It has been three years since the invasion of Ukraine began. While the war between Russia and Ukraine goes back much further than that, 2022 is the first time many people have become aware of the ongoing conflict between these two countries. And while Russia has coexisted with the West since the annexation of Crimea, after the invasion, the primary objective of NATO countries was to choke the Russian war machine by imposing sanctions and barring Moscow from international trading and banking systems.
This has been the strategy for three long years, and it’s time to admit that it is not working.
I was saving this subject for a later time to see how President Donald Trump’s diplomatic strategy on Ukraine would play out in the first year of his term. Given how terribly the geopolitical links between the United States and Europe have begun to deteriorate, it is pertinent to think about what was achieved so far with hoping to strangle Russia’s economy together. Speaking sincerely, there cannot be a logical hope to inflict damage on Russia’s war machine through sanctions anymore.
For three years, the United States and the European Union worked in tandem to limit Russia’s participation in the global economy. This was the natural step to follow after cutting off diplomatic ties as, even after the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Donbas, Russia maintained some of its ties to the West via trade agreements and resource deals. This stresses that Russia relies on a capitalist model like most other nations and unilaterally cutting off its access to the international markets appeared the obvious thing to do.
A frequent justification for this strategy was — and still is — that Russia is such an economically inefficient country that, despite its size, it has a GDP smaller than Italy’s, and at any moment, it could face a financial collapse, triggering an uprising against the government. This argument ignores the resilience of Russia’s military industry against embargoes and disregards Russia’s natural response to search for new international markets to replace the West.
Trump’s new policy of negotiations is now leaving Europe alone to carry on with this campaign. The United States is leaving the strategy of economic isolation behind to negotiate with President Vladimir Putin for a ceasefire, followed by either a territorial settlement or a Korean Peninsula-style frozen line of contact between Russia and Ukraine. As a result of this change, and due to the trade war ignited between the United States and the European Union, Europe is now racing to bring the nations within its bloc together for a unified economic policy against Russia.
Europe cannot be expected to succeed in this endeavor. E.U. leader Ursula von der Leyen promoted greater defense spending, while the European Commission suggested diverting funds to build military strength, but the full implementation of any defense program cannot happen instantly. Given the bureaucratic nature of the European Union, it may take years for European nations to not rely on U.S. aid and management for their industrial strength.
The very political identity of European idealism may fracture if military development does not happen soon enough. While the United States is one federal government with centralized authority, the European Union is made of 27 different countries acting in far from complete unison. The sheer scale and speed of von der Leyen’s proposal to build pressure against Russia cannot work without the United States, which now seeks to reestablish ties with Moscow for negotiations.
The true problem this situation reveals is that the West has tried everything it could do to challenge Russia — short of actually going to war with Russia. Without a sustainable industry, Europe cannot maintain economic pressure designed to erode Russia’s strength without direct action.
Supporting Ukraine requires the kind of military-industrial program the European Union cannot create fast enough. Continuous arms supplies require a robust production economy to survive a war of attrition like the Ukraine-Russian war, while financial pressure requires E.U. economies to contend with higher prices for resources and goods outside of Russia. At any rate, such measures may require higher defense budgets at the expense of civilian spending and possible austerity measures to afford bigger armies with conscription using funds from European welfare programs.
I predict that there is simply not enough time, political unity or economic strength for the European Union to maintain its pressure on Russia. Moscow is facing a high rate of inflation and reduced trade, but the speed with which Moscow could then embrace a war-oriented economy shows that Russia can endure a war of attrition for far longer than anyone in Brussels hopes for.
In the end, this leaves Europe with a brutal dilemma: either sidestep democratic bureaucracy and ramp up militarization to engage with Russia directly or continue to impose sanctions at a greatly reduced rate without the United States’ backing and slowly lose the war of attrition against the pace that Russia can support its army. I do not see any alternatives to these options, and of the two, it appears the latter is the predictable outcome.
Deniz Gulay is a sophomore double-majoring in history and Russian.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.