Vladimir Putin shocked the world when he audaciously gambled everything on taking Ukraine. But the West has in turn stunned its own detractors with its striking capacity to take risks. In recent weeks, the latter has defied Putin’s threats of nuclear war in order to supply arms to Ukraine. This dicey policy has proved decisive, not just stalling the Russian army but forcing it to retreat from Kyiv. 

And now, as Putin desperately regroups in the east of Ukraine, Nato is upping the ante to realise an ambition that was once unthinkable: a definitive military victory for Ukraine. Some of its member countries have agreed to supply advanced and heavy weapons in order to thwart Putin. While Germany remains Europe’s weakest link, in a significant shift, it has lifted its general ban on the export of German-manufactured weapons to warzones.

Of course, triumph for Kyiv is far from guaranteed. Although even some well-placed observers speculate that Russia could be routed in mere weeks, in truth months of gruesome and protracted combat likely lie ahead. Still, the West’s high-stakes tactics are a geopolitical gamechanger. One that compels its adversaries to rethink drastically their immediate strategic goals, as well as their assumptions about a “declining” West.

Russia invaded Ukraine based on a series of staunch beliefs about the “obsolete liberal order” and the consequent opening of a “strategic window” that might force geopolitical change. Its essential assessment was that the West is hopelessly divided, and America the waning superpower is unwilling to risk nuclear conflict for the sake of farflung countries. And yet so far, such assumptions have turned out to be hasty.

True, the West has been disjointed at major junctures in this conflict. True, Joe Biden has been more willing at times to say what his country wouldn’t do than what it would. True, sanctions remain indirect and carefully crafted to limit the economic blowback. But it is also true that the West has managed to do much more damage than the Kremlin anticipated.
Most importantly, Russia has overlooked the West’s fundamental unwillingness to tolerate an outright Putin victory.

Paradoxically, this is probably a reflection of the West’s current weakness more than it is an indication of relative strength. America has opted to engage Putin in a borderline reckless game of bluff partly out of desperation, having woken up to the reality that the liberal order faces existential threat.

A successful Russian bid to neutralise Ukraine followed by China’s seizure of Taiwan would be a massive blow for the West, imposing strict geographic limits on its reach. Indeed, US commanders have heavily intimated that US involvement in Ukraine is also a deterrence operation against Beijing. But, crucially, such  a scenario would utterly demolish the romantic ideas that underpin it – namely the universality of Western values. Ukraine then is a do-or-die fight for the West in a way that Putin failed to foresee.

Nor have humiliations in the Middle East quashed the West’s weakness for Hollywood heroism. Moralistic resolve still inflects its geopolitics. Bold adventurism still energises its military posturing. As we have seen over the years, not least in Iraq and Afghanistan, such traits can lead the West to make reckless and deluded decisions. Nor should we be flippant about how this heightens the nuclear threat. But these characteristics also make the West an unpredictable and muscular opponent – something its rivals overlooked.

Of course, Putin may yet steadily recover momentum in the Donbas. But faced with Ukrainian determination and Western unwillingness to relent, he now has little option but to readjust his strategy. His first choice is to try and call the West’s bluff by radically escalating. He may resort to using weapons of mass destruction in  Ukraine. Or he may threaten the West with a nuclear strike.

Still, Putin could now struggle to stand up to the West. Even if the latter resisted a military response to the Kremlin’s use of chemical or biological weapons, it could go for the jugular with harder sanctions. Nor can Putin be so confident about issuing threats of nuclear war. A growing willingness to test the Kremlin’s red lines indicates that attitudes in Washington have become more cavalier since the Cold War years. Back then the military establishment accepted that nuclear war was a lose-lose. But in recent years, faced with a new arms race with Russia and China, it has shifted to the view that nuclear confrontations can be fought and won. The Pentagon even altered its nuclear doctrine in 2019 affirming such a view.

Putin’s second choice then is to simply fold, and retreat from a war which will not go his way. Mere weeks ago, the notion that Putin would settle for a couple of eastern territories, let alone contemplate full-scale retreat, seemed absurd. But Moscow may soon be tempted to direct its focus from an unwinnable military war to a global PR battle that is still very much in play. Whether ordinary Russians are presented with a negotiated withdrawal amid disciplined propaganda about the de-Nazification of Ukraine, or the embarrassing collapse of its national army could make all the difference to Putin’s fate.

It is not just Russia that must drastically recalibrate its gameplan in the face of a daredevil West. Having witnessed allied success at sabotaging Russia’s Ukraine invasion, the CCP will be tempted to shelve any plans to confront Taiwan for the foreseeable. Perhaps it will resolve to engage in a longer game, building its military capability and meticulously studying the Russian army’s mistakes. Putin’s struggles are also a wakeup call that Beijing will need to wean itself off Western technology, beef up its domestic consumer market, and construct a parallel global financial system if it wants to minimise its vulnerability to Western sanctions. Such goals will take years to achieve.

Victory for Ukraine is far from assured. But if the West pulls this off, it will not only have saved a country from neo-imperialism, but forestalled a confrontation with China. That would be no mean feat, and a sign that the West, for all its faults, remains a power to be reckoned with.