Chatham House experts examine the shifts in geopolitical alliances, security, energy, and supply chains and whether these changes are likely to be long-lasting.

Not only has the war threatened the stability of Europe but it has also impacted food and energy security globally including in the Middle East and Africa, creating shock waves in a world barely recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

1.    Realignment – shifting alliances

The realization of a major war breaking out in Europe after almost eight years of a simmering conflict created a political constellation of three different groups of nations: those who sided with Putin’s Russia, those who pledged support to Ukraine, and a group of non-aligned nations resisting involvement and/or hedging their bets.

European Union (EU) states were quick to respond with major sanctions and action against Russia. Despite some fragmentation – for example, on the oil price cap, and Germany’s reluctance to send tanks and other weaponry, the bloc has mainly remained together, against Russian expectations and hopes. ‘The EU has shown resolve and, at times surprising, unity in its response to the war,’ says Pepijn Bergsen, research fellow in the Chatham House Europe programme.

The UK has been keen to stress its ‘special relationship’ with Kyiv with a desire especially by former prime minister Boris Johnson to lead the pack with strong rhetoric and military support. The opportunist move, says Chatham House UK in the World Initiative director John Kampfner, is an obvious promotion of its post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ credentials.

Elsewhere, there was less solidarity with Ukraine. Putin predictably called in favours of old allies, such as Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Belarus’s Aliaksandr Lukashenka and entered a closer strategic relationship with Iran.

A week after the invasion, the UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s aggression was passed by an overwhelming majority. However, there were 35 abstentions, among them three Commonwealth states – South Africa, Pakistan, and India. In Asia, only a handful of governments stood strongly with Ukraine – Singapore, South Korea, and Japan. The region’s largest rising powers – China, India, and Indonesia – have all refused to take a side.   

‘While many in the West hoped that Russia’s invasion would rally nations in the developing world behind the rules-based order, Asia has largely rejected Western framings of the conflict as a battle between might and right,’ says Ben Bland, Chatham House Asia-Pacific programme director. ‘Although they might find Russia an increasingly awkward partner, most Asian nations pragmatically choose to maintain their relationships for a combination of economic, military, and diplomatic reasons.’

The shift has been mirrored across much of Africa too says Chatham House Africa programme director Dr Alex Vines, highlighting that most abstentions (51 per cent) condemning Russia’s invasion at the UN came from African countries, marking a partial resurgence of what was many African nations’ default position in the Cold War.

Dr Vines says: ‘Non-alignment is much more comfortable than being pigeonholed as part of a Western position – or indeed an Eastern position.’ But, he says, a position of ‘multipolarity’ rather than being forced to choose between democratic or autocratic super-powers would them give them more agency.

Iran has taken advantage of both tactical and strategic deals, says Chatham House Middle East and North Africa deputy director Dr Sanam Vakil – providing Russia with sanctions busting support and hundreds of attack drones while, in return, Moscow provided surveillance to help Tehran suppress recent domestic protests.

Gap-bridging Turkey has also emerged as a major new diplomatic player – helping broker the grain blockade deal, acting as a humanitarian base for hostage swaps, and hosting (to date, failed) peace talks while simultaneously blocking Finland’s, and particularly Sweden’s, NATO accession for its own security reasons.

2. Security – redrawing the lines

European security and NATO

‘For many of Russia’s neighbours, the Russian invasion of Ukraine confirmed that they had been correct in their analysis of the threat posed by Moscow’s regional ambitions,’ says Alice Billon-Galland, research fellow in the Europe programme.

Before Russia’s invasion, European states, such as France and Germany, had failed to adapt to new geopolitical realities in the region and Russia’s actions would lead to a dramatic reappraisal of European security posture.

Indeed, European countries responded with significant increases in their defence budgets, most notably Germany committing to two per cent of its GDP in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recalibrating ‘Zeitenwende’ speech.

The fundamental decision by Germany is something Jamie Shea, associate fellow in the Chatham House International Security programme, says ‘I thought I would never see in my lifetime’, bringing security policy alongside foreign policy for the first time in decades. However, Germany has remained slow to act on key decisions, such as Leopard tanks, often communicating good intent but failing to follow up with real action.

Although central, eastern and Baltic states have been more hawkish on Russia compared to states like Germany and France, they haven’t stopped the EU’s overall response.

In fact, the war has accelerated actions which were ‘unthinkable’ before the war says Kataryna Wolczuk, associate fellow in the Chatham House Russia and Eurasia programme, such as the fast-tracking of Ukraine’s EU candidate statuswithin three months.

Similarly, the budget from the European Peace Facility, little used before the war in Ukraine, has been employed five times, providing €2.5 billion of cash and hardware for Ukraine’s defences.

Russia’s invasion has also strengthened NATO’s deterrence posture and increased its forward presence in Eastern Europe. Putin has ‘managed the trick of pulling NATO closer than ever before’ says Jamie Shea, with larger exercises, more readiness, and reinforcement strategies.

Finland and Sweden, two countries which have until now shunned NATO membership to avoid antagonizing Russia, are also set to join the alliance in a historic shift.

Crucially, US support for NATO and security in Europe also appears cemented with bipartisan support at home, although this is something Chatham House US and the Americas programme director Dr Leslie Vinjamuri says should not be taken for granted following four years of a US president who ‘courted’ Putin.

She says: ‘Neglecting European security would not only undermine the security order but would also undermine the broader effort to manage China’s role in the Indo-Pacific, in Europe, and in multilateral institutions.’

China’s intentions in the Indo-Pacific remain a concern for Western allies, especially the US. Although many observers doubt an invasion is imminent, the CIA recently warned China has plans to take Taiwan by 2027 and the world is now watching closely.

It is speculated that President Xi had been led to believe the Ukraine invasion would be swift and has now distanced himself from Putin in the wake of a protracted war that has attracted a harsh Western backlash.

For a Chinese economy struggling to rebuild post COVID-19, isolation from the West is not something it wants to risk, according to Dr Yu Jie, senior research fellow for China in the Asia-Pacific programme, who says: ‘President Xi and his colleagues have begun to realize that cooperation with Russia comes with substantial limits to avoid undermining China’s own political priorities and longer-term economic interests.’

She says Ukraine’s resilience and the sanctions faced by Russia have provided a ‘live simulation’ of the reaction an invasion of Taiwan could face, and is causing pause in Beijing. ‘Nor is its population willing to give up their reasonable living standard and economic liberty for a conflict that brings long term pain and generational division across the Strait.’

Drone wars

One conundrum has been that, despite anticipating a full cyber war, major Russian attacks upon Ukraine infrastructure have largely failed to materialize. Although attacks are still relentless and numerous, Ukraine’s security has been backed with strengthened NATO cyber security coupled with a motivated Ukraine vigilante ‘cyber army’.

Alongside the changes to Europe’s security architecture, Russia’s illegal invasion has ushered in a new type of information warfare says Magdalene Karalis, Chatham House Stavros Niarchos academy fellow, especially the widespread use of open-source intelligence (OSINT).

She says that by harnessing the capabilities of satellite imagery, smartphones and social media, Ukrainian forces have ‘altered’ the traditional kill chain, and outsourced parts of it to civilians reporting Russian movements, thereby building a more ‘extensive and resilient network’.
 
The war could also be seen as the first long-term, sustained conflict where all the currently available uses for drones are integrated into combined operations on both sides, according to Keir Giles, senior consulting fellow in the Russia and Eurasia programme, who says: ‘That’s also true for cyber – and in fact the nexus of cyber and drone operations. It’s clear an unpublicized cyber contest between Russian and Ukrainian drone operators is playing out – a kind of cat-and-mouse game of operators and their adversaries struggling for control.’

3. Nuclear weapons – risks return

Since the end of the Cold War and the advent of US-Russian arms control, the threat of nuclear weapons has become less salient. However, the past year has seen regular nuclear weapons threats from Russia, some veiled, some on ‘escalation’, and some directly aimed at NATO countries such as the UK.

Warnings have also emerged from the West, with US president Joe Biden declaring the risk of a nuclear armageddon to be at its highest level for 60 years, bringing the nuclear issue firmly back to the forefront of discussion.

While the threats are not new, there is still a question over their credibility and how the West responds. They must be taken seriously, says Dr Patricia Lewis, director of the International Security programme, but she adds they are also ‘scare tactics’ designed to ‘beat the chest’ of Russian people and bully the West.

Nonetheless, Keir Giles points out, the scare tactics have been highly effective. He says: ‘Russian statements like placing Russia’s nuclear forces on a ‘special regime of combat duty’ in February 2022 may be meaningless, but still generate a fearful reaction across the West.’

‘Both the US and Germany have explicitly linked restraint in supporting Ukraine to Russia’s nuclear threats. But instead, the West should pay attention to Moscow’s real nuclear posture, rather than fixating on the rhetorical frothing on TV.’

Putin placed his country’s strategic nuclear weapons on ‘high alert’ at the start of the war – perhaps, says Dr Lewis, to give him combat readiness status domestically, enabling other senior Russian personnel to order their use. But as the phrase had not been used before, what it exactly means is still, perhaps deliberately, unclear. Many of the threats have been directed at use within Ukraine.

Dr Lewis says another new disturbing development in Russia’s wider intimidation strategy has been ‘playing fast and loose’ with the safety of nuclear energy in Ukraine, such as the shelling and attacks around the Zaporizhya plant and fears of a dirty bomb detonated as a ‘false flag’ attack. Putin will be all too aware of the fears this would cause, particularly in Ukraine as the site of the world’s worst nuclear power accident – Chernobyl in 1986.

Dr Lewis argues that if the war is truly about Putin’s ‘imperial legacy project’ and an attempt to bring Ukrainian territory back under his control, then creating an uninhabitable post-nuclear wasteland, would make ‘little strategic sense’. She says the war has also seen a departure in NATO and western allies’ indulging in any ‘tit for tat’ moves that might escalate the conflict.

But, warns Jamie Shea, ‘the risk of escalation is ever present with a Russian regime on the back foot and willing to lash out.’

4.  Energy and food – fuelling the crisis

As two major suppliers of both energy, food and fertilizer commodities, Russia’s conflict with Ukraine has caused disruption in supply for both developing and developed countries.

The most fundamental change has been Europe’s shift away from reliance on Russian gas. ‘Europe will never return to meaningful dependency on Russian fossil fuels,’ says Antony Froggatt, deputy director of the Chatham House Environment and Society programme. ‘Even if the war finished tomorrow, trust has been broken between European consumers and what has been their primary supplier.’

Europe reacted to the supply disruption in two ways; looking for its gas elsewhere and accelerating the move to renewable energy. Pre-2022, the EU pledged to reduce emissions by 40 per cent and attain 32 per cent renewables. The war has seen those targets raised to 57 per cent and 45 per cent respectively.

If met, it would see an almost fully decarbonized power sector across the bloc (with the odd nuclear plant still online) by 2030/35. ‘The war has probably brought forward decarbonization by five to ten years,’ says Froggatt although huge and unparalleled expansion in capacity of offshore wind, solar, and other sources will be needed to meet targets.

The collapse of the supply of piped gas from Russia has forced Germany and many of its neighbours to source energy elsewhere including from Asia, the Middle East, and potentially Africa. ‘These two things – Europe buying up everyone else’s energy and the concern of being over-reliant on China for supply of renewable energy materials – have had knock-on geopolitical implications,’ says Froggatt.

Suddenly, a number of African states such as Mozambique and Nigeria have found themselves being ‘wooed’ by both West and East, says Dr Alex Vines. ‘This is a game-changer in the way that Europe in particular is looking at African energy to help in the energy transition.’

With China currently producing around 70 per cent of all the world’s solar panels, some nations have already started to restructure their industries to be more self-reliant in renewables production. The US has its protectionist Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) offering large subsidies for domestic production of electrical vehicles and other ‘green’ sectors, and the EU recently announced a revised ‘Green Deal Industrial Plan’ it hopes will rival it.

Putin’s gamble

With a history of ‘keeping the gas flowing’ throughout even the Cold War, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and nuclear crisis of the 1980s, Russia banked on Europe losing its nerve, says John Lough, associate fellow in the Russia and Eurasia programme. ‘Putin’s efforts to use gas as a weapon have so far failed despite the huge costs of subsidizing expensive alternatives to Gazprom’s supplies,’ he says.

It has made short-term gains through high prices of gas and oil, taking 28 per cent more revenue than before the war. But with Europe’s vast pipelines now standing idle, Russia has to look further afield for new customers to avoid stranded assets and further economic disaster.

It has found some success. Alongside India, China is now the equal largest importer of Russian oil and has signed a new 30-year gas deal. But the markets have fundamentally changed with new deals, renewables on the rise, and both governments and consumers alike all too aware of the dynamics and fragility of the global supply network.

Food supply

With both Russia and Ukraine being major exporters of agricultural fertilizers, the disruption to global food chains drove up prices to all-time highs, fuelling a cost-of-living crisis in both developed and developing nations.

Additionally, disruption of both harvests and a Russian grain blockade threatened to create a humanitarian catastrophe in developing countries as many – such as 85 per cent of Africa – depend on imported wheat. The World Food Programme (WFP) says the crisis remains at ‘unprecedented proportions’ with ten times the number of people facing famine compared to five years ago.

‘It’s impossible to separate the food crisis from the continuing energy crisis. High fuel prices drive up fertilizer prices and transport costs, which in turn squeeze farmers’ profits while increasing the price of food for consumers,’ says Laura Wellesley, senior research fellow in the Environment and Society programme.
 
Global stocks are ‘worryingly low’ adds Environment and Society programme director Professor Tim Benton, with an escalation in the war, further trade restrictions, plus climate change creating future threats. He says: ‘There are significant potentials for disruptive weather ahead, and whilst the cost-of-living squeeze remains, the global situation remains very fragile.’

© Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2023