It’s been almost exactly eight years since the first Russian push into Ukraine.
Eight years since the EU showed how little it could collectively do for a tentative ally in one of the most important geopolitical regions in the world.
Eight years since the EU was forced to blink and balk when faced with disruptions to its make-or-break dependence on Russian energy exports and its woefully unprepared militaries. How embarrassing.
Now here we are, eight wasted years later.
It seems the lesson wasn’t learned; this time it could face a far harsher lesson.
We’re seeing the same playbook Putin has used to great effect time and time again. Blur the lines between the military and local partisans.
Issue Russian passports and claim citizens are in grave danger.
Chip away on all fronts, especially economic and infrastructure, including and especially computer systems and communications.
What has changed? Certainly not Ukraine’s resilience against such a larger foe. If only it had reliable neighbors that weren’t such fair-weather friends.
EU capabilities to resist Russian aggression are anemic and faltering further.
The most recent report on the EU’s push to bring cybersecurity up to a passable standard is damning. Since being implemented in 2016, the Directive on Security of Network and Information Systems is functionally being starved.
67% of EU countries are underfunding the effort, and 18% haven’t done anything at all to implement the plan.
As for more direct military figures, the EU looks as weak as ever.
According to the World Bank, as a percentage of government spending the EU is around 2.85% as of the latest data (2020) and sinking back to all-time lows.
As a percentage of total GDP, the EU averages just 1.25% in spite of a NATO requirement to spend at least 2% that was put in place 18 years ago.
Sure, individual countries may be small, but total EU GDP accounts for 16% of global GDP compared to the U.S.’s 16.3%. Put in real terms, the U.S. GDP was just under $21 trillion in 2020 while the EU’s was just over $15 trillion.
Yet the EU spent $225 billion compared to the U.S.’s $766 billion. If the EU maintained proportional spending to the U.S. based on GDP (the U.S. spends 3.7%), the EU would have to more than double its budget to around $575 billion.
The U.S. now accounts for 70% of all defense spending by NATO countries. Member nations can no longer field forces with complete dependence on U.S. logistics and intelligence.
Total EU armed force members have shrunk from a high of over 3.5 million to under two million in 2014 during the last invasion. As of 2020, it went down another 50,000.
The EU’s strength may not be in arms, but it certainly carries a lot of economic weight. Too bad that is even more useless eight years after the first invasion. too.
Previous rounds of sanctions have largely removed Russian reliance on above-board money flows into western Europe and North American banking systems.
Russia imports a fraction of what it used to from the EU and the U.S. as well, following the last invasion. In 2013 it imported about $90 billion from the EU compared to nearly $160 billion in 2013. Imports from the U.S. are down to about $5 billion from a high of about $11 billion in 2013.
These are not the kind of numbers that will make a country flinch.
On the other sides of the equations are numbers that will. About 40% of EU natural gas imports come from Russia. Germany relies on it for 22% of its needs and a recession there will bleed across the continent overnight.
Putin undoubtedly sees this and knows he has the winning hand. It is not clear if the EU has any idea of how poorly it has positioned itself, or if it can shed its self-importance and endless bickering in Brussels to admit that it has little international power when push comes to shove.
What is clear is that the EU squandered eight years that could have changed the equation today. Its response will be as timid, weak, and slow as last time.
It is clear that President Biden isn’t going to move as decisively as he claims, with a majority of Americans saying we should not directly intervene and with his abysmal approval ratings.
It is clear that sanctions that can hurt Russia will hurt the EU and the USA more.
It is clear that the last thirty years may have just been halftime in the Cold War, and that military and cybersecurity spending have to go up or Russian dominance will spread back over eastern and central Europe.
And above all, it is clear that no one really has Ukraine’s back. Unfortunately for it, it can’t follow the sage advice that “when no one has your back, move your back.”
A couple months ago I would have said that Putin never would bother. Russia was getting just about all the benefits of a war while spending a fraction of the cost on warmongering. I’m still not sold that this is going to go into a full-on war of occupation and isn’t just a further escalation that cements Russian control over eastern breakaway regions.
The closer I look, though, the clearer it is that he can take it all, and no one can or will do much to stop him.
