Russia’s Geography Problem
A lot of focus has been on Putin and what he wants. My Ukrainian American friend shared with me a popular video explaining why Putin is invading Ukraine and compares Putin to a jealous ex who desperately (and belligerently) wants to get back together with his girlfriend (Ukraine) despite her having already moved on to a new love (the West). While there’s a some truth (and entertaining hilarity) to the analogy, it goes deeper than that.
This invasion is widely seen as waged by a single man’s ambitions, yet Putin is simply the latest in a long line of Russian leaders who have had to cope with the same Russian map. If this war is a wake up call that geopolitics still exists in the 21st century, then we first must understand how Russia’s geography (the “geo” in geopolitics) and history shapes its present day actions.
A quick note about my approach to researching this crisis: I’m hitting the books (while getting a sentiment check with folks knowledgeable on the topic) first because unlike the torrent of news, geography, historical and cultural context don’t change as much. Therefore, whatever we learn here, we’ll be able to apply as a peak-level lens to more clearly cut through the chaos around all future news. I like to be efficient. We put in the upfront effort, then get paid future dividends. You just can’t get that kind of return with news and social media blasts. Alright let’s go.
Offense is the Best Defense
Russia is the world’s largest country, roughly the size of China and the US combined, yet it only has 148 million people (10% of China’s population and half that of the US). It straddles both Europe and Asia, but the vast majority of its landscape is harsh with most of ethnic Russians concentrated in the heartland area around Moscow on the Europe side. In fact, roughly 80% of the country’s population lives in this 20% patch of land, following Pareto’s principle.
However, it wasn’t always this big. The expansion really started in the 16th century when Ivan the Terrible, the first tsar (Russian emperor), hatched a genius strategy in response to mounting Mongol threats: offense is the best defense. This meant conquering more and more land around Moscow in order to create buffer zones from invaders. This kickstarted a trend of territorial expansion carried out by subsequent rulers that eventually created huge strategic depth for Russia.
This strategic depth means that anyone invading Russia will need large armies, enormous supply lines and cross multiple natural barriers and, depending on timing, harsh winters while being subject to attack. This strategy clearly worked as both Napoleon and Hitler both famously invaded Russia a century apart, exhausted their forces and lost their wars as a result. In fact, on average Russia has fought around its western front every thirty years or so, but has never been conquered - and no one ever attacks it from the east. They always have more room to retreat while their pursuers simply tire themselves.
Russia’s Existential Crisis
In short, territory is integral to Russia’s national defense. Therefore, encroachment on its core turf can be seen as an existential threat. Geopolitics 101 says that a country, much less a major power, will go to war when faced with existential threats. Ukraine is especially important, not only because of its cultural affinity to Russia (which actually originated in Kiev), but also a huge territory that buffers it from the rest of Europe. More importantly, it’s home to its only warm water port: Sevastopol in Crimea.
Because of Russia’s harsh climate, all its ports freeze part of the year. Vladivostok, it’s largest port and access to the Pacific, is frozen 4 months annually, rendering trade and naval deployments impossible. Water access is important because it’s much cheaper to transport materials via ships than by ground or air. Also in the event of great military conflict (say a world war), Russia needs to be able to move its navy around, which it can’t do effectively without a warm water port.
This is all to say that NATO expansion isn’t just rubbing salt on the USSR’s dissolution and Putin’s pride, it’s also a matter of national security for the country. This is why when Ukraine was taken over by anti-Russian forces in 2014, Putin had to respond by annexing Crimea. He also wasn’t about to go down in Russian history as the man who lost Crimea and the nation’s only warm water port.
Russia’s Energy Leverage
Russia’s natural resources is also its main political weapon: energy. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of natural gas and second in oil. We tend to focus on Russia’s nukes and military might, but its strangle hold on much of Europe’s energy supply, specifically the natural gas used to heat cities, is what gives it practical leverage. On average, Russia supplies 40% of Europe’s gas needs. However, like many things, averages only tell half the story.
The rule of thumb is that the closer a country is to Russia, the more dependent it is. How dependent? Finland, Latvia, Estonia are 100%. Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Lithuania are 80%. Even Germany, the EU’s economic powerhouse, is 50% dependent. This means Russia can literally shut off heating in all of these countries at will. Now that’s power.
Globalization shows its teeth
However, things are changing. The Rubicon has been crossed with this all-out Ukraine invasion. The international response has been concerted, swift, and severe. Even countries dependent on Russian energy are no longer silent.
At the forefront of the backlash are economic sanctions, which typically aren’t effective in stopping an aggressor country from backing down once it’s committed to war. But these are sanctions on a scale we’ve never seen before.
The isolation of its banks from the international market, effective freezing of its central bank, the pull out of services and goods by Western companies, including payment systems, has all but crippled the Russian economy, tanked its markets to the point of closing, and made its currency, the rouble, worthless relative to other currencies. Ordinary citizens are scrambling to get cash out and exchange it for hard goods as inflation continues to grow. The damage done to its economy could last years. (Noah Smith wrote a good article on how these sanctions are hurting Russia which I also mention in What’s Brewing)
This is possible due to Globalization. We are much more connected now than 30 years ago at the end of the Cold War. Trade in goods is north of $28 trillion in 2021, 9 times what it was back then. This interconnectedness breeds interdependence. Under this context, sanctions of such magnitude is the equivalent of dropping an economic nuke on the aggressor country. Even energy dependence is a double edged sword. Just as Europe depends on Russia for energy, Russia depends on its trade partners for income (60% of its oil exports go to Europe), and the EU just announced its resolve to wean off Russian energy dependence by 2027.
That said, sanctions by themselves aren’t likely to deter Putin. The hardships that ordinary Russians will go through as a result won’t generate the same kind of pressure in an autocracy as it does a democracy - unless it causes a revolution, and we are aways from that. What Russia’s actions have done is galvanize the West through a common purpose, which has far reaching 2nd order effects.
If globalization has taught us anything it’s that what happens else where in the world will have an effect where we live even if those effects are not yet immediate or direct. This event has shown that it’s imperative for us to continue being educated about our world and vigilant both at home and beyond. The stakes are higher than ever.
Other Perspectives
💻 Ben Thompson, one of the tech analysts I follow, wrote a great piece on how other countries might react to the boycott of Western (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Disney, etc) and Western aligned (Samsung) tech companies in Russia. Here are the biggest takeaways:
Capabilities vs intentions: capability is the power of someone to do something, intentions is whether they will do it and why. Using everyday driving as an example, we all have the capability to swerve into the opposing lane and cause head on collisions, but we don’t intend to do so. Society is run based on trust and intentions not just capability. And when international relations are run in the same way, things are more connected, peaceful, efficient and smooth. But when conflict arises as it is now, capabilities come under scrutiny.
India might be even more hesitant to let Western tech companies into their market seeing how much power they weld - the capability to shut down the economy of a major country.
In 2019, Trump barred all companies that relied on American tech to do business with Huawei. Not only did this prevent major chip companies like TSMC and Intel from working with them, Google was also forced to pull its Android OS. This effectively shut down Huawei’s mobile handset business, which at the time was the 2nd largest global smartphone manufacturer after Samsung, and was also on the cusp of entering the US market. This episode accelerated China’s incentives to wean off of Western chips and find alternatives. Fun fact: I was negotiating a large multi-year license agreement worth $millions with Huawei and this move killed the deal.
China relies on Taiwan for chips, specifically TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) the industry leader, and US sanctions on China’s chip industry continues to hamper China’s long term growth in cutting edge developments in AI and other applications including its military. In this way, China’s dependency on Taiwan’s semiconductor capabilities acts as a deterrence against it invading Taiwan. But as the Russian invasion progresses, the US faces several conflicting options on how to deal with China. Short term, the US can relax sanctions on China in exchange for influencing Russia to end its invasion on Ukraine. But medium term this would give China to Western tech that’ll help China develop more advancements and potentially its military. However, if the sanctions continue, in the long term, it incentivizes China to develop alternatives to the West that’ll accelerate its independence from Western influence, rendering all future sanctions less effective and removing a key deterrence factor.
📉 Noah Smith, an economics thinker, goes into why the Russian economy is in such trouble. Most striking is how the sanctions could hurt Russia’s ability to wage war by preventing it from pay its employees (including the military), replace destroyed military assets like tanks and vehicles, and get medicine (since it imports a lot of it from Europe). On the other hand, the spike in oil prices offsets the impact of the financial sanctions (because Russia’s getting more money per barrel sold), hence why the US is considering oil bans on Russia, which could cause other countries to follow suit.
