US Inevitable Loss: How Will Russia's Global Influence Increase Due to the Ukrainian War?

Ramon Marks, a retired international lawyer, wrote an article on the National Interest website in which he argued that Russia’s influence will expand while US hegemony will inevitably decrease globally.

According to Marks, Russia will establish closer ties with China and other countries in Eurasia (Europe and Asia), including India, Iran, and the Gulf states, and will drift away and permanently from European democracies and Washington.

Just as President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger played China's card to isolate the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will play their cards in an effort to contain U.S. leadership of the world.

To illustrate what he says, Marks explains that when Moscow wanted to no longer retain Europe, its largest energy customer, it moved to increase its fossil fuel sales with Asia, particularly China and India.

 

Vital Pipelines

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Russia has become China's largest oil supplier, replacing Saudi Arabia. But transport capacity will limit the amount of fossil fuels Russia can sell to China. Russia currently has one onshore oil route to China, the ESPO oil pipeline. The only gas pipeline currently in operation is Power of Siberia.

Pipeline sales from both oil and gas are also supplemented through the sea to mainland China. In the coming years, Beijing and Moscow will make significant investments to expand the transportation of oil and gas between the two countries, enabling Russia to become the main supplier of fossil fuels to China. This could mean that China can reduce its dependence on fossil fuel shipments from the Middle East, especially as those coming from the Middle East pass through weak maritime choke points such as the Strait of Malacca.

Closer energy ties between China and Russia will help bring them closer to being strategic allies in Eurasia. With a committed Russian energy supplier, China will inevitably have more strategic flexibility to deal with the United States and its regional allies in the Indo-Pacific.

The author further notes that Russia has significantly increased its energy trade with India since the start of the war on Ukraine.

According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air research, India is the main buyer of goods from the Atlantic that Europe no longer wants.

Before the invasion of Ukraine, India did not buy almost any oil from Russia. But it now imports more than 760,000 barrels per day.

Increases in Russian fossil fuel sales to India will be detrimental to efforts by the United States, Australia, and Japan to continue to draw India into the orbit of "democratic countries" in the Indo-Pacific region.

 

NATO’s Non-Allies

According to Marks, India, which he describes as "the largest democracy in the world," has taken a neutral stance on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

At the United Nations, India abstained from voting against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It refused to blame Russia for the attack.

Besides supplying new energy, Russia has also been the long-standing main arms supplier to the Indian Armed Forces. More importantly, Delhi still appreciates Russia's long-standing support for Kashmir.

The Indian response to the Russo-Ukrainian War underscores the fact that it is likely not to fully integrate into the Western Pacific Alliance.

According to Marks, if China is smart enough to avoid further border battles with India, the momentum pushing India to participate more in this alliance may wane.

Just as India was not alone in abstaining from a UN General Assembly resolution criticizing Russia for invading Ukraine, 34 other countries refused to take the same Western stance on Russia.

Two-thirds of the world's population lives in countries that have refrained from denouncing Russiafor its invasion of Ukraine.

Even Mexico, America's neighbor, has refused to condemn Russia or join economic sanctions. This makes the situation worse for America, according to Marx's analysis.

 

U.S. Alone?

These are difficult strategic realities that the United States has to grasp. After the Russian invasion, Marks reveals that "Western democracies" met quickly and issued a wide range of sanctions against Moscow, including ending fossil fuel purchases from Russia.

The energy sanctions imposed by the West have somewhat backfired, causing inflationary disruptions and supply shortages to the point that Brussels is now struggling to deal with the economic consequences.

Even the EU has quietly announced its steps to ease the effects of sanctions to help stabilize energy markets.

While the West complains that Russia has used its oil and gas exports as a weapon, the truth is that Brussels and Washington were the first to raise the "energy card" when they announced their intention to reduce purchases of Russian fossil fuels immediately after the war began.

Marks believed that one of the positive secondary outcomes of the Russo-Ukrainian War was the rejuvenation of NATO, which mobilized support for Ukraine.

The alliance will become stronger when Finland and Sweden join it. In contrast, the United States bears more than its share of the burden of supporting Ukraine compared to other coalition partners except the Baltic states and Poland.

As of May 20, 2022, the United States has provided or committed $54 billion in military aid to Kyiv. The United Kingdom came in second place by a wide margin of $2.50 billion, followed by Poland with $1.62 billion and Germany with $1.49 billion.

The United States has given three times more aid to Kyiv than all other EU countries combined.

 

NATO’s Change

The United States is the largest supplier of military aid even though the Russian invasion poses a direct threat to European allies far more than Washington, which is 5,700 miles from the war.

Ukraine is once again showing how dangerous Western Europe is to rely on U.S. leadership and its military. That won't change until the U.S. foreign policy establishment can get rid of the conviction that has taken root over seven decades that only the United States can lead NATO.

Marks argues that the United States must adapt, especially since the bitter truth is that NATO's defense obligations under Article V are limited by a treaty for the Atlantic region only. This means that if Pearl Harbor or the Hawaiian Islands are attacked by China, North Korea, or Russia, NATO is not committed to its collective defense.

However, although there is no chance of amending the NATO Treaty to help the United States in the Pacific, Marks believes that Washington should not abandon NATO, nor can it abandon it.

But the U.S. foreign policy establishment must work harder to enable European allies to shoulder more of the burden on their side of the Eurasian continent. 

If the United States continues to keep its head buried in the historical assumptions that led to the creation of NATO in 1949, things will increase for the excessively debilitating resources and military capabilities of the United States.

Marks concludes his essay by saying, "The United States is no longer the only dominant power in the world. More burden-sharing in the U.S. alliance system must happen sooner or later to deal with the realities of a multipolar world."