Introduction
After the end of the Second World War and the gradual proliferation of nuclear weapons, direct military confrontations between independent states, which have been the main threat to international security for thousands of years, became a relative rarity in international relations. Yet they were quickly superseded by the indirect conflicts waged within the third countries in the form of coups, revolutions, and, not infrequently, civil wars. During the Cold War period, such conflicts were usually dominated and defined by the competition between the United States and NATO countries on the one side and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact Organization on the other side. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, they did not become less frequent, and the period from 2001 onward demonstrates a fair share of civil wars with the interference of competing foreign powers within the third countries. In particular, the civil war in Ukraine. Rooted in regional and political differences as well as external political allegiances, it illustrates the concepts of the security dilemma and unipolar/multipolar international systems and has wide-reaching implications for international security.
Background of the War
One may trace the background of the ongoing civil war in Ukraine to the complex legacies it received from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. On the one hand, Ukraine was the second-largest of the former republic of the USSR, with a population of up to 52 million and considerable economic potential. On the other hand, the ethnic and ideological differences within the country’s large population threatened the unity of the young nation since its earliest days. While the Ukrainian language is the most common in the country’s western regions, the East and the Crimean peninsula are predominantly Russian-speaking. As a result, the population of the Eastern regions and Crimea has strong ethnic and cultural ties to Russia, while the Ukrainian identity was rooted in Western and, to a lesser degree, central regions. While these differences were not necessarily explosive in and of themselves, they almost invariably emerged in times of heated political crisis within the country. The status of receiving education and services in the Russian language, still spoken by a considerable proportion of the population, was also an inflammatory issue in its own right.
Apart from the ethnic differences, Ukraine also continuously suffered from a strong ideological divide. Aiming to forge a unified sense of Ukrainian national, many Ukrainian politicians over the years turned to divisive historical periods and figures. The most famous and most divisive among these is Stepan Bandera, a famous Ukrainian nationalist of the Second World War era, Hitler’s collaborationist, and arguably a prominent participant in the mass executions of Jews and Poles. During the presidency of Viktor Yuschenko (2005-2010), the lionization of Bandera as a fighter for Ukrainian independence against the oppressive Soviet regime became a staple of the official ideology. This move gained the most ardent support in the westernmost regions of Ukraine, which were annexed into the Soviet Union after the Second World War and had never been parts of the USSR of the Russian Empire previously. Conversely, it provoked resentment among those parts of the country’s population that were not as hostile to the Soviet era and rejected the idea of viewing a Nazi collaborationist as a hero. Thus, the ideological disagreements over the basis for Ukrainian identity proved yet another basis for internal divisions.
Last but not least, Ukraine’s complex geopolitical situation also contributed to the emergence of the war. Situated between Russia and Central Europe – which, during the 1990s, was quickly communizing and being absorbed into NATO and the European Union – the country was of immediate interest to both Russia and the EU, and by extension, the USA. Depending on the development of the situation, Ukraine could be either a valuable partner or a strategic threat to either party, which led to active foreign involvement in its internal affairs. For example, in 1994, the Budapest memorandum obligated Ukraine to adhere to the nuclear weapon non-proliferation treaty and transfer the nuclear weapons it inherited from the Soviet Union to Russia in exchange for security guarantees from the USA, Britain, and Russia. As one can see, the USA, European states, and Russia alike came to see Ukraine as paramount for the international security in Europe early in the 1990s. However, the conflicting visions of Ukraine’s future and the different ideas of security entertained by Russia on the one hand and the EU and USA on the other hand complicated the management of the situation.
These disagreements manifested most clearly in the months immediately preceding the outbreak of the war – that is, late 2013 and early 2014. For most of its independent existence, Ukraine tried to maintain friendly relations with Russia while actively pursuing membership in the EU and NATO. However, the growing popular pressure for the association with the EU undermined the potential for continuing this course. After Ukrainian President Yanukovich refused to sign the treaty of association with the EU in 2013, the popular uprising with diplomatic support from abroad deposed his regime early in the following year. Soon after, the Russian-oriented forces in Crimea declared the peninsula’s secession from Ukraine and asked for Russian, which was swiftly and willingly provided in the form of annexation. Seeing the success, the pro-Russian population in the Eastern regions (predominantly Donetsk and Luhansk) declared their secession as well, prompting a military response from the new Western-oriented government of Ukraine created after the deposition of Yanukovich. Since then, eastern Ukraine remained the battlefield between the separatists backed by Russia and the official Ukrainian government supported by the USA and the EU.
Description of the War
As mentioned above, the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 prompted the pro-Russian separatist force in other regions to take a more active stand and pursue their agenda more vigorously. In March and April, pro-Russian activists occupied government buildings in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, proclaiming their secession and the establishment of the “people’s republics” bearing the same names. The Geneva agreements of April 2014, involving the USA, EU, Russia, and Ukraine and promising decentralization and amnesty in exchange for the separatists’ surrender, proved futile. After that, the national government in Kyiv responded with force, using both the army and the paramilitary forces of Ukrainian nationalists in an attempt to drive the separatists back. During this stage, Russia’s involvement in the conflict became more prominent. Igor Girkin (better known under his nom-de-guerre Strelkov), a former Russian intelligence officer, led the separatist forces in their fight against the Ukrainian military and the paramilitary groups that supported it. The active military engagement began in May 2014, marking the beginning of the civil war with transparent external involvement.
One may loosely define the first phase of the civil war as the period from May 2014, when engagements began in earnest, to February 2015 and the signing of the Second Minsk Agreements. This was the most active phase of the conflict, as both sides scrambled to consolidate their power over the territories they sought to control. While the Ukrainian forces enjoyed initial success, almost coming close to separating the ‘people’s republics’ from the Russian border in August 2014, the following counter-offensive drove them back. While the degree of the direct participation of the Russian regular army in the events is unclear, there is no doubt that Russia provided ample supply of weapons, vehicles, and ammunition and that thousands of Russian volunteers and mercenaries fought alongside the separatist forces. The shooting of the Malaysian Airlines flight 17 in July 2014 is also widely believed to be performed by the separatists using Russian-supplied weapons. At the same time, Russia has consistently denied direct involvement in the conflict and posited that it had only sent humanitarian aid. By early 2015, both sides had largely fought each other into a stalemate.
Throughout 2014, the international community attempted to quell the conflict and begin the peace process. The First Minsk Agreements of September 2014, named after the capital of Belarus where negotiations took place, were largely meaningless and did not lead to a considerable change in the intensity of the conflict. In February 2015, after another round of negotiations involving Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France, the Second Minsk Agreement was accepted. Its provisions stipulated the immediate ceasefire, exchange of prisoners, enhanced autonomy for Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and free regional elections. While none of the provisions mentioned in the agreements were fulfilled until this day, the Minsk Agreements still succeeded in reducing the intensity of the fighting. Simultaneously, the USA and the EU reinforced sanctions against first imposed against Russia for the annexation of Crimea and introduced new ones. The USA also provides military equipment to Ukrainian forces to allow them to better resist Russian-supplied separatists. Thus, one may summarize the period from February 205 to this day as the second phase of the civil war in Ukraine characterized by reduced intensity and greater involvement of Western actors to counter Russian influence.
Reasons of the War
Reasons of the civil war in Ukraine are closely connected to the conflict’s background, which is discussed above. One key reason is the fragility of Ukrainian national identity as compared to pre-existing regional and ethnic identities within the Ukrainian state. In particular, the Donbas region, to which the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk belong, has developed and reinforced its particular identity during the first decades of Ukrainian independence. Close ties with Russia were one defining feature of this identity, and the dissatisfaction with the post-Soviet deindustrialization was also particularly prominent in this coal-mining region. Close economic ties with Russia, which would likely be damaged or altogether separated if Ukraine joined the EU, and the perception of the impending wealth redistribution in favor of other regions both prompted hostility to the new Kyiv government created after the violent ouster of Yanukovich from power. Additionally, the participation of far-right Ukrainian nationalists known for a staunch anti-Russian position raised concerns in the predominantly Russian-speaking East. Thus, regional identity and economic and ethnic concerns all but ensured that the large proportion of the population of Eastern Ukraine would oppose the new government.
Another major cause of the war was the strategic importance of Ukraine as a neutral country between Russia and NATO, which increased its value to both sides and the likelihood of foreign involvement. For Russia, the perception of Ukraine as a part of its traditional zone of security, fostered throughout the last three hundred years, made any encroachments by a foreign power particularly sensitive. Russian involvement, largely motivated by Ukraine’s drift toward the EU and NATO, led it to provide support to separatists. Russia utilizes numerous strategies to increase and justify its involvement in the region, ranging from peaceful approaches through providing arms and supplies to direct military intervention. An example of a peaceful strategy is the dissemination of Russian passports to the people of Donbas, which allows Russia to claim that it merely aims to protect its citizens and compatriots. An example of a more aggressive involvement is providing training and weapons to separatist fighters and, arguably, using the regular Russian army. In short, the civil war in Ukraine had internal reasons in a political crisis exacerbating long-standing enmities and foreign – largely Russian – involvement caused by strategic concerns.
International Relations (IR) Concepts Relevant to the Case
The first IR concept that is most obviously relevant to the case of the Ukrainian Civil War is the security dilemma. Devised in the 1950s, the security dilemma describes a situation where anxiety to avoid conflict leads actors to bolster their defenses, but each such bolstering is perceived as a potential threat by other actors who proceed to counter it by increasing their own forces, if only for the same goal of maintaining security and preventing conflict. As a result, the security dilemma may create a self-perpetuating cycle of armament and self-maintaining arms race between a number of actors despite each of them aiming to avoid conflict and maintain one’s security.
This is precisely the case with the international competition for the strategic control of Ukraine. In 1990, the Soviet Union (and soon-to-be Russia) had mistakenly but genuinely interpreted private claims by some Western policymakers as a definitive promise that NATO would not expand further east after the reunification of Germany. As a result, Russia interpreted NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe as both aggressive and treacherous despite the alliance stressing that NATO only has defensive interests in mind and solely aims for the perpetuation of peace in Europe. Similarly, Russia views its intent to secure the allied or, at the very least, the neutral status of Ukraine as paramount for its security and defensive concerns, while the West perceives it as aggressive expansion. As a result, NATO in contemporary Eastern Europe largely “exists to manage the risks created by its existence,” and Russia’s unflinching stance on Ukraine escalates tensions further. Thus, the strategic competition for Ukraine that leads to Russia and the USA supporting the opposing sides in the civil war may serve as a textbook example of a security dilemma.
Another IR concept directly relevant to the civil war in Ukraine is the systems theory. As the name suggests, it focuses on the international systems – that is, the well-established patterns of power distribution, conflict, and cooperation – to analyze the actions of individual actors. This perspective allows highlighting that the 1990s, which saw the emergence of Ukraine as an independent state, were a time of a unipolar system with the USA largely dominating international relations. As a result, Russia was seriously limited in its ability to act in what has historically been a part of its traditional security zone. Conversely, throughout the late 2000s and the 2010s, Russia began to consistently oppose Western and particularly American influence in the neighboring countries and propose a multipolar system of international relations instead of the waning dominance of the United States. As such, the civil war in Ukraine illustrates the systems theory by demonstrating how an attempt to change the international relations system may and likely will spark proxy wars in third countries, provided there are already grounds for internal unrest.
Apart from that, yet another IR concept that can be utilized to explain and interpret the civil war in Ukraine and the international situation surrounding it is the ‘naïve theory of sanctions.’ This theory, first described by Johan Galtung, views the mechanism of economic sanctions as a “roughly proportionate relation: the more value-deprivation, the more political disintegration.” However, according to the same author, the simple idea of coercing an opponent into an agreement by increasing the cost of undesirable actions rarely works in practice. However, the USA and the EU imposed economic sanctions against Russia In full accordance with this logic, aiming to increase the costs of supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine to the level that should eventually force Russia to concede. However, Russia had likely calculated that it would be able to weather the European and American sanctions without catastrophic consequences, and, judging by the fact that it continues its support of the separatists, suggests this calculation proved correct. Hence, among other things, the civil war in Ukraine illustrates how the straightforward theory of coercing compliance by increasing costs of an undesirable policy through economic sanctions is indeed naïve.
Impact on International Security
In general terms, the international impact of the civil war in Ukraine led to the greatest degree of tension between NATO and the aligning countries on the one hand and Russia on the other hand. Post-Soviet Russia had its periods of acute disagreements with the West, usually caused by a specific regime change or military operation. In the 1990s, the conflicting viewpoints on the dissolution of Yugoslavia strained relations between Russia and NATO countries despite their cooperation in the peacekeeping mission, and the 2008 Russian intervention in support of the self-proclaimed republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was also a crisis in its own right. However, the security crisis caused by the Russian annexation of Crimea and subsequent involvement in Ukrainian civil war is, by far, the worst of these, and “the risk of confrontation between NATO and Russia has reached the greatest level since the collapse of the USSR” due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. This development is threatening in and of itself due to the possibility of confrontation.
In more specific terms, Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, ostensibly to protect compatriots and co-ethnics, raises the question of possible Russian involvement in other countries under a similar pretext. NATO’s northern flank and, in particular, the Baltic countries seem to be in the greatest potential danger. These states – most notably Latvia and Estonia – have significant Russian minorities that a denied full citizenship. Russia’s involvement in Ukraine sends a signal that the country is willing to use military force to expand its zone of control under the pretext of defending the Russian-speaking population in the neighboring countries. As such, NATO’s northern flank and the Baltic countries in particular constitute another region potentially threatened due to the ongoing civil war in Ukraine and its implications for international security.
Finally, there is also an indirect impact on international security in the form of reduced trust and cooperation between NATO and Russia. As mentioned above, the conflict in Ukraine led to the most acute tensions between Russia and NATO since the Cold War, negatively impacting the interaction between these two. It undermines the possible cooperation between Russia and NATO regarding their common security concerns, such as international terrorism. Consequently, the civil war in Ukraine also has a spillover effect threatening global security due to the decreased cooperation between Russia and NATO.
Impact on US National Security
As a conflict in a country almost half a world away from the borders of the United States, the civil war in Ukraine does not represent a direct threat to the country’s security. At the same time, Russian involvement in the conflict and the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula constitutes a blatant violation of international law. Moreover, a dangerous precedent of Russia forcefully changing borders in Europe poses a potential threat to NATO and, by extension, to the United States’ obligation to protect its allies. Thus, while the war does not represent a direct threat to American national security, it still constitutes a challenge to American interest in supporting the NATO allies in Europe. A failure to effectively counter the Russian threat as it manifests in Ukraine may undermine the international authority of the United States as the leader of NATO and the guarantor of peace and security.
Implications
The implications of the civil war in Ukraine from the IR perspective are largely based on the security challenges listed above. Firstly, Russia’s continued involvement in Ukraine despite the sanctions suggests that it vies Ukraine as paramount to its security and is unlikely to stop.36 It also means that the warring parties themselves – that is, the Ukrainian government in Kyiv and the self-proclaimed ‘people’s republics’ in Donetsk and Luhansk – are unlikely to be allowed to win. Secondly, Putin’s willingness to interfere in the neighboring countries under the pretext of protecting Russian compatriots and co-ethnics may mean the possibility of similar involvement in other countries and regions with Russian minorities. Finally, the security dilemma posed by the interest in Ukraine demonstrated by Russia on the one hand and NATO, the USA, and the EU on the other hand means that the relations between these two will likely remain strained, if not necessarily outright hostile in the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
As one can see, the ongoing conflict in the east of Ukraine may serve as an example of a civil war with prominent international involvement. Sparked by internal tensions and fears of persecution after the regime change in early 2014, the conflict soon saw the intervention of Russia and, later and to a lesser degree, the United States. Ukraine’s strategic importance and concerns on Russia’s and NATO’s side alike were also a prominent reason. As such, the civil war in Ukraine illustrates the concepts of the security dilemma, the systems theory, and the naïve theory of sanctions. It poses a direct threat to security in Eastern Europe and an indirect threat to the security of the United States itself and has the potential to undermine the relations between Russia and NATO for the years to come.
Bibliography
Atland, Kristian. “North European Security after the Ukraine Conflict.” Defense & Security Analysis 32 (no. 2) (2016): 163-176.
Barbieri, Jaroslav. “The Dark Side of Decentralization Reform in Ukraine: Deterring or Facilitating Russia-Sponsored Separatism?” In Decentralization, Regional Diversity, and Conflict: The Case of Ukraine, edited by Hanna Shelest and Maryna Rabinovych, 211-256. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
Bergmane, Una. “Fading Russian Influence in the Baltic States.” Orbis 64, no. 3 (2020): 479-488.
Buzgalin, Alexander. “Ukraine: Anatomy of the Civil War.” International Critical Thought 5, no. 3 (2015): 327-347.
Cohen, Stephen F. War with Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate. New York: Hot Books, 2019. EBook.
Cross, Sharyl. “NATO–Russia Security Challenges in the Aftermath of Ukraine Conflict: Managing Black Sea Security and Beyond.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 15, no. 2 (2015): 151-177.
D’Anieri, Paul. Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2019.
Dreyer, Iana, and Nicu Popescu. “Do Sanctions against Russia Work?” European Union Institute for Security Studies. Web.
Galtung, Johan. “On the Effects of International Economic Sanctions: With Examples from the Case of Rhodesia.” World Politics 19, no. 3 (1967): 378-416.
Hahn, Gordon M. Ukraine over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the ‘New Cold War.’ Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2018. EBook.
Hrytsak, Yaroslav. “Ukraine in 2013–2014: A New Political Geography.” In Regionalism Without Regions: Reconceptualizing Ukraine’s Heterogeneity, edited by Ulrich Schmid & Oksana Myshlovska, 367-392. Budapest: CEU Press, 2019.
Ishchenko, Volodymyr. “Far Right Participation in the Ukrainian Maidan Protests: An Attempt of Systematic Estimation.” European Politics and Society 17 (2016): 453-472.
Ivaschenko-Stadnik, Katerina. “What’s Wrong with the Donbas? The Challenges of Integration Before, During and After the War.” In Ukraine in Transformation: From Soviet Republic to European Society, edited by Alberto Veira-Ramos et al., chap. 10. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. EBook.
Mykhnenko, Vlad. “Causes and Consequences of the War in Eastern Ukraine: An Economic Geography Perspective.” Europe-Asia Studies 72, no. 3 (2020): 528-560.
Narvselius, Eleonora. “The ‘Bandera Debate’: The Contentious Legacy of World War II and Liberalization of Collective Memory in Western Ukraine.” Canadian Slavonic Papers 54, no. 3-4 (2012): 469-490.
Patane, Christopher, and Cooper Drury. “Russia Plays the (Triangular) Sanctions Game.” In Triangular Diplomacy Among the United States, the European Union, and the Russian Federation: Responses to the Crisis in Ukraine, edited by Vicki L. Birchfield and Alasdair R. Young, 119-142. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Sakwa, Richard. Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2016. EBook.
Sarotte, Mary E. “A Broken Promise? What the West Really Told Moscow about NATO Expansion.” Foreign Affairs 93, no. 5 (2014): 90-97.
Sasse, Gwendolyn, and Alice Lackner. “War and Identity: The Case of the Donbas in Ukraine.” Post-Soviet Affairs 34, no. 2-3 (2018): 139-157.
Serwer, Daniel. From War to Peace in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Ukraine. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Shymanska, Alina. “Rethinking the Budapest Memorandum from the Perspective of Ukrainian-Russian Relations in the Post- Soviet Period.” Central European Journal of International and Security Studies 14, no. 4 (2020): 29-50.
Tang, Shiping. “The Security Dilemma: A Conceptual Analysis.” Security Studies 18, no. 3 (2009): 587-623.
Wittke, Cindy. “The Minsk Agreements – More Than ‘Scraps of Paper’?” East European Politics 35, no. 3 (2019): 264-290.
Woźniak, Michał. “The Ukraine Crisis and Shift in US Foreign Policy.” International Studies: Interdisciplinary Political and Cultural Journal 18, no. 2 (2016): 87-102.
Yost, David S. “The Budapest Memorandum and Russia’s Intervention in Ukraine,” International Affairs 91, no. 3 (2015): 505-538.