Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Since then, Russia has launched four major offensives.
Escape from the Nord Stream 2, on September 28, 2022. (Swedish Coast Guard via AP, File)
Three were military;
the fourth was economic.
And while you don't hear much about that latest offensive, its
failure
offers some very important lessons.
Everyone knows the first military offensive:
the attempted blitzkrieg that was to take kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities in a matter of days.
Many observers - especially, but not only, Western rightists who fetishized the perceived prowess of the unawakened Russian military - expected this blitzkrieg to succeed.
Instead, it turned into an
epic defeat:
Paralyzed by a stubborn Ukrainian defense, the Russians eventually withdrew after suffering huge losses.
The second offensive was more limited in scope:
a spring attack in eastern Ukraine.
In this case, too, many observers expected a decisive Russian victory, perhaps the encirclement of much of the Ukrainian army.
And the Russians made some gains thanks to their overwhelming artillery superiority.
But this offensive stalled once Ukraine acquired Western precision weapons, especially the now famous
HIMARS,
which wreaked havoc in Russian rear areas.
Ultimately, the Ukraine was able to
launch counter-attacks
that allowed it to recapture considerable ground, notably the city of
Kherson.
The third Russian offensive,
a winter attack in the Donbas region
,
continues, and Ukraine may decide to withdraw from the besieged city of Bakhmut, a place of little strategic importance that has nonetheless become the scene of incredibly bloody fighting.
But most observers I've read see the company as a whole as a
new strategic failure.
In a way, however, Russia's most significant defeat has not come on the battlefield, but on the economic front.
I have said that Russia has launched four major offensives;
the fourth was the attempt to
blackmail European democracies
into abandoning their support for Ukraine by cutting off their natural gas supplies.
There were reasons for concern about this attempt to weaponize the power supply.
Although Russia's invasion of Ukraine initially disrupted markets for several commodities - Russia is a major oil producer, and both Russia and Ukraine were major agricultural exporters before the war - natural gas seemed a particularly severe pressure point.
Because?
Because it is not really traded in a world market.
The cheapest way to transport it is through pipelines, and it was unclear how Europe could substitute for Russian gas if supplies were disrupted.
Many people, myself included, worried about the effects of a de facto embargo on Russian gas.
Would it cause a European recession?
Would difficult times in Europe undermine the will to continue helping Ukraine?
Well, the big story – a story that hasn't gotten a lot of attention in the media, because it's hard to report on things that haven't happened – is that Europe
has weathered the loss
of Russian supplies remarkably well.
Unemployment in the euro zone has not risen at all;
inflation has soared, but European governments have managed, through a combination of price controls and financial aid, to limit (though not eliminate) the personal hardship created by high gas prices.
And Europe has managed to keep going despite the cut off of most Russian gas.
This is partly due to recourse to other sources of gas, such as liquefied natural gas from the United States, and partly to conservation efforts that have reduced demand.
In part it reflects a temporary return to coal-fired electricity generation;
it largely reflects the fact that Europe already gets a large part of its energy from
renewables.
And yes, it was an unusually warm winter, which also helped.
But the bottom line, as a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations puts it, is that "Moscow failed in its attempt to blackmail EU member states by withholding gas."
In fact, Europe has increased its military aid to Ukraine, especially by sending main battle tanks that can contribute to the upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive.
What can we learn from the failure of the Russian energy offensive?
First, Russia looks more like a
Potemkin superpower
than ever , with little behind its impressive facade.
His vaunted army is far less effective than advertised;
now its role as an energy provider is proving much more difficult to militarize than many imagined.
Second, democracies are proving, as they have many times in the past, that they are much
tougher and harder to intimidate
than they appear.
Finally, modern economies are much more flexible, much better able to cope with change, than some vested interests would have us believe.
For as long as I can remember, fossil fuel lobbyists and their political supporters have insisted that any attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be disastrous for jobs and economic growth.
But what we are seeing now is Europe making an
energy transition
under the worst possible circumstances – sudden, unexpected and drastic – and managing it quite well.
This suggests that a gradual and planned green energy transition would be much easier than pessimists imagine.
c.2023 The New York Times Company
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