What does Russia's war against Ukraine mean for our global future(s)?

On Feb. 24, Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine without provocation. The attack itself was not unexpected. We could observe a massive mobilization of troops on the borders between the two nations, and Russia forcibly annexed Crimea, part of Ukraine, in 2014. The brutality, however, is unimaginable. And it is escalating. Russia has by now shelled almost all of Ukraine’s major cities; it has destroyed infrastructure needed for electricity and heating. It is a tragedy of alarming and shocking proportions.

On March 22, Peter Schlosser, vice president and vice provost of Global Futures, led a conversation to discuss the war’s impact on interconnected global systems and what it might mean for the future. He was joined by Miki Kittilson, associate dean for faculty success for the College of Global Futures, professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies and principal investigator for ASU ADVANCE; Gary Dirks, senior director of the Global Futures Laboratory, director of LightWorks and professor of practice in the School of Sustainability; and Craig Calhoun, University Professor in social sciences, with appointments in six different schools at ASU. This is a transcript from the conversation. It has been edited for clarity and length.

Peter Schlosser is vice president and vice provost of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory.

Miki Kittilson is associate dean for faculty success for the College of Global Futures, professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies and principal investigator for ASU ADVANCE. Kittilson's research and teaching focus on democratic inclusion and comparative elections, representation, electoral systems, gender justice, political behavior, comparative courts, and party politics.

Gary Dirks is senior director of the Global Futures Laboratory, director of LightWorks and professional of practice in the School of Sustainability. Dirks directs LightWorks, an initiative that capitalizes on ASU's strengths in solar energy and other light-inspired research.

Crag Calhoun is University Professor in social sciences, with appointments in six different schools at ASU. Calhoun's research addresses large-scale social transformations and their impact on politics and social organization. A current focus is on changing patterns of Eurasian integration and implications for the modern world-system.

Schlosser: In this conversation, we will explore what Russia’s war against Ukraine actually means for our future — for the future of the globe as a whole. Why did we have an outbreak of a war that was not triggered by Ukraine? More specifically, how did Russia’s governance structure, which after the fall of the former Soviet Union in 1993 supposedly would move toward a democratic system, become a dictatorship, without checks and balances that are the foundation of democracies?

Kittilson: First, I want to acknowledge the humanitarian tragedy. It is difficult over the past few weeks to think or talk about anything else. How we got to this point has been a long time coming. We have watched an increasingly emboldened Vladimir Putin in Russia. This is within a broader global context of democratic backsliding. We’ve seen an erosion of democracy in many places around the world, to where we are back at the same place we were in 1989 in terms of levels of democracy. Within Russia, in that context, yes, there were under Boris Yeltsin some elections. We saw the beginnings of competitive political parties, and we saw civil society sort of starting to take shape. But by the year 2000, which is the year that Putin was first elected — he’s been in power for 22 years now — things started to unravel, and increasingly, power has been concentrated in the presidency. Overwhelmingly, power in Russia resides within the presidency. There are no checks and balances. The president’s powers are, for all intents and purposes, unlimited. We see this kind of decision-making and this ability to plan these kinds of surprise attacks as enabled by the lack of democratic structures and practices. On the other side, how do we see Ukraine arriving at this point? I think a little bit of background there is important as well, because this is the site of hope. In Ukraine, we see this history of strong civil society. For example, the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, where it was a really powerful collective action where people stood in the cold, to protest the Kremlin-backed presidential candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, who was trying to steal the election from Viktor Yuschenko. We then saw division within domestic politics in Ukraine, and Yanukovych came back to power. But by 2014, we see the Euromaidan revolution and mobilization of powerful collective action. So this really strong civil society, the power of people, that’s the hopeful side in this discussion.

Schlosser: Was Russia ever set up to become a democracy in the way many people in the West were hoping that it would happen?

Craig Calhoun: First off, I don’t think we should consider democracy like a light switch that is either on or off. Democracy is a project. Great phrases like government of the people, by the people, for the people are not just descriptions — they are projects of trying to have more and better and deeper democracy.

When we think about what people want, as part of the underpinnings of democracy, what would they vote for? We need to recognize that self rule is only one of the goods that are in play. Stability, security, prosperity, a sense of being important in the world — these are all things that leaders can offer, alongside or in competition with the goal of self governing.

One of the distinctive features of Russia, but also of a range of authoritarian governments across Asia, is that they are explicitly offering an alternative to democracy. They’re not pretending to be democratic. From the point of view of China or Russia or other authoritarian regimes, there is a proposition of value: We can keep you safe, we can build prosperity and we can stand tall in the world if you stick with us, your authoritarian nationalist leaders.

That story is not just a story about those authoritarians. It’s a story about us. It’s a story about 50 years of degeneration of democracy in the West. We have been backsliding in that long project of trying to have more, better and deeper democracy. And so to Putin, or for that matter, Xi Jinping and others, the West looked weak. The democratic countries look disunified, internally lacking in solidarity and lacking in solidarity with each other. The failure to take action isn’t just that we didn’t see anything happening. It’s that we couldn’t organize the coalitions to do it. Unity among Western countries and others of the established democracies — India’s the world’s largest democracy — has been very hard to sustain in this period. And that’s partly because the global political economy is changing. Deindustrialization is just one piece of a large interdependent story of the transformations of the global political economy, which changes the terms of geopolitics.

Schlosser: As we look at weaknesses of the West that actually helped enable what is playing out right now in Ukraine, we see there is a big role to play for China. How is China playing into the situation in Ukraine?

Dirks: My personal view is that Xi Jinping in China must be absolutely livid about the situation. Absolutely livid. Xi is about to be anointed emperor of China in October. He will be the first party secretary since Mao Zedong to have an unlimited term, certainly since the period when Deng Xiaoping was controlling the Communist Party. He wants to be in a position where he can say this newly muscular China is on the right track. Xi has a lot of sympathy with the project of Russia, in the sense of it being more authoritarian and anti democratic, therefore he doesn’t want to see a weakened Russia come out of this. That’s his political orientation. At the same time, his economy depends on the United States and Europe, and so the very last thing he wants is to find himself in a position where he is explicitly making a choice between these two paths. Xi is probably going to step in to the extent that he can, in terms of supporting Russia with raw materials and purchases. China purchases about a million and a half barrels a day of oil from Russia; it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried to increase that. They purchase a fair bit of natural gas; it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried to increase that as well. That, of course, provides revenue to Russia. But beyond that, and maybe simple things like meals to soldiers, I think that he’s going to do very little to support the Russian position. I’m sure that in the background, he’s pushing very hard to end this war. I don’t think Putin is getting much solace from the Chinese right now.

Schlosser: Can Russia become more dependent on China?

Dirks: Well, I think that depends on how long the situation lasts, and it depends enormously on what the West does at the end of this. If the West decides that it must continue with these extreme sanctions, then Xi and China are going to have to ask, are we going to let a kindred spirit politically go down under pressure from the West? And I think the answer to that is going to be unlikely that they will let Russia go down, they’re going to do whatever they can, without directly antagonizing the West, to keep Putin and Russia going. A more interesting question in that regard is, if Putin’s position in Russia becomes untenable, what would China do at that point? Now, whether that’s likely or not is an entirely different matter.

Schlosser: Let’s go back to the situation in Ukraine. We see terrible suffering. Approaching 4 million people of Ukraine have left the country. It’s about 10% of the population. At this point, they are welcome, more so than, for example, the refugees from Syria. We saw the perturbations that about 1 million Syrian refugees caused in Europe. Now we have close to 4 million Ukrainian refugees. What do we have to expect in terms of absorbing these refugees, giving them some kind of pathway out of despair?

Kittilson: I think it’s really important to point out what we’ve seen so far in terms of welcoming. Take Poland, which welcomed roughly 2 million refugees. Look at the support that they have provided, in terms of shelter, food and sanitation, as well as perhaps some education, protection from gender-based violence and lots of medications. We’ve seen inspiring images of Polish mothers leaving empty baby carriages for the refugees. We do see a contrast to refugees from Syria trying to enter Poland and not being allowed to enter, not receiving medication, not receiving shelter. It’s a stark contrast. I hope we can see some of the good that’s been done as an exemplar for what we need to be doing on a more systemic level for refugees from many different wars and conflicts, and also for natural disasters. We need to see a more robust response. We need to think about the role of international organizations in long-term strategies for refugees — we are going to see more challenges to peace and justice. And at the national level, democracy and inclusive, vibrant civil society are more important than ever when we’re facing these really complex challenges. At the very time we need more democracy, often what we’re seeing is institutions that are incapable of addressing these urgent and complex issues, and it’s a cycle leading to more democratic backsliding. We need to think about democratic design for more participation, for more inclusion, so that we can better address many of these challenges.

Calhoun: I’ll add that the failure of Europe in 2015, when refugees were Syrian and African, is largely down to racism. It needs to be taken seriously as a failure. But it was also an institutional failure. Europe never managed to come up with a refugee policy that made any sense when it faced this huge onslaught of refugees. Now we have refugees who are more culturally similar and who look more similar being embraced. There is an economic reason for that — Europe has lots of vacant jobs to fill, so the refugees can be absorbed. But what we see is this other obstacle, racism, and so one of the questions is, are we regrouping in the world around certain kinds of identities? Or, is there going to be a potential for Europe to live up to its own aspirations of diversity, a question we must also ask about in the U.S.?

Schlosser: Depending on how you look at it, the refugees might be considered the lucky ones. If you’re looking at those who are left behind, either by choice or not by choice, they are increasingly suffering. How far will that suffering go? Can we imagine how that ends?

Dirks: I think that’s the fundamental question with respect to how far this escalates. The United States and NATO have explicitly said they will not put troops into Ukraine. That, of course, then sets a frame within which Putin can imagine how he would prosecute the war going forward. The question for the West is, are we okay with that? Will we sit here for months and watch one city after the next be leveled and casualties reach into the hundreds of thousands of people? At this point, based on the statements that Western leaders have made, we are going to tolerate that. What I am uncertain about is what will Western populations say? At what point do the populations of the United States or Germany or other EU nations say this is enough? That puts everybody in a very difficult spot. It’s unlikely that Putin wants a conventional war with NATO. NATO massively outnumbers Russia in all respects. Putin’s military has shown that they do not perform well in the field, and this is fighting a highly motivated military, but not one of the best in the world. Would Putin resort to nuclear weapons? If he does, where does that go? I think we’re headed for a really difficult moment, which probably crystallizes in the next two or three months. I don’t really think the Western people, not necessarily governments, but people, are going to tolerate this flattening of Ukraine. Putin can’t easily back out; this is probably existential for him. If he can’t go away with the prize, then why is he needed?

Schlosser: What you just said highlights the mismatch of timescales. We are just four weeks in — I don’t even want to imagine how Ukraine will look in a few months.

Calhoun: It’s not obvious to me that Russia is actually making any progress in military terms. The Russian military has made varying degrees of progress, but it’s been blocked or reversed a lot of the time. It’s not clear that Russia has actually succeeded in taking things over. So Putin is stuck — there’s not any clear way for him to get out of this with anything that looks like a win, which makes the situation extremely volatile. Will he try small-scale nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons are not all gigantic, some of them are small and tactical. It’s a highly volatile situation. The message, which has to be to Putin’s chagrin and a concern for Xi, is that Russia looks weak. It has been stopped by a population a fraction of its size. In terms of its project of exerting power, the impression left isn’t great.

Schlosser: What are the consequences for environmental issues globally? That includes food security — Ukraine is the fourth largest exporter of grain in the world — and energy. What do we see as the major setbacks to the environmental agenda?

Kittilson: I think that has been threaded through a lot of the discussion because both international cooperation and democracy are so bound up with having a multilayer strategy to address environmental challenges. With democracy, not only is there less likely to be war, but also international cooperation is more likely. Amidst just terrible tragedy, and a brutal war, the fact that the Ukrainian people have stood up, the fact that there are more people around the world standing for democracy and for international solidarity and shared values, might portend some positive consequences for coming together to collectively address problems that are so complex that there’s no other way that they can be resolved. We need to address them at the local level, the national level, the international level. So maybe part of what comes out of this is a renewed commitment to the democratic process. In that way, Ukraine is a harbinger of the future of democracy and the future of our commitment to addressing global challenges.

Dirks: From the standpoint of the energy system I’ll make two points. First, I think a major lesson we have to take away is that it’s time to end the hydrocarbon era and end it absolutely as fast as we can. And not simply because of climate. But also because of the interrelationship with the financial system — there’s just too much money going to places where we really don’t want money going. And the second point we must take away from this. And this is really, really, really important. As we disengage with hydrocarbons, we’ve got to keep security right at the top of the list of how we do it. It’s going to be easy to identify pathways to disengage with hydrocarbons that will exacerbate the security situation, not make it easier. Wars start over hydrocarbons and energy, not this particular one, but many do. So those are the two things we have to do: disengage with hydrocarbons as quickly as possible, and watch our backs.

Schlosser: Well said. What do you see as the “ideal” end to this conflict? How does the world repair relations with Russia and support rebuilding Ukraine’s infrastructure?

Calhoun: We have to talk about more than Russia and Ukraine, but let’s start there. The regime that is doing this in Russia is not the Russian people, we need to be careful about that. There are lots of Russians fleeing into exile, there are Russians protesting and there are many Russians being put in prison. We need to be careful to distinguish the people from the power structure. And that’s going to matter in the long run. Second, there will be a big question about what is left of Ukraine. How much remains as a sovereign country to which refugees might return, and how much support is there for rebuilding? Beyond that, a good exit to this is not a new Cold War. If we fall back into that, it is risky and dangerous. It’s risky and dangerous if it’s a march to nuclear war. It’s risky and dangerous if it is economically disruptive on a huge scale. We need to find a frame that looks forward to a world with much greater economic integration that is not completely under Western domination, including the integration of Asia, and figuring out paths of coexistence.