired because it is having exactly the opposite effect"

    Safeguarding energy exports may or may not have been a motive, but at very least Putin believed they were too important to Germany, Austria, Italy et al, for those nations to put them willingly at hazard. Being overlord of an oil-and-gas economy, he was always acutely aware of the European nations' utter dependency on his natural gas (and indeed oil).

    But (doubtless to his amazement and dismay) we observe that most of the populace and the politicians of those countries were not so aware! The speed with which they rushed to advocate & impose fairly extreme sanctions, with airy statements that Russia's gas could quickly be dispensed with, surprised all those who knew the true situation. Such was their ignorance, high-ranking German government ministers even stated they would throw their mandatory program of decommissioning nuclear power plants into reverse – a physical impossibility, as they were quickly to learn.

    It seems that a lot of people, including many who should have known better, believed it would be relatively quick to accelerate the transition to wind and solar power – a line that has indeed been widely advanced by greens. In truth, Germany and others are very many years away from such a possibility. In the meantime (as Putin knew and was banking on them also knowing), they will suffer greatly if his gas is not available to them, for one reason or another, next winter.

    In such ways does hard reality eventually make itself known!

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  6. Timothy Sommers

    I don't want to weigh in claiming to have any expertise on the war, but I have a question about how "realism" is being used in the debate here. It looks to me like the marque issue of the debate is whether the US/NATO or Putin/Russia is more to blame or at fault. But that can't be right. Doesn't realism eschew the issue of fault or blame as useless moralizing? Maybe, the issue is who caused the war. But from any perspective, including a realist one, their any number of causes that were only jointly sufficient. Why emphasize what one side did over the other? That looks like fault in drag to me. Maybe, the claim is that Putin/Russia had to act as they did, but the US/NATO had options to avoid the war. But, again I am no expert, but that seems, at best, a highly contestable position. Besides, why did Putin have to invade the Ukraine? Classical realism about political international relations says because any state exists to defend and expand it's power. The trouble with that is that it is not helpful. To paraphrase an old economics joke, that point of view has predicted 10 out of the last 2 invasions.

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  7. Timothy Sommers

    Sorry "there" not "their" obviously.

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  8. Brian Leiter

    That's a bit of a caricature of the realist literature. Mearsheimer's The Tragedy of Great Power Politics is a good place to start.

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  9. John Collins

    While issues of supply of oil and natural gas are clearly important to Russia, it strikes me as wild speculation to give them prominence in the explanation of the current conflict, which really began in 2014 with the US-backed coup. It is also worth pointing out that Russia didn't invade Georgia in 2008, but responded to a Georgian incursion into disputed areas within which Russian forces were serving as peacekeepers – not my prejudice, but the findings of an EU report (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-georgia-russia-report-idUSTRE58T4MO20090930)

    The three most substantial books on the Russia-Ukraine conflict (Sakwa's Frontline Ukraine, Levin's Russia & Ukraine, and D'Aneri's Ukraine & Russia) give such detail as to render the current situation almost inevitable without oil or gas being in the picture. BTW, I strongly recommend Sakwa's book.

    Mearsheimer does not ignore ideology, but only argues that it does not have explanatory priority, in the sense that ideology can play a role, but does not contradict 'realism' and is not explanatory all by itself (TGPP, p. 11).

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  10. LFC

    "which really began in 2014 with the US-backed coup"

    There's some disagreement about how to characterize it: some say U.S.-backed coup, others say a popular uprising that the U.S. (and EU too?) supported. I can't claim to have gone into or to remember clearly the details, but it does seem to be a disputed point.

    "Mearsheimer does not ignore ideology"

    True, but in Tragedy of Great Power Politics he gives it a very subordinate place. It's been a while since I read TGPP, but as I recall in the opening pages he likens his theory to a flashlight: it doesn't illuminate everything, but it shines a bright light on some key things (that's a very loose paraphrase, I'm not checking the passage).

    Some of these theoretical disputes pretty much boil down to: if you're going into a dark room (i.e., a situation in need of explanation), would you rather go with Mearsheimer's flashlight or someone else's? I'd rather go with someone else's. (But the book is nonetheless worth reading, imo.)

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  11. John Collins

    It would certainly be tendentious to call the events of 2014 as 'US-organised/planned', but there was a coup, and that it is not described that way in Western commentary tells us a lot about the discipline of Western intellectuals. At any rate, a violent overthrow of an elected president took place, which was supported by the EU and the US prior to and immediately after the deposing of the president – both parties having a vested interest in the outcome. It also bears noting that Yanukovych was not a 'Putin puppet' – relations between the two were actually quite cool. He has subsequently been labeled that way to fit the favoured narrative.

    I have no particular commitment to Mearsheimer's brand of realism, but he is very careful, detailed, and comprehensive in his analyses. It is nothing short of a disgrace how he has been smeared and wilfully misrepresented by people with a fraction of his honesty and insight – not that I think you are guilty on this score, of course.

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  12. Nick Drew

    As regards the role of ideology, below is (i) an interesting recent blog post and (ii) related essay, by Andrey Ilnitsky, key aide to the Russian defence minister, in which he argues that since (in his view) Russia cannot win the 'information war' which he classifies as 'tactical', it should major on the ideological front ('strategic' – "the struggle for values and meanings").

    Of course, that doesn't make ideology the primary driver (though it would be consistent with that). The way he sets up the discussion, it's more that he considers ideology is an area of (relative) strength for Russia: "Power is in truth … Unlike Western European dualism … mixing and allowing good and evil, justifying lies — within the Russian world, the categories of good and truth are universal." Or so he believes.

    (i) https://amicable.ru/news/2022/05/26/19847/vystuplenie-v-sfrf/
    (ii) https://www.stalkerzone.org/andrey-ilnitsky-power-is-in-truth/

    Reply
  13. John Collins

    I watched the video and found it to be more or less juvenile nonsense. It has five principal flaws.

    First, the very idea that Russia is after Ukraine's natural resources simply fails to fit the facts of the campaign – most of the proven reserves lie outside of the axis of the Russia advances. And even if they were after the resources, it would constitute an insignificant contribution to Russia's current output (Russia has no shale extraction capacity, the shale reserves being unproven anyway).

    Secondly, it makes the unsubstantiated claim that Putin is motivated by Soviet revanchism. I know of no clear evidence for that empirical hypothesis and plenty of evidence against it – Russia happily resolved territory disputes with various neighbours (China, Latvia, Norway) and tolerates various degrees of independence in the post-Soviet states.

    Thirdly, it conflates correlation with causation – that oil prices correlate with Russian military action tells one virtually nothing, and elides the distinctive eitology of the various events.

    Fourthly, it repeats the falsehood that Russia launched an aggressive invasion of Georgia.

    Fifthly, it omits everything but oil and gas.

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  14. Ludovic

    I have absolutely no illusions about the Russian regime, but surely after so many egregious geopolitical lies nothing the US says can be taken even remotely at face value and lamentably this incredulity is almost equally applicable to the Anglo-sphere press when it comes to matters deemed of "vital" interest to their governing elites, which one might summarize as US imperialism tout court.

    Russia's invasion is unquestionably a criminal act of the grossest sort, but the transformation of the Ukraine into a sort of anti-Russia was surely a very perilous provocation indeed. By provocation once specifically means an instrument for the dismantling of the remaining Russian empire, which is to say Russia itself. This would obviously constitute an existential threat to the same, though not one technically recognizable as such under international law.

    The above dynamic seems to be what Kissinger has in mind when he insists on a "realist" interpretation of the Ukraine war as a whole. In short, Russia has "realist" cause, Ukraine less so (by which one means pre-invasion), and the US even less (i.e. instrumentalizing Ukraine to disturb/harry/weaken Russia was an egregiously unnecessary scheme to begin with).

    Obama himself seemed to prophetically emphasize this latter point in an interview he gave to the Atlantic magazine some years back, perhaps because his reasoning, even back then, was independently coincident with what are Kissinger's own assessments even at this late stage in the unfolding of the geopolitical dynamics in question.

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